After a morning hiking 4 hours around Tsingy de Behamara, we flew back on our private charter flight to Morondava at 2:30pm to catch a walk along Baobab Avenue at sunset.
We were over the avenue at about 40 minutes into the flight.
Landing at around 3:30pm at an air strip 20 minutes away from Morondava, we quickly freshened up at the airport.
From here we drove about 45 minutes out from Morondava to the Avenue of the Baobabs, an alleyway of unique species of baobab trees specific only to Madagascar.
The reason why they look so unreal is that the “branches” grow like tree roots, giving the trees an upside-down appearance.
Couple that with the sunset glow along an “avenue” of trees with locals going to and fro as if were their everyday living (which it is), it takes on a truly magical and surreal feeling.
That is, except for all us tourists.
But ignore them and you can almost feel like you’ve lost yourself to another world.
After watching the sun melt behind the baobabs, we made our way to our stay for the night — Palissandre Côte Ouest, a tranquil retreat prearranged for us by Cactus Tours. Dinner came easy, sleep even easier. By 10:30pm, the world was quiet.
Just a few hours later, at 4:30am, Duaa and I stirred ourselves awake in the dark. No words, just movement. We climbed into the car and rode in silence through the still-sleeping landscape, chasing something we didn’t yet have words for.
An hour later, the doors opened.
“The baobabs… are all yours.”
And for a fleeting moment, they were. Bathed in moonlight, with no one else in sight, they stood like sentinels in a dream meant only for us.
Well worth the lack of sleep.
And as we sat on a dirt patch of grass with our dreams laid out before us, the sun began to rise behind us, illuminating an unknown but audacious future of endless possibilities.
Hard to say goodbye to this. But alas, the journey must go on.
Afterwards we returned to the hotel for a last 2-3 hours of breakfasts, sunbathing, and general laziness before a fantastic seafood lunch.
By 1:30pm we transferred to the airport and flew back to the capital city of Antananarivo for a night of debauchery at the hostel (check out facebook/IG stories if you want a behind the scenes detail).
- At time of posting in Baobab Avenue, Madagascar, it was 24 °C - Humidity: 58% | Wind Speed: 23km/hr | Cloud Cover: sunny
