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around Africa - Madagascar

Madagascar - a land filled with spices and surprises

These days we might have to resort to virtual travel, but usually if you plan to travel
to Madagascar you have a hard decision to make based on time constraints: North
or South, East or West. It’s a wondrous land of contrasts, desert and jungle, sea and
high mountain ranges; spiced with a mix of Africa, Asia the Middle East and Europe.
With a history as complex and rich as it’s plant life, with some of the highest biodiversi-
ty on the planet, and 150 000 endemic species (they don’t exist anywhere else).
If you venture north you will be thrown into jungles with vanilla orchids, cocoa, ylang ylang
and catha edulis (khat) farms; if venturing south, into spiny pachypodium forests with giant
baobabs. A terrain as otherwordly as their famous inhabitants the lemurs. For plant lovers,
head to Amber Mountain National Park, Lokobe, and Marojejy in the north; or visit Morondava’s
avenue of Baobabs, Toliara’s Arboretum d’Antsokay and Parc National d’Andohahela in the south.
See a few amazing plants in their natural environment like Catharanthus roseus, the Madagascan
periwinkle which produces the powerful anticancer drugs used to treat Hodgkin’s lymphoma
and leukaemia; and Cedrelopsis grevei a plant from which a stimulating essential oil is extracted,
exuding a most exquisite aroma that is a perfume in its own right; and any of over 50 indigenous
species of wild coffee, many of which are caffeine-free. Text by S.C & Photos by Pixabay

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