Anja and Ambalavao
Families of ring-tailed lemurs sunbathing beneath granite cliffs: Anja is the trip's surest, most joyful encounter — and an exemplary village success story.
Suggested stay — 1 night
At the foot of granite domes that close the horizon like sugarloaves, the small Anja reserve is run by the villagers themselves — and it has become the country's model: the income funds a school and reforestation, and the ring-tailed lemurs, protected for a generation, go about their business three metres from visitors. A one-to-two-hour loop is enough to watch them bound between the boulders, striped tails aloft, babies clamped to the females' bellies — the most guaranteed lemur watching in Madagascar.
Ambalavao, twelve kilometres on, deserves more than a drive-through: the last big town of Betsileo country, it makes flower-inlaid antemoro paper by a sixteenth-century craft of Arab origin, and its Wednesday and Thursday morning zebu market is one of the island's largest — thousands of animals, herders arrived on foot after days of walking. Climbers will push on to the neighbouring Tsaranoro valley, its 800-metre walls and its camps at the foot of the cliffs.
Don't miss
- The Anja loop early in the morning, when the ring-tails warm themselves on the rocks
- The Ambalavao zebu market (Wednesday and Thursday mornings) — arrive before 9 am
- Ambalavao's antemoro paper workshop and its flowered sheets drying in the sun
- The Tsaranoro valley on a day's detour: cliffs, villages and natural pools
Our tips on the ground
- Visit Anja before 10 am: the ring-tails nap in the shade through the hot hours, and the site, very accessible from the RN7, receives the tour groups late morning.
- Time your Ambalavao passage for a Wednesday or Thursday for the zebu market: it is a raw, authentic spectacle that does not replay on other days.
- Anja's local guide is compulsory and included in the ticket: ask about the village management — that is the real story of the place.
Our flagship guide — €44
Guide available“Madagascar on Your Own Terms”, the complete edition, is out
10 chapters: day-by-day itineraries, driving and transport, a costed budget and checklists — the same method as our Namibia guide.
The guide is currently written in French — an English edition is in the works.
No time to do it yourself?
A professional can take care of it: tailor-made trip, equipped 4x4 rental or a local guide. Describe your plans and, with your consent, we pass them on to partner professionals.
1. What you need
Before you go
Readers' questions about Anja and Ambalavao
Is Anja worth the stop if you're already going to Isalo?
Yes, precisely: Isalo's ring-tails are seen from afar and by chance, Anja's from three metres and for certain. The two-hour visit slots effortlessly into the Fianarantsoa-Ranohira drive, and your ticket funds the village directly — the best emotion-per-effort ratio on the RN7.
Can you sleep nearby?
Ambalavao offers a few simple, decent hotels (around €15-30) that put you at Anja for opening; travellers aiming for the Tsaranoro will sleep in the valley camps, two hours down a track. Otherwise, many pair Anja in the morning with the long drive to Ranohira in the afternoon.