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Ankarana tsingy & caves, from Diego Suarez — day trip

Ankarana is 108 km south of Diego Suarez on the RN6, which makes this 216 km of driving and one of the few great Malagasy landscapes you can reach, walk and come back from between breakfast and dinner.

What Ankarana actually is

A limestone massif that was a coral reef 150 million years ago, lifted, then dissolved from the inside by rain. What is left above ground is tsingy — blades and pinnacles of grey rock sharp enough to cut a boot — and what is left below is one of the largest cave systems in Africa, with rivers that vanish into the rock and reappear kilometres away.

The main office is at Mahamasina, directly on the RN6 on the eastern side, and every circuit starts there. Eight of them cross the eastern part of the park and they can be combined, which is what makes a day visit work: you are not choosing between the park and the drive, you are choosing how far into it you walk.

What fits into one day

The eastern section holds the Grey Tsingy of Benavony, the bat cave, and the Perte des Rivières where the surface rivers disappear underground.

A comfortable day is the two-to-three-hour circuit: a walk through dry deciduous forest, a steep descent into an underground cave where eight species of bat live, and time at a tsingy viewpoint. Longer combinations exist if you want them, and the limit on a day trip is not the park but the light — we want to be back on the RN6 well before dark.

The lemurs here are crowned lemurs, Sanford's brown lemurs and the northern sportive lemur. Crowned lemurs around the Mahamasina circuits are used to visitors, which means you see them properly rather than as a shape leaving.

Season matters more here than on any other trip we sell

From roughly December to April the lower reaches of the park are off limits and the caves cannot be entered at all — rain arrives suddenly and water rises fast underground, and this is a safety rule rather than a preference. Parts of the western side stay closed until the river can be driven across again.

April or May through to November is the season. If your dates fall in the rains we will tell you what is actually open before you book, not after.

Fees, and a date worth knowing

Entry is 45,000 Ariary per foreign visitor per day. A certified park guide has been compulsory since 2010, and at Ankarana the guide fee is charged per group, not per person — between 20,000 and 60,000 Ariary depending on the circuit, so a full day sits near the top of that. Two travellers pay one guide fee.

Both are paid in cash Ariary at the park office. There are no cards, no euros and no advance booking for day tickets.

Madagascar National Parks has scheduled an increase for November 2026 which takes Ankarana to 130,000 Ariary per person per day — it is classified as an exceptional park. If you are travelling after that date, ask us and we will quote the real figure rather than this one.

What we do and what we do not

We drive you there, wait, and drive you back. Your park guide is a certified Madagascar National Parks guide hired at the gate — a different job from ours, and a better one for the walk. Park entry and guide fees are not included in our price, which is why we tell you what they are.

Price per person

* Travelling alone? The whole car is yours — a private trip costs the same in total. Bring a travel companion and the price per person halves.

Highlights

• Tsingy limestone pinnacles
• caves & canyons
• crowned lemurs

The price covers the car, the fuel and your driver for the whole day. Entrance fees to parks and reserves, and a local guide where one is required, are paid by you on the spot — that is how it works everywhere in Madagascar, and the money goes to the park, not to us. Ask us before you book and we will tell you what to expect.

Zebu on the road are part of driving here. Herds cross the national roads and rest on the warm tarmac, and after dark they are genuinely hard to see even on full beam — which is one reason we do not drive between towns at night. A zebu is worth around 400,000 to 500,000 Ariary, more than a month's wages for most people in this region, so an animal on the road is somebody's livelihood rather than an obstacle. Knowing which stretches carry herds, and at what hour, is exactly the kind of thing a driver who runs these roads every month knows and a rented car does not come with.

Chameleons cross these roads, slowly and without looking, and your driver will stop for them. In much of northern Madagascar it is fady — taboo — to kill or even touch one, and that belief is the reason the big Oustalet's chameleon is still common here when it has thinned out elsewhere. In many villages they are held to carry the spirits of the ancestors, so harming one, even accidentally at the wheel, is not a small thing. One piece of advice a visitor would never guess: in traditional belief even pointing at a chameleon is a bad omen, and the misfortune is held to fall on the person and their family rather than on the animal. Admire it, keep your hand down, and let your driver decide what happens next. Fady varies from region to region and sometimes from village to village, which is another reason to travel with somebody who knows which one he is in.

This price applies when Kada is already in the Diego Suarez area, which he often is between other trips. If your dates need him to drive up specially from Vohemar, the trip costs more — and we tell you the exact figure before you commit to anything. Flexible with dates? Ask us: we can usually find a day that works, and then this price stands.

Prices are per person. Full car = cheapest per seat. Children under 3 travel free on a lap. The price covers the booked travellers only — every traveller in the car pays.

Read first: driving in northern Madagascar — night, zebu, fuel and the rains →

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