Ampanihy
Ampanihy is just another nowhere place on the long road to Fort Dauphin. It has its market every Saturday, lots of bars, restaurants and pretty much animation. The market is a good place to discover the local artisan products, which are offered to the rare visitors that wander through these arid places.
Near Ampanihy the trees that grow on the banks of the Menarandra river a home to many lemurs. 7 Km before Ampanihy coming from Tulear, there is a path leading to a pleasant surprise: a fantastic baobab of gigantic size, one of the biggest specimens in the world.
The track between Ampanihy and Tsihombe is horribly potholed. However, you can take advantage of the forced slow pace to admire the many Mahafaly tombs that border the road and watch the big turtles, which are fady to the locals and therefore are free to wander around as much as they like. But radial tortoises do not have a promising future. Biologists have listed them already as an endangered species.
At some point of this impossible track we pass through the red cliffs of the Menarandra river, which marks the border of the Mahafaly and the Antandroy regions, whose main difference in regard with the funerary art is not appreciable for the common eye. On the top of a hill over the river there the two huge tombs of a couple.