Madagascar RN7: Ranomafana to Isalo

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Ranomafana

   Ranomafana means hot water in Malagasy, and the name is a clue to the place. The village sits in a steep, forested valley on the escarpment that drops from Madagascar's central highlands toward the east coast, where the Namorona river drops over rapids and hot springs seep from the rock. The surrounding national park, created in 1991, protects some of the island's most important rainforest, and in 2007 it was added to a UNESCO listing of the rainforests of the Atsinanana. Mist hangs in the trees, orchids cling to the branches, and the air is warm and damp.

   Read the complete Ranomafana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ranomafana is where the day begins. Next is Fianarantsoa.

2. 2. Fianarantsoa

   Fianarantsoa sits in the middle of Madagascar's southern highlands, and the name is usually translated as the place where one learns what is good. It is the capital of the Betsileo people, a population of rice farmers whose terraced hillsides you will have been riding through for the last hundred kilometres, and the old upper town, perched on a ridge above the modern one, still has the stone houses and church spires that the nineteenth century left behind. About 167,000 people live here, which makes it one of the larger cities on the RN7, and it is the proper stop for fuel, cash and a real meal before the road runs south toward the drier country.

   Read the complete Fianarantsoa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Fianarantsoa comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Isalo.

3. 3. Isalo

   Isalo is the end of the long southbound haul down the RN7, and the landscape changes abruptly to mark it. After the green terraces of the highlands the road enters a country of dry grass, scattered palms and then, suddenly, a sandstone massif that rises like a ruined wall out of the plain. The Isalo range is a mass of Jurassic sandstone that wind and rain have carved into canyons, buttresses and bare orange ridges, with narrow green oases hidden between them where water still runs all year.

   Read the complete Isalo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 346 km.