Isalo

Declared in 1962, it protects a sandstone massif worn down over millions of years into canyons, plateaux and strange rock forms that recall landscapes of the American South-West — a striking contrast with the tropical image usually attached to Madagascar. Inside it, several natural pools of clear water fed by permanent springs, among them those known as the Black Pool and the Blue Pool, offer places to swim in the middle of a canyon trek, and its rock walls hold the ancestral tombs of the Bara people, who traditionally bury their dead in caves high on the park's cliffs, hard to reach.