Woke up to grey and cold weather - so we were now really looking forward to soon moving out of the altitude and going towards drier and more sunny climate. Left the hotel at 9 AM and at that time the rain started as well so none of us were really looking forward to stopping at Reserve d'Anja only 12 KMs from the hotel. Reserve d'Anja is a small private reserve, which has got around 400 ring-tailed lemurs - so this is the place where you are basically guaranteed to see them. However since we already saw them 2 days ago - it was not such a big deal for us and particular Heather was not keen to walk in the rain not having a raincoat, which was understandable. Anyway when we turned up at the reserve - none of us said to Lolo to not buy the tickets so we ended up going anyway and of course turned out to be quite nice. Most of the time we were in the forest so were in cover for the rain except when the lemurs decided to jump from tree to tree and by doing that shaking the water off the trees and down on us - naughty lemurs. Saw as expected quite a few groups of the ring-tailed lemurs but you could see that they were cold as well - since a lot of them were curled up into each other - so impossible to actually count how many they were. Also came across some more chameleons and the walk was only 1 hour - so at the end we were glad we went.

Afterwards we continued towards Isalo NP but did some photo stops on the way particular when we could see this massive rock in the horizon, which could as well have been Ayres Rock. Lolo tried to find a lunch place for us in the only bigger town we passed 'Ihosy' - but after asking a few people he came back and said that none of the food places were good for foreigners so we had to continue - since he wouldn't take the risk of us getting bad tummies. Luckily we did continue - since just a short distance out of town a new hotel and restaurant had opened up with a good English speaking waiter and a really nice menu - so ended up having lunch here instead, which was a great choice. The waiter also claimed that he had the best coffee in Madagascar so Heather and Dan gave it a go and said that it wasn't bad at all - so maybe he was right. Coffee has not been a great thing out here according to Heather and Dan so nice that they could get a decent cup.

Arrived at our Hotel H1 just outside the Isalo NP in the afternoon and despite only having 2 stars it was a new hotel and quite nice with a swimming pool as well. The best part though was that they had a television in the lobby so we could follow the World Cup for the next 2 night where we are staying here. Our guide for tomorrow also came and met us in the hotel and told us about the 7 hours walk that was planned for tomorrow, which sounded really good actually. Otherwise while enjoying some beers we watched the opening of the World Cup and the 1st match with Russia against Saudi Arabia. Even if Madagascar is not very good at football they still like to both play it and watch it - so a lot of the staff was hanging around the lobby to watch the game as well. However the funniest part was to just listen to our driver. Couldn't really work out which team he was supporting since he seemed to show the same excitement for anyone being close to the goal - but watching his excitement was worth everything - he was so funny. Had dinner in the hotel's restaurant after the game since once more we were in the middle of nowhere and otherwise we went back to our room, which we this time shared the 3 of us.

Had agreed to leave the hotel at 7.30 AM the next day to meet our guide and to get to the entrance of Isalo NP early and before everyone else, which we succeeded in. Were there so early so no staff had arrived at the entrance yet to check the tickets - but headed off into the Park where our guide knew the way of course. The first part of the trip was to walk the 'Piscine Naturelle' trail, where we started with a 70 M climb to the top of the plateau, which we then had to follow for nearly 3 KM. It was a stunning morning with a completely blue sky and our guide was really informative and spoke excellent English so told us lots of stories on the way about the life in the area. One story was that if you wanted to marry you had to show your manhood by stealing a Zebu and give it to the girl's family. Another and sadder story was that lots of babies get born by really young mums who quite often don't know who the father is. The young women don't have any knowledge of how babies get made - so they might have been playing with more than one boy. Based on that a lot of babies also don't survive the first year since the mums have no education in how to look after a baby and what is good for the baby's health. This also mean that if a baby dies before it is 1 year old - they don't actually count the baby as a proper human and the baby won't be named before its reach 1 year.

Otherwise walking at the plateau was just stunning and we also passed a beautiful viewpoint where we got a good idea of what this NP is like. It is the biggest NP in Madagascar and you can easily trek here for 6-7 days - so just massive. At the viewpoint the staff, which should have been at the entrance caught up with us - so good our guide had arranged the tickets in the village, which we could show so we were able to continue the walk. The end of the first walk was a beautiful natural pool in a small oasis where we had a swimming opportunity. We were the first ones there so had this beautiful pool to ourselves in the beginning. The water was fresh 17-18C - but such an amazing spot so all 3 of us got in and just enjoyed some relaxing time here. After the swimming we had another 1 ½ hours walk along the Namaza trail through the valley to our lunch stop. Passed a lot of the funny Elephant foot plants, which look like small Baobab trees and came across our first scorpion as well. Our lunch stop was at a beautiful camp site in the bottom of the valley where some local people had arranged a barbeque and where we had pre-ordered lunch. Was a great spot and here we had quite a few lemurs hanging around the camp - obviously quite interested in the food, so you had to watch your table. Got a 3 course lunch with a nice egg salad to start, some zebu skewers and rice for main and some fruit for dessert - so were properly full after that. After lunch there was an optional 1 ½ hours walk to 2 more natural pools - the blue pool and the black pool. Dan was struggling a bit with his knees and Heather also felt she had enough - so they stayed behind while I did the final walk with the very good looking guide. Was another beautiful walk following the bottom of the gorge to these natural wonders but a very slippery route so "unfortunately" a lot of hand holding was needed :-). The final and coldest pool was the black pool, which should only be around 13-14C - but needed a refreshment after the walk so managed to get in and did a swim to the waterfall. Stunning place! Picked Heather and Dan up from the lunch place and then we had a final walk back to another car park where Lolo was waiting for us.

Got back to the hotel at 3.30 PM so Heather and Dan took advantage of the hotel pool while I watched the afternoon football game with our driver Lolo. Continued watching some more football doing the evening and also saw a beautiful sunset.