ALLÉE DES BAOBABS, MADAGASCAR

Sunset over the Allée des Baobabs in Madagascar is an amazing sight to behold.  Spanning the jaw-dropping vista the baobab trees, up to 800 years old, tower over the sparse plains, a remnant of what was once an all encompassing forest.  Madagascar is a land in trouble; a country where nearly 70 percent of people live on less than one dollar a day, and where the environment and biodiversity are at risk from the ever-present deforestation and slash-and-burn farming techniques.  Yet at the same time the country offers amazing opportunities to explore what many consider the 8th continent, where the people express a cultural amalgam of lifestyles from across the Indian Ocean, and where the wildlife has evolved separated from the mainland for tens of millions of years.  It is a place of both beauty and strife, and an amazing example of some of the unique beauty the world has to offer.