@Regrann_App from @starspangledgrammer - Photo by @salvarezphoto | words by @neilshea13 — Here in Madagascar’s forest of stone you will find no witnesses. The great avenues are empty, the towers steep and razor-edged. Occasionally tourists flit along the edges of this place, like strange butterflies in their sun-hats and tropical t-shirts. Sometimes honey-hunters enter from the villages, climbing after the dark dripping prize. And rarely, a burial party appears ferrying on their shoulders a dead elder toward a hidden cavern. But the living never linger. // Why do we explore? To learn something new, or recapture what seems lost? Do we seek wild silence and solitude, or do we want languages, lamplight, and a list of new words to write in the margins of our notebooks? Who do we become when we travel, and in which kind of mirror do we wish to see ourselves reflected? // Should you visit the Tsingy de Bemaraha and, after many wasp-stung and bloody days, near the heart of the great labyrinth, you will find each step strips something away. The birds, lemurs and insects will fall silent at your approach. The sunbeams that lit your path will early drain away, taking all color. Even water will run from you, down into the sinkholes and sluiceways that gutter the earth. Locals say this is a spirit place, made for them, best left to them. So, when they ask why you have come, how will you answer? And, when you reach the center of the maze, where no human waits to greet you and all the mirrors are made of stone, what do think you will you see? — When the fieldwork is finished, one form of exploration ends and another begins. Join us over the next week as we share stories from our work in Madagascar’s Tsingy de Bemaraha, and consider how the landscapes, animals, and ideas drew us in and continue to inspire. To see more of our documentary work for @natgeo, check in @salvarezphoto and @neilshea13. — #2009 #madagascar #malagasy #tsingy #stoneforest #lemurs #eighthcontinent #aerial #documentary #landscapes #karst #erosion #rockclimbing #whyexplore #empathy #ontheroadNG #alefa #away Source: @natgeo - #regrann
