Travel Guide Lac Antanavo

The village of Anivorano, near which the sacred lake is located, is 75 km south of Diego. The track between the village and Lake Antanavo is difficult and only passable in the dry season. An access fee (10,000 Ar) is required to get there. Please note that visits are fady on Tuesdays, and it is forbidden to feed the animals. Green vegetation, rice paddies, banana trees and rivers: the walk to the lake is gentle and beautiful. The "sacred lake" is mysterious, if only for its location. Legend has it that this region was once very dry. One day, a lost traveler, exhausted by his walk and thirsty, came to a village where he asked for water. The inhabitants refused. Dejected, the visitor, who had great secret powers, swallowed the village under water and turned its inhabitants into crocodiles. Today, people come to Lake Anivorano to ask for love, health and offspring; in return, they sacrifice chickens and zebus when a couple is threatened with sterility, or when someone falls ill. The Sakalava believe that crocodiles shelter the souls of the departed. This is why they are revered. It's fady to bathe in the water, to dip your feet or hands in it, or to spit on the lake shore. Further on, at the end of a dusty track, you can reach a remote village where farmers have set up rice granaries to ensure the "soudure", the difficult period when there is no rice left in the villages.