Fianarantsoa & the Southern Highlands

The southern plateau is the homeland of the Betsileo, rice farmers who carved the hillsides into terraces and were divided into several kingdoms, including Lalangina and Isandra, until the 19th century. The Merina conquered the region under Andrianampoinimerina and his son Radama I, and in 1831 Ranavalona I founded Fianarantsoa, whose name is usually translated as "good learning", as the seat of Merina government in the south.

Protestant and Catholic missions made Fianarantsoa an educational and religious centre: its upper town gathered churches, schools and a cathedral, and it later became the seat of a Catholic archdiocese. The south-east coast followed a different path. The Antemoro, around Vohipeno, claimed Arab ancestry and kept sorabe manuscripts, Malagasy written in Arabic script, guarded by their scribes and diviners, while the Antambahoaka of Mananjary and the Antaifasy of Farafangana had their own chiefdoms.

Under French rule, coffee plantations spread on the coast and the Fianarantsoa–Côte Est railway was built in the 1920s and 1930s to carry goods to Manakara. The 1947 uprising reached this coast from its first night, with an attack at Manakara, and the south-east saw fierce fighting and repression. Since independence, the region has remained largely rural and poor, and its coast has been battered repeatedly by cyclones.

The Betsileo, the island's third-largest group, share much with the Merina but keep their own dialect, tombs and customs. Famadihana, the rewrapping of the ancestors, is one of the most significant Betsileo ceremonies. Christianity is strong, with Catholic and Lutheran churches in every town.

Crafts are the region's signature. The Zafimaniry, who live in forest villages east of Ambositra, build and decorate their wooden houses with intricate geometric carving, a knowledge recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, and Ambositra is the market for carved wood and marquetry. Ambalavao is home to Antemoro paper, made from the bark of the avoha tree and pressed with dried flowers, and to silk woven from local silkworms into lamba.

On the south-east coast, the Antambahoaka of Mananjary hold the sambatra, a collective circumcision ceremony organised roughly every seven years, and the Antemoro are known for their ombiasy, astrologer-diviners consulted across the island. Across the region, fady and the authority of elders shape daily life, and in the south of the region the Bara of the Ihosy plains, cattle herders, follow customs closer to those of the deep south.

Fianarantsoa, with about 190,000 people, is the region's city: a university town, church centre and market for the southern highlands. Ambositra, Ambalavao, Ihosy, Manakara, Mananjary and Farafangana are the other main towns, and most people live in villages among rice terraces or along the coast.

The economy is farming above all: rice on terraces and valley floors, maize, cassava and beans, fruit, vineyards around Fianarantsoa, tea on an estate outside the city, and coffee, pepper, cloves and lychees on the coast. Crafts, tourism along the RN7 and the zebu trade through Ambalavao bring in cash, while many young people leave for Antananarivo or Toamasina.

Days follow the rice calendar: planting in the rainy season, harvest after the rains, and cold mornings in winter when families wrap themselves in lamba. Poor roads, the unreliable railway and cyclone damage on the coast are constant concerns.

The Betsileo eat rice at every meal, often with a laoka of zebu, pork or chicken cooked with greens, and in the cold months with warming broths. Kitoza, dried or smoked strips of meat, and vary sosoa, soft rice porridge, are highland breakfast foods, and koba, a sweet log of ground peanuts and sugar wrapped in rice-flour paste, is a common snack. Peanuts and beans are grown widely and appear in many dishes.

The region is Madagascar's wine country. Fianarantsoa, home to many wine producers, is considered its wine capital, and tea is grown commercially about 20 kilometres from the city.

On the coast around Manakara, meals feature fish, prawns and crab, often cooked with coconut, along with breadfruit, cassava and bananas. Lychees, oranges and mangoes come into season in the summer months, and coffee is grown on the south-east coast.

Fianarantsoa's upper town is the region's historic core, a hilltop of restored brick houses, churches and views over the lower town. From the city, the RN7 runs north to Ambositra, the crafts town for Zafimaniry woodcarving, and south to Ambalavao, with its Antemoro paper workshop, silk weavers and twice-weekly zebu market.

Just south of Ambalavao, the Anja reserve, run by the local community, protects ring-tailed lemurs among granite boulders and caves at the foot of great rock domes. Further south, Andringitra National Park is a granite massif of high plateaus and peaks, with Pic Boby, now called Imarivolanitra, at about 2,660 metres, the country's second-highest mountain, reached on guided treks.

East of Fianarantsoa, Ranomafana National Park protects rainforest on the escarpment, with the golden bamboo lemur, discovered there in 1986, Milne-Edwards' sifaka and the rapids and falls of the Namorona river; the village of Ranomafana has thermal baths.

The Fianarantsoa–Côte Est railway runs through tunnels and forest past Sahambavy, stopping at villages where passengers sell fruit and snacks to the train, before reaching Manakara, a coastal town on the Pangalanes canal.