Places I'd like to visit if my feet were made of giant foam cushions reinforced with kevlar: The Tsingy de Bemaraha national park and reserve in Madagascar. "This 600-square-mile protected area is an island unto itself," according to a National Geographic story with a gorgeous photo gallery, "a kind of biofortress, rugged, largely unexplored, and made nearly impenetrable by the massive limestone formation-the tsingy-running through it." Made up of jagged, 300-foot-tall stone spires called "grikes," the tsingy is apparently like Manhattan combined with the most horrible gravel driveway you ever stepped on barefoot.

It is also teeming with all sorts of animals that have evolved in seclusion from the rest of the world, Galapagos Islands style. Giant snails, dwarf chameleons, Decken's sifaka lemurs (whose feet are made of giant foam cushions reinforced with kevlar) and their predators, the cat-like fossa. (If you have kids, you might recognize some of the names from Dreamworks popular Madagascar franchise.) It looks and sounds like one of the most amazing spots on the planet. But also, sadly, one of the least comfortable.

In Malagasy tsingy means 'where one cannot walk barefoot,' but we found that the landscape demanded much more than sturdy shoes. In several spots we tried exploring using rock-climbing gear. The tsingy chewed equipment and flesh with equal ease. At times it was like climbing amid giant skewers, the consequences of a fall suggested in the mutilated trunks of toppled trees below... We stemmed narrow ravines and nervously straddled fins that were like fences topped with broken glass. The rock pierced our boots, leaving holes in the rubber. Usually we came over needle-sharp rises only to descend onto mats of thin soil covering yet more serrated rock.

Great. More serrated rock. I'm not going there. But again, do look at the photos. They are breathtaking.