Madagascar Trip

Having decided to join a small group of travel agents on what was described as a "fam" trip to Madagascar, I proceed to try and find out what I could about the island country. I really didn't know anyone who had been there other than a few tour operators who told me to go before it becomes too developed. In the end I would agree though in some cases, development might be helpful!! The island is huge, 1000 Km's by 500Km's (700 miles by 300 miles). The capital, Antananarivo is in the middle so until you actually get to a coastal location, you have no sense you are on an island. The main foreign language is French but other than in the top hotels, it is not really fluent, English is even more of a challenge. Our tour guide spoke English but trying to ask him a question outside of his prepared lectures was a challenge. I found the people to be rather attractive on the whole but they don't seem to smile much. For the most part they are very nice but not very open and friendly. The children on the other hand are a delight especially when they are not begging which is a problem in many locations.

While a high percentage of guests at the luxury beach resorts seem to come just for the beach, in my opinion the main reason visit is to travel around the island and visit some of the parks. It seems a bit far just to come for a beach holiday and outside of they resort you stay in, there is nothing at most of the beaches I visited to do. All of the towns are poor villages with no interest to a tourist so there is not much reason to leave the hotel.

But as I wanted to see as much of the island as possible in two weeks, I signed up for the travel agent trip and made my plans to get there. The first part of the trip was for ten days with the group driving around the east and south of the country. I then decided to go on my own up north to the island of Nosy Be where we have some clients. While normally my travelogues are devoted to the experience staying at our clients, Madagascar was so new to me and we had so few clients that I will include the whole trip here. I have added to ROL most of the top hotels in the locations I visited and hopefully we can get them to sign up on a more long term basis. But bear in mind that all of them are the best place to stay in each location though not necessarily over the top luxury.

Getting to Madagascar can be a bit of a challenge depending on where you come from. I choose to fly from New York via Paris on Air France. This is a morning flight from Paris taking about ten hours getting you in at about 10PM. There is a one hour time difference when I did this in October. Air Madagascar also flies from Paris, Marseille, Milan, Bangkok and Johannesburg as well as some of the nearby islands of Comoros, Mauritius and Reunion. You'll need a visa which can be purchased at the airport on arrival but based on the line I saw unless you are flying in Business Class, I would suggest getting it ahead of time. The line was a bit long as the process which passes through 4 different people can be time consuming. Watching from the baggage claim area the line for people with a visa seemed much quicker. Though the baggage took so long it may not matter. Luggage carts are readily available at no charge so that is not a problem.

There is the usual African ciaos when you exit baggage and hopefully someone will be waiting for you with a sign. My pick up was not there so I took a taxi which was quite a bit more expensive than I had been told by the hotel but there isn't much you can do. I also found that changing money at the airport was perhaps less time consuming than going to a bank in town and I was able to get a sim card for my cell phone at the Orange office just outside of baggage. I would suggest this as cell phones work much easier than land lines and in some places they are the only service available. You will need an unlocked GSM tri band phone but presumably if you travel a lot you know that. I also picked up a phone card for land lines. At 10PM the traffic is not much so it should not take even half an hour to get to town and my hotel. During the day it can take 45 minutes to one hour.

I stayed at the Hotel du Louvre which is a nice three star property with restaurant and bar, massage treatments, free wi fi and TV (CNN). It is located in the upper town near the Presidents office and the Hotel Colbert which is a much better, though obviously more expensive option. There is also the Hilton which for reasons I don't understand is 2-3 times more expensive than the JoBerg or Nairobi Hilton's. But it has a lovely setting overlooking the lake in the middle of town and is certainly the best place to stay.

The capital, Antananarivo, or Tana as everyone calls it, doesn't seem to have any real interest and I would spend no more time than necessary if you don't have any business reasons to stay.

Our group meet on the first day of our tour and we proceeded to Andasibe about 3 hours east, towards the coast. Our departure from Tana was a bit dysfunctional which seems to be typical of most things in the country but I think our tour operator raised it to a new level even by Madagascar standards!. We ended up going around in circles for a few hours and then decided to have lunch in Tana (even though I had been picked up at 9:30!!) We finally headed off about 2PM and drove the 3 hours to Andasibe. . This is one of the most popular parks in Madagascar and the only place you will see the best known and largest of the Lemurs', the Indri, which pops out from all the tourist literature: a cute black thing with a white fur circle around it's face. Lemurs are the main animal attraction of the island as they are endemic to Madagascar. As I understand it they are the precursors to the monkey family and when Madagascar separated from the mainland millions of years ago the lemurs survived here but died out elsewhere leaving them only to be found on Madagascar. They are similar to the Bush Baby often seen on safari at night in Southern Africa though much larger and many varieties can be seen during the day.

As with all towns, Andasibe is a typically poor African town whose only claim to fame for a tourist is the adjacent national park. The best hotel by far is the Vacuna Forest Lodge which sits on its own private reserve near the national park. It is owned by a charming French family who run the hotel and have been in the area for some time with many other businesses. The bungalows are really very nice and the food is excellent. They have a TV room if you need CNN as well as some great walks, lots of their own lemurs and other animals which you can feed and handle on a private island in the middle of the resort as well as horseback riding and a swimming pool. The drive to the park is about 15 minutes only because the road is not great.

The park itself is really beautiful and reminiscent of the rain forests of central Africa such as Uganda though not as dense. Also the altitude is much lower 800-1000 M (2500 -3500 ft) and it is not near as hilly. Anyone that is reasonably fit should be able to do the walks. Ours was the shortest at about 3 hours with a guide as well as our tour guide. We saw a whole family of the Indris which is the point of coming here and they do not disappoint. They are reasonably accessible and easy to see though they are up in the trees. We also saw brown and bamboo lemurs as well as some chameleons, geckos, frogs, millipedes and a variety of birds (though not as many birds as I would have thought). You defiantly will need good, light weight hiking shoes in the parks and I would suggest a cheap pair of garden cloves for when you race into the bush chasing the lemurs. I also find a tennis head and wrist bands are a great way to absorb perspiration and wipe your forehead!

We then had a great lunch at the hotel overlooking the pond it sits on and afterwards proceeded over to their private island to interact with the dozen or so lemurs they keep there. They have several varieties we didn't see in the National Park and you get a chance to be up close and personal as they are very comfortable with humans. You can feed them and they jump all aver you in a totally non aggressive way. If you ever wanted to have yourself photographed with a lemur on your head this is the place!! The guide has plenty of bananas which they seem to love but even without they seem genuinely happy to see you.

At night you can take a walk to see some of the nocturnal lemurs but we didn't see any. There was a slight drizzle making it difficult to see much of anything.

The next day we left and headed back to Tana stopping at Exotic Madagascar on the way. This is a simple but very interesting collection of many of the reptiles and amphibians that you probably won't see otherwise. There are some extraordinary geckos and chameleons, lots of crocodiles and other species that make this a very worthwhile stop. Then it was back to Tana for lunch and on to our next destination, Antsirabe. It was a long day as the driving is slow going. The road is fine but it is just two lanes and with all the trucks and small towns it took about 4 hours to do 300Ks. It turns out you can bypass downtown Tana but our dysfunctional tour operator and equally dysfunctional group decided a three hour detour was necessary to go to the outdoor market by the airport which is on the other side of town!!! (If you want to shop at this market is best visited coming from or going to the airport as it is on the way. The market itself is great for local curious but includes a hundred or more stands all selling the same thing: certainly not worth a three hour detour on a day of 8 hours driving!)

We finally made it to Antsirabe where the Hotel des Termes is the best place to stay. It is a lovely and grand older hotel overlooking the town with gardens and a swimming pool in the back. We had dinner in a very charming French restaurant called Chez Jenny which is known for it's pizza (though we didn't have any pizza having done that at lunch!) . One thing I found was that the pizza and pasta in Madagascar are some of the best I have had and the cheaper the restaurant the better it was!.

The next morning we took another all day (it seems all drives are all day!) drive to Ranomafana National Park. We stopped in Ambositra (a handicraft center) for lunch at the Hotel Violette which has a simple but nice restaurant with a view overlooking some fields and streams and is next to, what else, a large handicraft shop. Personally I didn't find much of interest to buy in Madagascar but then I have so many curios from Africa my weekend house in NY looks like a game lodge in the Sabi Sands!! We then proceeded to Ranornafana. The top hotel here is the Setam Lodge near the park entrance but a good second choice would be the Centrest Hotel a bit further down the road. Setam is a bit more upscale but the new rooms at Centrest are lovely and it has a better restaurant with a full menu. Setam Lodge has only a couple of daily options to choose from at a fixed price menu. But there is no reason you cannot stay at Setam and eat at Centrest: they are five minutes apart by car.

We were up early and off for our walk through Ranomafana. This is a beautiful rain forest at an average altitude of 1000 M (3300 Ft) with lots of steams, rivers and waterfalls. The less strenuous tour, which I took, is about 3 hours and we soon came across the Golden Bamboo Lemurs for which the park is not only famous but because of which it was started. There were also a family of the very rare Greater Bamboo Lemurs of which only 20 remain (according to the guide) in the world and we saw 4. Then there was a White-footed sportive lemur hiding in a hole in a tree. The latter are normally nocturnal so it was rather lucky we saw it during the day, or so we were told. We also saw a Northern ring-tailed mongoose run across the path as well as a few birds, green geckos and two chameleons that were almost impossible to see but I guess that is why they are chameleons!!! Amazingly there were almost no insects and certainly no mosquitoes or leeches which we had been warned about. Actually I have not seen either so far on this trip.

While Ranomafana is somewhat more challenging than Andisarbe, it is nothing a reasonable fit person cannot enjoy, I am proof of that using reasonably fit at it most generous!!! This is not gorilla trekking in Uganda!!

We went to lunch at the Centrest Hotel restaurant which was great and along the way saw about 6 Ground Boas along the side of the road. About 4PM we went back to the park for an afternoon/evening walk to see some of the nocturnal animals. This walk was a bit more strenuous than I thought it was to be as we took about 40 minutes to get to the top whereas we had taken over twice long in the morning. There is a sort of meeting area and it is assumed that you will see the Striped Civet which we saw pretty much as we got there about 5PM. Then you wait until 6 when it is dark and out comes the Brown Mouse Lemur jumping from tree to tree. While they insist no one is feeding them, I have no other explanation as to why they come at about that time every night. Anyway, we saw them and then headed back. In a country with few tourists this is one place you feel a bit crowded as everyone comes at the same time. There were maybe 50 people there bumping into each other to photograph the civet and Mouse Lemur. The walk back is a bit of a challenge as it is dark and requires a flashlight. But in the end I thought it was well worth it.

The following day we left and drove to our next destination, Isalo National Park. After about 90 minutes we passed thorough Fianarantosa where I believe you can fly in to get to Ranormafana if you don't want to drive. There is a highly recommended hotel, Tsara Guest House, though I am not sure why you would want to spend the night there. A couple of hours further along is Ambalavao, famous for it's paper production. This is the home of the Malagasy Antainmoro paper: something like Egyptian papyrus. The 'factory" is next part of the Hotel Bougainvillees and makes a nice stop for a drink or lunch. After lunch we were taken to the Soavita winery which certainly could rank as the worlds most unattractive vineyard producing without a doubt the world's worst wine. While Madagascar is not going to win any awards soon for it's wine, this was the worst I had tried: I have no idea why this was featured in our guide book or included on the tour!

Just out of Ambalavao we stopped at the Anja Park to see the ring tailed lemurs. This is a small private park run by the local tribe but well worth it. The setting is beautiful and the lemurs are all over the place.

Moving on the scenery begins to take on the look of the American southwest with some spectacular vegetation and rock formations. You'll also see lots of herds of Zebu coming to market. Zebu look much like the Indian Brahma bulls with the big humps and horns. They are almost sacred to the locals and a sign of great wealth. You will see them everywhere including pulling carts in scenes right out of the bible.

Eventually we got to Isalo and were able to jump in the swimming pool after a long hot day. One of Madagascar's top hotel is here, Jardin du Roy. A bit far out of town and the park entrance but in a beautiful setting surrounded by the desert and rock formations that make Isalo another of the islands major parks. I should say as of this point, I never had the feeling I was on an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Madagascar is 1500 KM's long, about 1000 miles and 500KM's wide (350 miles) and we had not been anywhere near the ocean.

Isalo offers several walking options from really difficult to unbelievable difficult! (at least for me). In the morning we headed to the Canyon des Makis for our first walk. This is not really strenuous, but the first part is about 3 K's (2 miles) in the sun to get to the canyon entrance and the forest around it. The main quest here is to see again the Ring Tail Lemurs in a more natural setting than Anja as well as the Red Faced Brown Lemurs and Verreaux's Sifaka which we had not seen yet. Sifaka's are a type of Lemur though I never really understood the difference. But this an adorable basically white creatures with a black face who sort of dances on two legs across the ground; well worth the effort to find them.

From the forest we headed into the canyon proper which is really beautiful but requires certain walking skills best suited to mountain goats! The trail is a narrow path of rocks that are along side a stream. Balance is imperative as well as the ability to not slip on slippery, wet stones!! By the end of the walk, and certainly by the end of the day, I was beginning to doubt Darwin's theory of evolution myself. Survival of the fittest certainly didn't apply to humans at least not this human!

Once back at our vehicle, we then drove over to another parking area where we had a picnic lunch and then started the afternoon walk to the Piscine Natural, natural swimming pool. Billed as the highlight of the park there was no option but to go. Requests to find out why we had to do this at noon rather than say 4PM fell on deaf ears. So off we went up a mountain that I still can't believe I climbed. This first part was up a lot of steps for about 20-25 minutes and a bit tiring. Then there is long walk along the plateau and some more up and down, a total of 3 KM or 2.2 miles. The Piscine Natural is a very beautiful natural rock pool feed by a mountain stream and there were several tourists swimming in the water, mostly German. Hot as I was, the water was a bit cold and I had not bothered to bring a bathing suit so after a rest we headed back. On the way back we saw, the very rare Bensons Rock Trush found only in Isalo: no doubt my birding friends will be delighted with the photo!

In the end I thought the morning walk was much more interesting and beautiful but if you like hiking the trip to the Piscine Natural is spectacular. Actually had it not been so hot and in direct sun, it really would not have been so bad. Had we just gone back to the hotel, had a swim and lunch and then headed out later it would have been, I think, not quite so hot and tiring.

The next day we were up an off to our final destination of this part of the trip, Ifaty. Where our hotel was on a beautiful stretch of beach north of the town of Toliara. The drive took about 3 hours to Toliara. You pass the main sapphire mining area and a couple of towns where you are warned that it is too dangerous to stop. Just outside Toliara there is a lovely botanical garden called the Arboretum d'Antsokay which is a amazing collection of desert plants and trees as well as quite a few birds. There is also a restaurant and makes a nice stop for lunch. Toliara itself, like all towns, offers no reason to stop other than to change money, go to the Internet cafe or have lunch.

The drive on to Ifaty is along the coast so you finally see the ocean. It is a miserable dirt road that took us about 90 minutes to cover 27K's or 15 miles. I gather the locals know a short cut as it took the hotel land rover just under one hour to get back to the airport which is another 10k's out of Toliara

It was great to finally be at the beach and just jump into the water. It was much warmer than I had expected, over 80 degrees (28C). Again the town is of no interest so there is not much to do outside of your hotel other than take a walk in the Reniala Nature Reserve which is another protected area of endemic plants and trees and the Village des Tortues, a turtle protection project. There also seemed to be horseback riding though I cannot vouch for the horses and I didn't actually see anyone riding.

The three hotel options are the newly renovated Dunes Hotel and the Hotel Paradisier. All are right on the beach and offer scuba diving and boat excursions. I took one dive having read in the latest travel guide this was one of the main reasons for coming and was thoroughly disappointed. The dive took place in 15 ft of water over a completely dead white reef with visibility not more than 10 feet! The only color present was that of the black sea urchins and the fish. I have never seen anything like this. There were a few fish and a couple of eels but in my opinion a really poor excuse for a dive location and hardly worth the $60 they charged. According to the owner of the dive shop over the past 7 years since he arrived the coral was destroyed by El Nino and the fish were all fished out by the local fisherman. It is hard to believe that one of the world's most undiscovered dive sites is already ruined. As there were three other dive boats near where we were, I have to assume there is nothing better in the area. Having been diving opposite on the Mozambique coast this story of dead coal and no fish didn't make any sense.

While I didn't get a chance to continue north, I understand that there is an absolutely beautiful spot about 85 k's or 53 miles further up the coast called Salery and a lovely resort, the Salarey Bay Resort. I understand the beaches and diving are great and it is well worth visiting.

Finally we flew back to Tana and I left early the next morning on the 6:00 flight to Nosy Be. Nosy Be is the main tourist location of Madagascar catering to large groups of French and Italians mostly. ROL has three clients here, Amarinia which is the only 4 star hotel on Nosy Be itself, Tsara Komba on a small island just off Nosy Be, Nosy Komba, famous for the Black Lemurs and a 3d even more luxurious resort on its own private island, Tsarabanjina, owned by the Constance Hotel group from Mauritius.

Nosy Be is the center of a large group of islands and has some beautiful beaches. The main town, Hell-Ville, again has nothing to offer but a slow Internet connection, some banks, curio shops and an Orange shop where I topped up my cell phone. Land lines are few and far between in Madagascar so I strongly suggest getting a sim card for your phone when you arrive. You can also get a phone card that will allow you to use the few phone boxes that work!!

The Amarina hotel run by the very charming Italian manager, Marcello, sits on the northern end of the island away from everything. It is the first place I'd seen that could be called a "luxury" hotel since arriving in Madagascar and certainly it is the best on the island. Unfortunately our other client, the Constance Tsarabanjina was full so I could not visit but I understand it is really a more 5 star experience on it's own private island.

Nosy Be is equally famous for it's diving and this time I agree. We did a two tank dive my first morning and on the first one when to a beautiful rock formation in about 130-140 feet (deeper than most dives but worth it). The coral and plant life was amazing and we followed a huge turtle that seemed to be very happy to have us around. On the way out we saw a school of Swordfish jumping out of the water as well as lots of flying barbet fish. Between the first and 2nd five we came across two hump back whales, a mother and baby that had to know they were putting on a show for us. Jumping almost all the way out of the water again and again. Then we came across a small school of dolphins who obliged by jumping out of the water several times as dolphins are supposed to do when seen by tourists.

Our second dive was over a lovely reef averaging about 60'deep with more fish than I have seen anywhere. I have no idea the names of most of them but I would imagine almost every reef fish you can imagine was there. Certainly many I have never seen before. The follow day was again two very nice dives, the first was in about 85' exploring three wrecks and the second was between 45-70 over a lovely reef with some caves and lots of fish. Visibility is not great, maybe 30-35 feet but I gather in July and August it is crystal clear. We again saw three whales and 4 dolphins between dives. The dive sites are all at the other end of the island so the boat ride is at least one hour but you get a chance to see the island. There is no protection on the boat from the sun so make sure you are covered Aqua Divers is a well organized, if not an expensive, Italian operation (4 dives cost [euro]175 with equipment, about $240). The boat is small, maximum 8 divers, but all your equipment is waiting and ready. You don't have to big drag a big zodiac into the ocean like in South Africa!! The two operators I dove with are fine but they don't give depth gages and the dives I did in Nosy Be were reasonably deep. I had the feeling they pushed the no decompression limits so I would come with a dive computer if possible.

After three days I moved over to a much smaller island, Nosy Komba famous for its reserve of Black Lemurs which are only found here (and in Nosy Be in areas you cannot access). The boat ride from Hell-Ville is about 20 minutes and the hotel will pick you up: the dock scene is as chaotic as you can imagine. Here I visited what was described by several people, including the manager of Amarina, as the most romantic hotel in Madagascar, Tsara Komba: upon arrival I had to agree. I am finishing up this part of my trip sitting on the deck of a beautiful one bedroom suite overlooking s spectacular private beach. There is no AC, room phone (though cell phone reception is excellent) or TV but otherwise it is as luxurious as you can imagine given the remote location and the food was excellent.

I can't imagine a better place to end such a trip.

I should mention that while I didn't have a chance to visit, we have two other clients that look well worth the time. The island of Sainte Marie is meant to be perhaps nicer that Nosy Be and the Hotel Princess Bora a beautiful beach resort. In the very north outside of Antsiranana/Diego Suarez is Le Domaine de Fontenay in the Montagne d'Ambre National Park at Joffre-Ville.

As many of the flights leave quite early in the morning, I had two at 6:00AM I would recommend staying near the airport and the best option is the Relais des Plateaux with a good restaurant and swimming pool about ten minutes from the airport.