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AfricIan

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Whilst we wait for the end of September to come, I thought I’d try to recall our trip to Madagascar last year so here goes. I hope I can get it finished in time!

 

Planning

 

We try to visit the Destinations Show http://www.destinationsshow.com/ each year as we find it a great place to get ideas, talk to various operators and listen to some interesting & entertaining talks. We usually go with some idea of where we’d like to go and our 2013 theme was Madagascar – It quite surprised us how few operators at the show featured Madagascar but we got some very useful information and sat down to consider our options. After some thought, we narrowed down to 2 itineraries (from different operators) and after a great deal more thought, finally opted for this one that maximised our available time out of the UK and minimised the number of internal flights:

 

07/11/13 London - Paris – Antananarivo (aka Tana), arr ~11pm, overnight Tana
08/11/13 Tana: Tana City Tour – Peyreras Private Reserve - Andasibe
09/11/13 Andasibe - Boat along “Canal des Pangalanes” - Ankanin'ny Nofy
10/11/13 Ankanin'ny Nofy: Palmarium Private Reserve
11/11/13 Ankanin'ny Nofy – Andasibe: Andasibe Reserve, night walk in Mitsinjo Park
12/11/13 Andasibe: Mantadia Special Reserve
13/11/13 Andasibe – Antsirabe: City tour, visit semi-precious gems lapidary, “pousse pousse workshop, Andraikiba lake
14/11/13 Antsirabe – Ambositra - Ranomafana
15/11/13 Ranomafana: Ranomafana National Park
16/11/13 Ranomafana – Andringitra
17/11/13 Andringitra: Andringitra National Park
18/11/13 Andringitra – Isalo: Anja Private Park
19/11/13 Isalo: Isalo National Park, sunset at “fenetre de L’Isalo”
20/11/13 Isalo – Zombitse National Park – Tulear: City tour - Ifaty
21/11/13 Ifaty: time for R&R!!
22/11/13 Ifaty
23/11/13 Ifaty – Tulear – (Internal flight) – Tana: Hotel day room
24/11/13 Tana (dep ~1am) – Paris - London

 

Incl.: Transfers, Private 4x4 vehicle & English speaking guide for the period 8 – 20 Nov

 

So that was the theory! We were told our choice of accommodation for Andringitra wasn’t in fact available after all - just after we’d paid the booking deposit and then ~2 weeks before departure that our scheduled hotel in Andasibe wasn’t available either. We’d been warned that things in Madagascar invariably didn’t go to plan though and the suggested alternatives looked fine so “stupid o’clock” on the 7th Nov saw us heading round to Heathrow for our 06:40 Air France flight to Paris.

After a delayed departure from Paris as we waited for some passengers who were delayed on their internal Air France flight we arrived uneventfully but ~1hr late to face the chaos of Madagascar immigration that clearly couldn’t cope with the near 300 people from an almost full Boeing 777. After queuing for ~1hr to get our visa stamps, we were told by the one man at the desk that we didn’t need them & to join the other (1hr) queue for passport control –at least our bags had been unloaded by the time we got to the carousel!

A quick 10min ride to our hotel later we found that Lydie (Sp?) had waited up to welcome us & after a quick chat (it was well after 2am by that stage!) we arranged to meet at ~9am the next day to run through the itinerary and then got our heads down for some well needed sleep.

 

Day 1 - A run through of our schedule with Lydie & Rivo our driver/guide revealed it was pretty much as we’d been given before we left so~9:30 we set off on our adventure –first stop the supermarket to stock up on water and something for lunch. Our route out took us through Antananarivo on a brief tour but I wouldn’t say it was enough to really get any idea of the city, there were a few vantage points where you could look out over the city or watch the local mechanic changing the camshaft on a little Peugeot by the roadside!

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Antananarivo, Pretoria isn't the only "Jacaranda City"

Once out of town we made quite reasonable progress along the RN2, arriving at the Peyreras Private Reserve in time to eat our lunch before a very informative tour round all the chameleon, snake & lizard enclosures.

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Leaf-tailed Gecko

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Then it was off to our first substitute accommodation. We’d nothing really to go on for the Andasibe Forest Lodge but having turned off the RN2 down a dirt track tucked behind a decrepit little shack, we were pleasantly surprised. The chalets are pretty simple but are nicely set out around a small lake and were clean & comfortable. We were the only guests that night (although apparently they were full for the next few nights) but the receptionist/bar manager/waiter was very welcoming & as chatty as his English & my French would allow. After a nice (hot, something we were to encounter only fleetingly for most of the rest of the trip) shower we were ready to eat and for dinner he came up with chicken breast in a mild curry sauce which went down very nicely with a couple of cold “tey ash bey”’s (THB, Three Horses Beer) & an early night.

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Andasibe Forest Lodge

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and gardens

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We woke to the cry of the Indri coming from the forest and after a good breakfast we loaded up & hit the road for day 2.

 

Day 2 - The standard of the RN2 deteriorated quite rapidly after Andasibe and as we wound our way down from the highlands we encountered our first accident where the road had partially collapsed on a bend & an artic had toppled into the ditch – fortunately leaving enough room for smaller vehicles to get through. Men with heavy chains were on the scene so it looked like they were going to attempt to pull the truck upright & out of the ditch fairly soon. This would have blocked the road for quite a while so we were fortunate to get through & before that long we were off the tarmac & down the dirt road to Manambato.

 

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Manambato ferry terminus!

Then across the lakes & down the Canal des Pangalanes to Ankanin'ny Nofy

 

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Across Lake Rasoabe

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Traveling down the "Canal des Pangalanes"

After a very pleasant boat journey, the Palmerium hotel itself is wonderfully tranquil with lemurs everywhere, draped over the rafters in the bar, perched on our chalet balcony and the gardens are very prettily laid out.

 

 

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More to come soon - one question for now: Can I add further tags as I go or are they now locked?

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Ooo, I really fancy Madagascar. Looking forward to the rest of the report AfricIan

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Lovely beginning; thanks for taking us to Madagascar with you. Always wondered about it.

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I'm excited to see more - I would like to go to Madagascar some day, as would my husband. Two questions:

 

1) what was the operator you ended up using?

2) did Rivo - the driver/guide - stay with you for the whole trip?

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Lovely chameleons! Looking forward to more and yup, hope you can get this done before you leave :)

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Love the chameleons. Looking forward to more. Always interested in learning about this fascinating place.

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Great start, Ian, the red chameleon is a real stunner! Looking forward to lots of lemurs. :)

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@@AfricIan

Great to read about Madagascar and to see your photos.

We went about 15 years ago - it is a fascinating place. And waking t o the call of the indri is amazing.

I look forward to the rest of this!

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Thanks to everyone for their comments, now I’ve started I’ll have to get to the end before we head off on this years “Africa Fix”.

 

@SafariChick – the two operators we whittled down to are both small UK outfits. As we’d been bouncing discussions back & forward it became clear that both operators were going to be using IC Tours as their Madagascar operator and we finally opted to use Art Safari as their tour maximised the full number of days we’d got available to us.
Rivo stayed with us until we got to our final hotel at Ifaty – no point in him sitting on the beach with us!.

It was interesting to compare guides along the way. Rivo didn’t come round any of the parks with us, handing us over to a “specialist guide” for these, nor did he eat with us whereas we could see other guides clambering round the rain-forests with their clients and having meals with them. This didn’t worry us at all and when we were talking to another English couple at Tulear airport we found that they had an IC Tours driver/guide as well and he’d not accompanied or eaten with them either so perhaps it’s IC Tours policy.

 

Next instalment soon (hopefully!)

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Great way to pass the difficult weeks before the last trip! Carry on....

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kittykat23uk

Nice to see another madagascar trip report!

 

I had the same experience with my guide eating separately. This is because the clients eat at the restaurant and the guides are fed malagasy cuisine as part of the accommodation package. Made meals somewhat lonely as I was on my own so I tended to try and strike up conversation with the other guests when I could.

 

That said, my guide did accompany me during the trips into the forests and was an excellent sherpa cum videographer! :)

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Makes sense @@kittykat23uk, again whilst waiting at Tulear airport we did catch up with another couple we'd seen with their guide in the Ramanofana rain-forest - they'd used Audley Travel so I'd assumed thirs was a more up-market tour.

 

Anyway, onto Day 3 - A guided walk round the reserve and a chance to get close to the habituated lemurs

 

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& no, the camera isn't upside-down

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& are these two just good friends?

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Diademed sifaka

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Indri

 

Locally, the Indri is known as the babakoto which means little father or ancestor of man. As the Malagasy believe that the Indri (with it's lack of visible tail) resembles their ancestors, there is a taboo over consuming it, meaning that the it does receive some protection in parts of their native environments. It’s never been successfully kept in captivity though so the continued destruction of their forest habitat is a real worry. How the Indri make so much noise for such a small animal is beyond me though!

 

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Where's breakfast?

 

There are also many chameleon to be seen + the odd snake to be found in the gardens

 

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Madagascar has no front-fanged venomous snakes otherwise I'd have been backing away rather than taking photos!

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Stating the obvious, a Green Gecko

 

Lovely though the Palmerium is, disjointed & chaotic are probably the correct descriptives to use, examples included:
Breakfast juice arrives just as you’ve finished eating,
The menu board that seemed to bear no resemblance to the selections actually available,
Showers that only summon up a trickle of tepid water (though it was hot once!).

Their “piece de resistance” however must be when we decided to take the offered excursion across the lake to Andranokoditra “fishermans village”. This is a very unusual location, after a 20min speedboat ride across the freshwater lake & down a short length of the Canal des Pangalanes the actual distance from canal to the Indian Ocean is only ~100metres & into this thin strip there is Andranokoditra village, the railway station & the beach. The village really brings it home how poor most Malagasy are, with the village being predominantly wooden shacks that get flattened with monotonous regularity when the winter cyclones blow through.

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The kitchen is on the right

 

Even here though there are those that have & those that have not – whilst most children were in grubby rags one little girl came down the tiled steps out of her house wearing a pristine white dress. Rivo was noticeable reticent to answer when I asked where all the money for their house & clothes came from so I’m assuming it may not have been strictly legitimate!

Once we’d crossed the railway line, taking great care to avoid the 2 trains a week that use the line:

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and made it to the Indian Ocean for the obligatory paddle:

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Coast 1 - Indian Ocean

Swimming isn’t recommended as sharks are quite prevalent,

There wasn’t much more to see so after running the line of trinket sellers we arrive back at the canal to find – NO BOAT.

 

This gave me chance for a few more pictures:

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Wash the pots, feed the ducks at the same time!

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Local FedEx man?

 

After a good 1½hr of waiting whilst Rivo called the hotel, the office & anyone else he could think of, he finally had to bribe another boat that had called in for a few supplies to go out of their way to take us back. This boat certainly wouldn’t be “licenced to carry passengers” in the UK but as the alternative appeared to be bedding down on a reed floor in an incomplete (ie no walls!) house it was an option we couldn’t refuse. Back at the Palmerium, the excuse was that our boat had gone to pick up some guests (1hr to Manambato, 1hr back + 20mins across the lake!) but that they were late arriving. How they proposed to get us back once it got dark was never explained!

 

However before I appear too damming of the Palmerium, we actually really did like the place and the good certainly outweighed the bad.

 

Day 4 – Started with the reverse boat trip back to Manambato, the dirt road back to the RN2 & the RN2 westbound. We stopped in Brickaville to pick up something for lunch.

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Brickaville, major intersection on the RN2

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then continued on to the Andasibe Reserve. It was about this time that we got our first signs that the timings in our itinerary might be a tad optimistic as Rivo was certainly having to “push-on” in order to get to the reserve in time to have some lunch before heading into the forest. I’m not saying it was dangerous, far from it, but there wasn’t any hanging about!

The Andasibe Reserve was a much more realistic way of seeing wildlife than had been the case at the Palmerium and made photography much more of a challenge. The lemurs here are nothing like as habituated to humans & so you are photographing them up in the trees, through branches & they tend to move away rather than towards you.

 

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Diademed Sifaka

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Collared Nightjar

 

 

 

And on to our next substitute accommodation – The Andasibe Hotel was a step up in standard from what we’d had before with big rooms, swimming pool & all the facilities you’d expect of an upmarket hotel. Unfortunately it was about this time that the contents of my stomach decided to part company with me in a big way and continued to do so until the not-so-early hours the next morning!

 

Day 5 – Whilst I was still feeling “a bit tender”, at least I’d cleared all the bugs out whereas my wife, who didn’t succumb as quickly or violently, continued to feel “off” intermittently for much longer. As neither of us felt up to the challenge of another trek through the rainforest we skipped the Mantadia Special Reserve & stayed at the hotel. The next photos were taken from the same spot & show the contrasts between the hotel in it’s manicured gardens with tree covered hills behind (turn left) and the slash & burn agriculture on the hillside on the other side of the river.

 

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We were up & about for our night walk though:

 

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Mouse Lemur

And so ends Day 5!

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kittykat23uk

Hiya,

 

Hope you dont mind my saying that Your first sifaka underneath the pic of the black and white ruffed lemur is Coquerel's Sifaka, not diademed. Your mouse lemur is, I believe, a furry eared dwarf lemur. :)

 

Also, sorry to hear you got I'll, so did I on my last couple of days and it took me a couple of weeks to get back to normal!

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Hi @@kittykat23uk, I don't mind at all, I didn't take the precaution of writing the IDs down at the time so was working from memory. I'm happy to correct any inaccuracies.

 

I get the impression that anyone who makes it through a trip to Madagascar without picking up a bug is either incredibly lucky or will join the cockroaches as the only survivors of the global pandemic that wipes out mankind! Very unpleasant though my bout was, at least it was over & done with, it took a few weeks after we got home before Vicky fully recovered.

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Lovely images. Amusingly I'll add to the Malagasy belly. Could not leave the hotel room in Fort dauphin for 48 hours. Definitely a theme for mada travels ha!

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Welcome back readers to Day 6 – Load-up & ship out! Our itinerary said that the drive to Antsirabe would take 3 to 4 hrs & we’d arrive around noon, allowing an afternoon City tour, visits to a gems lapidary & “pousse pousse” workshop and ending the afternoon at Andraikiba lake – not a cat-in-hells chance! Although it’s all on “main road”, the journey is slow & tedious with very few redeeming features, the sight of herds of Zebu being driven to market in Tana


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Taking the Zebu to market - down the RN7!


and a wooden toy stall being the highlights of a lonnnnnng day.


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We didn’t arrive in Antsirabe until ~6pm so it was straight to the hotel. Fortunately the Chambres des Voyagers was an oasis of calm even though it was very close to the middle of town. The owners were very welcoming & friendly hosts and we had a very nice meal. By this stage we were thinking that perhaps we’d have been better planning our route with more internal flights but talking to the other couple in the hotel that night soon revealed that might not have been the answer either – their theoretical 1hr hop from Morondava to Tana the previous day had turned into a 12hr tour of Southern Madagascar: Morondava to Tulear to Ft Dauphin to Tana with nothing to eat other than a couple of snack bags of peanuts, nor were they allowed off the plane at the stops!


Day 7 - After a good, quiet, nights sleep and a look round the hotel gardens we opted for a quick wiz round the city and a visit to the lapidary.


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One of the locals!


The city centre is quite nice and it was a shame we hadn’t been able to enjoy a more leisurely look round the previous day, the lapidary was a waste of time, the “tour” comprising: Here are some different rocks, here’s the shop, what do you want to buy? – No chance to see how they grade, cut or polish the stones at all.


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Seems strange to call them "Pousse-pousse" not "Pull-pull"


More tedious hours on the road got us to Ambositra


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Prepare the paddy's for rice, after harvest use the clay to make bricks.


Then it was onwards to Ranomafana which the itinerary had suggested we’d reach within about 3hr. As we didn’t arrive until well after 6pm, it was pretty clear by now that the timings in our itinerary were ludicrously optimistic so after persuading the kitchen that we would like something to eat that evening it was time for a serious reappraisal of the remainder of the trip. When Rivo told us that in his opinion getting from Ranomafana to Andringitra and from Andringitra to Isalo were both full days on the road including a good part of them on dirt tracks we decided enough was enough and between us came up with a rescheduling that skipped Andringitra and which Rivo said he’d discuss with the office the next day whilst we were in the Ranomafana forest.


Day 8 – After meeting up with our local guide & “spotter” we headed into the forest past under the guardian of the path - not a great place for arachnophobes!


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And some more lemurs, of the Bamboo variety this time


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When we met up again with Rivo, he said that our revised itinerary was OK but that we’d have to pay for two “non-Andringitra” nights directly to the new hotels ourselves & they couldn’t credit us for the accommodation we’d already paid for. Whilst we weren’t particularly enamoured by this, after all we were only doing it because the original itinerary was so far away from reality, we agreed “under protest” and said we’d take it up with our UK TA.


Day 8 – A much more relaxed day allowed us time to browse round Ranomafana village & head over the river to the swimming pool & hot springs. Getting across the river was an interesting exercise as most of the bridge had been washed away & the remaining bits had just been lashed together – fortunately the river wasn’t that deep or fast flowing so although it swayed a bit we figured that even had it collapsed we weren’t in any danger of being swept away!


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The public swimming pool was a revelation though – looking really clean & well maintained however Rivo did say it was only re-filled once a week so we might have seen it on a good day! The hot spring was certainly that; at least 45C.


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A last stop for a photo of the river as it cascaded through the rocks


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& we headed out of the rainforest & into more agricultural areas before arriving in Fianarantsoa for lunch overlooking the town.


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Washing, drying, fishing, farming, all in one picture


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How would you like to have to carry the water up to the top terraces?


Before we reached our overnight stop in Ambalavao, we got our first sightings of Ring-tailed lemurs at the private Anja Reserve


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Malagasy Kingfisher


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King (Queen!) Julian


At first sight, the Aux Bougainvilliers doesn’t look to have a lot to recommend it with room blocks being reminiscent of 1960’s “Butlins POW Camp” – those UK folk of a certain age will know exactly what I mean, for everyone else read pretty basic – it was comfortable enough though. Where it scores is in the quality of the food, certainly at dinner, where the zebu steaks were by far the best we had in all the time we were in Madagascar: tender, juicy & cooked just as we asked – the zebu aux gingembre really was a treat.

Considering its location right next to the taxibusse ranks it was also very quiet & we did get a good nights sleep.
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kittykat23uk

Ah yes , I stayed there too. Good spag bol as I recall. But don't try checking out early as there are no staff around! Not ideal if wanting to get to zombitse for some early birding!

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Good point @@kittykat23uk, thinking back it also surprised us when they said breakfast wasn’t until ~8am, if I remember correctly. As our schedule was much more relaxed now, it wasn’t too much of a problem though.


Day 9 – Halfway through the trip but 2/3 of the way across the “Island Continent”. The land is getting so much drier & barren now as we head towards Isalo


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And we arrived in good time to relax in the huge “African Safari” tents of our lodge


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before heading over to the Fenêtre d'Isalo to catch the sunset – please excuse the rubbish photos, my excuse is that the sun didn’t really set “through the window” although the truth might be that I really haven’t mastered backlighting yet!


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Day 10 – A day with picnic lunch in the Isalo National Park, more chameleon & Ring-tails. One option for today was to hike up to the “Natural Swimming Pool” however there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and, the temperature was already north of 35C (95F) & rising so a shorter hike in more shade up to “The Waterfall” seemed a more sensible choice. There wasn’t much water coming down the fall but the location is really nice and a welcome opportunity to cool the feet in the pool


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Whilst back at the base of the trail we were pointed in the direction of a super spot by the stream to eat our lunch & to be entertained by a large group of Ring-tails


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Sleepy Julian


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Mid-afternoon temperature was 40C+ so the lodge swimming pool beckoned!
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Really enjoying this. There is more scenic variety than I would have guessed, and it seems like a really adventurous place to travel.

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Great report - brings back some memories.. yeah - the stomach problems as well. :o

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Thanks everyone for all the kind comments & likes, @@Bugs – sorry if I’ve prompted some unpleasant gastro memories! @@Marks - the scenic variation from East (wet) to West (dry) is massive & we only covered a relatively small section through the midriff of the country. There is much that we didn’t see, we did try to route through to the Tsingy but couldn’t do it whilst keeping Ankanin'ny Nofy in and had to can our planned time in the biologically diverse Andringitra NP – The Island Continent really does sum it up well, if only we'd had more time.

 

Day 11 – A short distance down the RN7 is Ilakaka which was a little village until sapphires were discovered there – it’s now a real wild-west town & quite disconcerting to see bars/mesh on all the windows/doors. By all accounts it’s not a particularly safe place for tourists to go wandering round and we were happy to head straight through with windows shut & doors locked!
Not too far down the road is the Zombitse National Park and the Verreaux's sifaka. Although we could get quite close to them they were quite happy in the trees so whilst they did oblige with some quite phenomenal jumps between the trees they didn’t feel it necessary to demonstrate the hop/dance they employ when on the ground.

 

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Verreaux's sifaka

 

Then it was downhill (literally not figuratively) all the way to Tulear, passing:

 

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A nice line of Baobabs

 

And some Mahafaly & Antandroy tribe tombs, please excuse the shocking framing of the first tomb but we’d no sooner stopped when Rivo spotted the youth running towards us with an axe in his hands!! He was probably just on his way too/from work but better on the safe side! The number of zebu horns on the tombs is a measure of wealth & reflect how many head of cattle had to go to market in order to build the tomb.

 

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After a late lunch in Tulear and a wander down Boulevard Gallieni and the "Tsena Cociagy" touristy craft market it was time to say goodbye to the tarmac and take the dirt road to Ifaty.

 

“Les dunes d'Ifaty” was a wonderfully relaxing end to our holiday, great hotel with very friendly owners & staff. Our chalet overlooked the pool with views out over the bay and was very clean & comfortable. All our meals were excellent with nothing frozen – which does mean you have to decide what you want for lunch by mid-morning & dinner by mid-afternoon though.

 

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Coast 2 - Mozambique Channel

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Like father like son?

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If you go down to the beach today, you're sure of a big surprise!!

 

Our stay was made complete when, on our last evening, we were kindly invited along to join all the staff as they “let their hair down” to celebrate the birthday of the wife of “le patron”– it was very much appreciated.

 

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We were hoping for a slightly more spectacular sunset to end our trip!

 

The departure time of our Air Madagascar flight from Tulear back to Tana was changed the day before from a morning to an mid-afternoon one but other than that was uneventful though did mean we didn’t get chance to do much before it was back to the airport for the long haul back to the UK. I’d managed to check-in on-line at the hotel so we were quickly through security & emigration but, surprise surprise, the incoming flight was late arriving. When we arrived we had simply walked from the aircraft to the terminal but it was lashing down with rain by now so we weren’t disappointed to see they were bussing passengers off & it wasn’t too long before the first bus arrived at the departure gate, filled up & headed of to the aircraft. It then took an age to empty before they started filling the next bus – which also took an age to empty but eventually we got to the bus & out to the plane – which is when we realised the reason for the slow progress as they were bag searching everyone again at the foot of the stairs and because the rain was still hammering down no-one was going to leave the bus until there was a space at the bag search!
We did leave eventually and arrived in Paris in time to make our scheduled connection to London and were pleasantly surprised to see half the Springboks rugby team were on our flight, wending their way back to South Africa after the autumn internationals. Having secured exit row seats by virtue of being able to check-in before anyone else I felt sorry watching a 6+ ft, 20 stone prop forward trying to cram into an economy seat but the moment of sympathy soon passed (!!) as we stretched out and headed for home at the end of a very different safari.

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At least the zebu didn't try to sell us a boat trip our to the reef @@Atravelynn they weren't top of our list of likely sightings though!!

 

Having reached the end of my report, a few final reflections probably won't go amiss:
Having been to a lot of Southern & East Africa, we thought we had a reasonable idea of what to expect on our trip to Madagascar - wrong! It’s very different and a real mix of the fascinating, the beautiful, the chaotic – often all at the same time, all with devastating poverty, environmental degradation, pathetic infrastructure & massive underlying inequality all thrown into the mix.
I’m told that the average Malagasy makes less than £1 per day – that’s about what we were paying for a bottle of water or 1/5 the cost of an omelette! The degree of inequality is difficult to come to terms with at times and some aspects of our trip pushed well outside our “comfort zone”. The amount of travelling is very draining, we knew it was a big place but even on the “main roads” progress is slow. Internal flights appear to be somewhat hit-or-miss, ours was fine, albeit the timing was changed the day before, but another couple we spoke to had their “short hop” turn into an all day’er. There is a railway but when we were in Isalo we bumped into a French group, who were at Palmerium with us, they said they’d had a terrible time on it. Stomach upsets also seem de-rigueur as pretty much every tourist we met over the latter part of the trip seemed to have succumbed to some extent at some stage.
But.....Having said all that, we’re really pleased we went, yes it was difficult at times but the highs more than outweigh the lows and we’ve got many great memories. The “Canal des Pangalanes” is beautiful, Ankanin'ny Nofy is lovely & tranquil, whilst the forests of Andisibe & Ranomafana give a real insight into what most of eastern Madagascar was like not that long ago. I would encourage anyone considering a trip there to do it and do it soon –It’s pretty clear that the forests are going to continue to vanish, along with so much of the unique wildlife so if you want to be woken to The Call of the Indri then get on that plane, you’ll never see (or hear) one in your local zoo!
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Your final reflections are very helpful. I don't like the vanishing forests part, but I think you are probably right. Nice link to the call of the Indri.

 

Thank you for posting on your Madagascar trip.

Edited by Atravelynn
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