Amy

It's been a bit since I've been on the forums, but I wanted to share my recent 17 day trip to Madagascar here to add to the info.

Madagascar really is as magical as the name, a truly beautiful country with massive biodiversity, amazing food, lovely people, and challenging infrastructure. My geography students chose it as my destination, and as I researched further I realized that it wasn't a place that I'd be comfortable traveling independently (as I usually do) so I looked for a local tour company. Dadamanga Tours, with a long history of providing private tour services, was the one I settled on; they've just started group tours, and my tour ended up being just three of us, all American, plus our guide for the whole trip and various drivers. It was a well planned and executed tour; my only small caveat with them is that communication is a bit spotty, but the price was good and everything showed up the way it was supposed to.

Before I go onto the descriptions, a few packing/info notes that might help:
1. TMobil covers you there; free texting, 3g network. You can get local sim cards if you're with another carrier, and WiFi is spotty even in the nicer lodges. (Sometimes will be in the lobby but not in the rooms, for instance.)
2. Pack washcloths, baby wipes, tissues, toilet paper, hand sanitizer
3. The universal adapter didn't always fit; a type C with two round pins worked in all the outlets I encountered
4. If you go in winter, like I did (July), a cashmere duster cardigan is amazingly useful (also great as a plane blanket; I slept much of the 11 hours from Antananarivo back to Paris)
5. Mosquitoes at dawn and dusk even in the winter; OFF towelettes worked really well for me
6. Try not to develop plantar fasciitis the week before you leave. Sigh.

Amy

I arrived in Antananarivo ("Tana") very early Sunday morning, to the rabbit warren of art and various rooms that is Hotel Sakamanga. https://sakamanga.com/en/home/ It's a great place beyond its unprepossessing facade, and the restaurant is quite good. There are some unexpected steps, so be wary! Of course, I later found that to be the case on the sidewalks as well.

Later on Sunday I visited the serene and interesting Fondation H, site of a contemporary art exhibit; my favorite was probably the virtual reality tour of Senegal, but there were a lot of really absorbing pieces. https://www.fondation-h.com/en/home It was relatively close to the hotel, and walking back I had one of my very few unpleasant experiences: a rather large gentleman accosted me and began speaking in French, then punched my arm (rather forcefully) and spat when I didn't respond in the way he wanted. Some in every city...

Monday I used the services of an official guide, called by the hotel, to take a two hour walking tour of the city. We took a taxi-brousse (kept piling people in until it was full!) up to the top of the city and the Queen's Palace, and walked back down, with lots of information about the city and customs (like stone for tombs, wood for houses) shared by the personable young lady guide. It was only 20,000 an hour for the tour, which is certainly much more reasonable that some of the tours offered on the Internet for the same thing.

Later that day I met my guide for the trip and one of my co-travelers, and we made plans for our early morning departure to Antsirabe.

ekscrunchy

Amy!!! Great startt!!!

Do I understand that you teach geography?
I ask because that was my major in college.

Amy

Hiiii!!!
Geography is one of the classes I teach in the grade 7/8 loop; the alternate year is Pennsylvania history. Geography continues in their world history course of course, but geo as a subject is there in 7/8.

For some years now I’ve had them choose my travel for the summer, with the caveats being no place I’ve been and no open warfare. They present their five choices, then vote for the overall winner and…I go!
Definitely gets them a bit more involved in the various aspects of geography.

Amy

First road trip, to Antsirabe in the highlands, over what were actually better roads than we had later on, but which seemed at the time to be a bit rocky! Along the way we made a stop where bricks were being made in what had been a rice field in the summer; there were many of these, and the bricks are used for some homes, as the earth is considered a source of life unlike stone, which is used for tombs. This was also the first view of the zebu carts, ubiquitous throughout the countryside. (Zebu are a type of humped cattle, and are, quite frankly, delicious.)

We took a rocky walk with a local guide to Lake Tritriva, a volcanic lake that is the site of various rituals. It's a lovely deep teal color and shaped similar to Madagascar. The walk was a bit uneven underfoot (remember the plantar fasciitis?) but definitely worth the view. Lake Andraikiba, closer to town, is a more conventional but still beautiful site.

Antsirabe is in the highlands and definitely a bit chilly by night, when we landed at what turned out to be my favorite hotel, Eco Lodge Les Chambers du Voyageur. The large rooms were decorated with foliage and flower arrangements cut from the beautifully landscaped grounds; the shower had great hot water pressure; the restaurant was stellar, and the people running it simply lovely. We returned here near the end of the trip, and it really felt like coming home. https://www.booking.com/hotel/mg/eco...-voyageur.html

Amy

Photo link for all of the pix--edited down considerably, but still quite a few:
https://missalg.smugmug.com/Madagascar

Amy

We visited a crafts complex in Antsirabe, with zebu horn being turned into various trinkets from spoons to rather enviable car models, by a process that included some unpleasant smelling burning but was fascinating to watch nonetheless. There were embroideries as well, but my favorite was the recycled products being deftly made in front of us, like a mini bicycle with all the details. We toured the town, stopping at the vacant train station, the independence memorial, and a French colonial building before going to the supermarket where I found a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette for about 79 cents that was absolutely delicious for our picnic lunch on the road.

Our goal was Mirandravazo, and we checked into the perfectly adequate Hotel Soa Lia (no elevator) and had dinner during a violently pink sunset at the rooftop restaurant. https://www.booking.com/hotel/mg/soa-lia.html

Amy

Thursday, July 4th, was another beautiful day of sunshine and 70's. The 4 wheel drive vehicle to the village of Masiakampy didn't quite make it; it got stuck in the sand and, despite the best efforts of a group gathering, didn't make it all the way to the boat. But we did, with impromptu porters carrying our luggage on their heads through the wooded path until we finally got to the boat that would be home for the next two and a half days. A former tobacco barge, it has an upper deck with a cover and a long table downstairs where the ship's cook (accompanied by her lively daughter) served us absolutely amazing food, including fresh spiny lobsters. The boat was cheerful in orange, and had comfy lounge chairs above. There were lots of other boats on the river, most with a few more people than ours.

The landscape was gorgeous, iron oxide giving the soil a lovely burnt orange glow and birds, goats, and crocodiles adding points of interest. We saw our first lemurs and made a stop at the liquid wonder of the Anosinampela waterfall. I wasn't able to go under it (the heel thing) but it was gorgeous to see and quite secluded at that time. (This was, by the way, the only shower available on the boat trip--and toilets were, um, a negative quantity.) We stopped in a village where my travel buddies had shots of local sugar cane rum for all of 500 ariary (about 11 cents; by contrast, a beer is about 5,000 ariary.) The children who were hanging onto us throughout the village visit were entranced by the lady downing a shot!

After another splendid dinner on the boat, we clambered up the sand bank to our tents and the Pink Palace--the little curtained area that held the privy bucket. Sunset is early--it's winter--so the stars were swirling away above by the time we got to our tents. It was a little chilly but comfy enough with a bedroll and blanket; could have used a bit more blanket, to be fair, but I layered on the cashmere. I slept the sleep of the righteous (and dehydrated) in my little personal tent, which was actually large enough for a sponge bath and change of clothing in the morning.

We continued on down the river the next day, stopping here and there and finally getting to a smaller village with a baobab grove; it was there we saw a chameleon and a caterpillar, which quickly became one. The kids in this village were clustering around, as well, but weren't quite as forward as the ones in the larger village the previous day. The beautiful children were a standard at most stops, and I wish I could have given them all what they wanted, but of course it's both impossible and also disruptive to distribute largess. (And I needed to keep my hairclips, which seemed to be very popular.)

Tonight's camping was much like the previous night, although I did get a little bit lost in the mist for a while in the middle of the night, but that same mist made for a really cool photo in the morning. The crew gave a very talented performance of singing/guitar/dancing that actually felt much more genuine than I was fearing; the cook's little girl was having a great time with the dancing, and the guitarist/singer was really really good.

The third half day on the Tsiribihana River was just as lovely and restful and scenic as the previous days; this was definitely a highlight of the trip, even with the Pink Palace.
https://www.smugmug.com/app/library/...ageKey=6mXXNt6

schmerl

Amy, I have always loved your trip reports and this one is no exception!
I also love how you have your students choose your destination.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful adventure and your beautiful photos.

Amy

Hi, schmerl! Nice to see you!

After the relaxing morning on the river and a last lovely lunch, we said goodbye to La Sirena's crew and transferred to a four wheel drive vehicle (AC wasn't working, there wasn't leg room, and we were on four hours or so of, well, dusty rutted road. So not too comfy to be honest.)

We "traversed the rugged terrain" according to our itinerary and finally got to the river that we eventually crossed on a man-powered ferry to the village of Bekopaka and two nights at the hotel Orchidee du Bemaraha. (General consensus, this was our least favorite hotel; not well maintained particularly, and without the great service of the other places.) This is the entry to Grand Tsingy, an incredible limestone formation a drive away. Due to my foot issue, I couldn't do Grand Tsingy and had a sleep-in and lunch at the hotel--to be honest, it felt really good by that point. And then in the afternoon when the others returned from Grand Tsingy (which included caves, harnesses for climbing and a suspension bridge) I was taken to Little Tsingy, closer to the hotel and not of as great size, obvs, to hike through the formations there. This did include some interestingly dicey rocks over small canyons and a place where I had to crab-crawl a large boulder, but I'm glad I was able to do this bit at least. The lighting was fabulous and the formations interesting, but I'm glad I didn't attempt Grand Tsingy and its four hours; one hour here was quite enough for me.

Back across the ferry (we're now at Monday, July 8) and back the way we came on the rutted roads to Belo-sur-Tsiribihina, the town where we had left our boat. We didn't get back on the boat, but there was a special place right there in the dusty town: the Mad Zebu restaurant, with its gorgeous plates of delicious food for our lunch. https://guide.en-vols.com/en/adresse....5458333,18.00 This was a lovely respite (and great teal restrooms) between the dusty morning drive and the dusty afternoon drive, which would eventually turn into s spot of drama (or perhaps farce.)

We passed by villages of various sizes, most of them without electricity, and distinctive stone tombs of the Sakalava tribes. We were rolling merrily along in the 4WD, but things started going a bit off--strange sounds, stops to try to fix it, what sounded like the driveshaft falling out or something... Anyway, we were between villages and, frankly, stranded, when the cavalry arrived in the form of a beat-up Mitsubishi pickup truck with a bunch of people in the back, including two armed police officers. These were employees of a mobile phone company, and I won't say which because, technically, they should have left us stranded, but they didn't! Our driver removed the seat belt straps and they attached the two vehicles, and, after two times of detaching and rolling back, we finally made it to the Kirindy Forest and Relais Kirindy, our very welcoming nad not very electrified hotel for the night. I am quite grateful for the rescue truck out of nowhere; our angels of the road certainly came at the right time and helped with alacrity.

Amy

Relais Kirindy is right within the Reserve, quite a lovely setting with a great staff. There's not electricity for much of the time, but it's a lovely place nonetheless. https://www.relaisdukirindy.com/en/
In the morning, we took a hike in the reserve, accompanied by a very good local guide. Our first sighting was a fossa (the weasel-like animals that eat lemurs and such) but I think the fossas there are semi-domesticated by proximity to the guides' camp; the one we saw certainly seemed comfortable. There were groups of lemurs of various kinds, some swinging high in the trees and others going across the ground. Quite nice!

Then, in the afternoon: to the baobabs! We had of course seen many, and along the way we stopped at the famous double "Lovers" baobabs, but this was the Avenue of the Baobabs, and we were there for sunset. There were lots of people there from around the world, and quite a convivial atmosphere watching the sun go down behind the majestic trees. (There were refreshments available!) Many left as the sun set, but the afterglow was possibly the most spectacular part, as the moon rose above and the sky purpled. There are definitely mixed reviews of this experience, but to me it was truly special.

glover

What a wonderful trip and report! Keep it coming! I love that your students help choose the destination.. .

schmerl

WOW! Thank you so much for taking us along with you on this incredible journey.

BarbAnn

Wow! I have now put Madagascar on my bucket list.

Amy

Thanks, all! It is indeed beautiful and unique, but there are many long and bumpy roads to be traversed, both literally and metaphorically.

We arrived in darkness after the baobab sunset to the seaside city of Morondava, where we stayed at Chez Maggie. https://www.chezmaggie.com/ My room was a bungalow, really a series of little rooms, quite charming, and including a toilet that was three tiled steps up from the floor. Interesting. Also not the greatest for my particular issues, but hey. I remembered the steps were there, even in the blackout during the night so no sprained ankles for meeee!

We left for a long day on the road rather early in the morning, so our closest glimpse of the sea was just a quick stop along the road. Madagascar has some wonderful beaches, but most of the best require domestic flights (or days of travel) and beaches while traveling are never a priority of mine anyway. Domestic flights are notoriously untrustworthy, and quite expensive. Definitely could have used one of them for this day, though!

We were on the road for eleven hours, from Morondava back to Antsirabe. There was a lot of gorgeous scenery, villages here and there, and lunch on the go from the hotel Chez Maggie. Returning to the Ecolodge in Antsirabe felt like a homecoming; the food there is delightful and beautifully presented, staff is great, and the hot showers just wonderful There's a little heater in the room that was definitely needed at that altitude, and altogether it was lovely to be back.

The next day was another long ride, albeit on slightly better roads, and with a stop for handicrafts at a market. This route was across the highlands going from the west to the east, with a bypass of Antananarivo where we stopped for a very forgettable pizza for lunch. We continued on to the east and the rainforest, with some hairpin turns and a return to the dusty bumpy roads toward the end, after a traffic jam in a town that actually had paved roads. Before the lodge, however, we had a stop at Peyrieras Madagascar Exotic reserve, with its chameleons, snakes, tomato! frogs, moths, and lemurs. (The lemurs are just out in the woods, but the reptiles etc. are in "greenhouse" type enclosures with plants. ) It was a nice stop along the way to Vakona Forest Lodge, which turned out to be surprisingly elegant with lovely landscaping. There was a very welcome fireplace in the lobby restaurant, and the rooms/bungalows were large and comfortable. There was a blooming rose right along the steps to my room that had the most delicious and delicate fragrance.

Amy

Andasibe National Park is huge and rainforest-y, with, however, a number of introduced species, such as eucalyptus (which isn't good for the lemurs' tummies.) It's very lush and green, but again, not so much primary forest. Nevertheless, our hike through the Analamazaotra Preserve yielded quite a few sightings of lemurs, both in the trees and down on the ground. The indris lemurs are here, the largest ones and possessed of a wail that you can hear throughout. There are a number of paths, part of which are cobblestone and some just of earth. A local guide accompanies. This was an early morning walk, as that's when these lemurs are most active. Following lunch at a local restaurant, we went on to a rowboat ride to Lemurs' Island, a private refuge that is part of the Vakona Hotel where we were staying. Here's where we first saw the ring-tailed lemurs that are most famous, and the black-and-white fella that's in the first post. He was showing off a bit! The reserves do a good work for rescuing animals, and the goal is reintroduction where possible. One island can only be viewed from the boat, while the other has walking trails.

Dinner at the lodge was excellent, https://www.vakonahotel.com/en, and I settled in for my final night in a bed until Monday. (This was Friday.) The others took a night walk in the forest, but it wasn't too productive. My "night blindness" makes the night walks a bit problematic for me, but I was glad I missed this one. We woke to rain (the first!) for our journey back to Antananarivo and Hotel Sakamanga. Our farewell lunch at the hotel was great--the zebu carpaccio with parmesan was a true highlight--and we said our goodbyes and I went to the very large room there, this time beside the restaurant, for a shower and total repack of all my luggage.

I left the hotel for the airport at 8pm, and 41 hours later...I was home. (Slept on the flight from Antananarivo to Paris, yay! For the flight from Paris to JFK, we were on a bus getting ready to go the plane for about a half hour and then called off; they were using old school paper boarding passes and were trying to put everyone's back together. Odd. We left about 1 1/2 hour late, and thus had to wait 45 minutes for parking when we arrived at JFK. I then got an Uber to Penn Station, finally found the Amtrak waiting room that ISN'T Moynihan Hall (closed between 1 and 5 am) with the help of some lovely young ladies in vests--if you need it, it's a left turn just before you get to the point where you go down to Moynihan, and then an escalator and stuff. 4:20am train to Philadelphia, which was actually a lot more crowded than I expected. Home felt wonderful, even though the weather certainly didn't measure up to Madagascar.

schmerl

Amy, thanks again for sharing this report.
I know I don't have the stamina for a trip like this, so I appreciate the narrative and photos.

Amy

To be fair, I wasn’t sure a few times that I had the stamina either. 😏 I will say that I actually did better on the long plane ride than I had anticipated; just sorta went into vegetative mode. But there are definitely parts of the trip that I would have done better forty years ago…