Unique Places in Madagascar

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"La cote de vanille", is really of the beaten path....This coast line, is wild and untamed.
Many of the former pirates were living in this area, and you really fell like stepping back in time.

The roads are in a very bad condition, and you must be prepared to be "beaten up". This is really the hardest road, that I have ever done in my life. You may also be prepared for walking, if you want to do the whole distance. But the shape of the road very much depend of the weather, so you might be lucky to have a nicer "road trip" than we did.

The coast line is so lush and amazing.....And the children in the villages are very thrilled by seeing the "vasara" (white man).
Some of the villages on the road has some basic huts were you can sleap and get basic meals.

If you are walking, don´t forget to bring water for the day. In worst case, you can always find coconuts along the road.

The whole distance from Toamasina to Maroantsetra will take about 5-8 days by road.

This little village, is the spot from were you can take a boat to Ile st. marie, or the place to find some transportation if your are going further up the east coast. But you might not be lucky to get any transportation, as all the trucks are likely to be filled totally up. Then you have to go strait back to Toamasina, instead of spending days waiting as we did !!! In Toamasina you buy a ticket at the main station, try to pay a little extra to get the front set, believe me you wont regret it !!

I was stocked in Isora Ivongo for days....Not much happen in this town.....This is really of the beaten path.
The boat that goes for Ille st marie, are not the safest... they are mostly overcharged, and in a bad shape !! Adventure is garanteed.

If you take the boat, you shoul ask for a life jacket.

Anjajavy is an area of outstanding beauty on a remote peninsula in northwest Madagascar with empty beaches and deserted coves and forest with ebonies and baobabs, mangroves. There are fishing villages, lemurs, rare birds, amazing reptiles, and unique tsingy limestone rock formations.
The Anjajavy Hotel is the only place to stay here and is on a beach that overlooks theMozambique Channel.
There are many things to do here - forest walks, village trips, private beach picnics, boat trips to the Mangroves, snorkelling, fishing..............lemurs, birds, bats and other reptiles to see - a week is not enough here.
The hotel is luxurious - 2 storey chalets built from local materials overlooking the beach and sea, lovely gardens, 7 private beaches and a separate marina for watersports. Food is superb and is usually served in the garden, cocktails are great and the staff are lovely.
Best is the wildlife. You are surrounded by Lemurs - brown Lemurs and Coquerel's Sifakas, beautiful birds, and numerous reptiles and bats. All are easy to see on walks around the reserve, on the way to the marina and in the gardens.
There are no roads to Anjajavy so you have to take the flight from Tana which runs 3 times a week.

On June 26, Independance day, people in countryside (esp. in Tana) still celebrate it the "old" way.

After dinner, at 7-8 pm, families with kids go out with Chinese lanterns and make a procession through the village, call other families to join in, sing... If you are lucky, you would see musicians (or at least, those who play drums). End of June uses to be cold, that, however, doesn't spoil the fun. Just get yourself "warm wrapped" and the night is yours!
This is something I used to like as a kid :-)

Nowadays, June 25 (the eve) is a big time: fireworks everywhere, the biggest being those in big cities (Tana & the 5 other capitals of ex-provinces). In my village, no fireworks although as the Tana fireworks are visible enough & that I live North of Tana,- some 17km from the center-, one can still enjoy those. Also, in my surroundings (neighbouring municipalities), could be fireworks as well, in smaller quantity & less spectacular though... and very popular amongst country folks.

When you are in Isalo canyon, pay attention to what guides tell you and don't miss the picture of this La fenêtre (The Window)... Winds and rains combined their actions so as to give birth to such shapes.

I missed the pic though I was amazed by the shape of the rock, like it was the case for La Reine. I hadn't read any book on my visit so i didn't really know what I would encounter in the park. This was an experience!! See my 3 albums on Big South Journey for that (in my homepage).

BTW, ANGAP guide is a must-have while visiting such places.

A classical for tourists: trying to take pics of La fenêtre when sunrays passes through it while sun is setting.. either with them staging either the phenomenon alone.

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We had landed in Antananarivo and stayed a few days. Our first goal was to organise a boat trip down the Tsiribhina River. So, to get to the area where we could organise the trip, we had hired a driver and a car to take us all the way to Miandrivazo. The car/driver was organised by the excellent hotel - Le Royal Palissandre in the capital. It was a 2 day drive to Miandrivazo. We stopped overnight in Antsirabe and it was in this town that we organised the boat trip through a local guide called Gaby - who was excellent. We did not actually need to have hired the driver to take us to Miandrivazo as the boat trip which started from Antsirabe included the drive to Miandrivazo. It is better to sort things out in Antsirabe I think. We still went with our driver to Miandrivazo and enjoyed a leisurely drive to the remote village where the pirogue trip was to start.

Tip - Go for a pirogue (canoe) trip!! Forget what the guidebooks say about it being slightly unsafe. That is not the case in our experience. The small boats (tin baths) that also take trips are noisy and you miss the experience of being close to the water and the wildlife. Our trip included 4 days on the water, 3 nights camping on sand banks and then went on to take us in a 4x4 to the amazing Tsingy de Bemaraha and then the Avenue de Baobab before finishing in Morondava on the 8th day.

Tip - Be aware that you hardly come across electricity for the whole trip and so charging batteries and the like is not really possible.

On the usefulness of oxen: an essay :)

One of unusual features of Madagascar is that it counts as many human inhabitants as zébus, those humped oxen.

It is probably the only country in the world where beef-zébu meat is cheaper than pork meat...

With lemurs, ravinala, oxen are emblems of the Island. Zébus are in dishes, in the streets of countrysides, in ricefields... as Malagasy people eat them, work with them and, in rural areas, are "chauffered" by them.

Now you are wondering, how does a zebu look like ? Enlarge rthe picture and you would see. Only male zebus are humped, female zebus just look like cows. The hump is a piece of choice in Malagasy cuisine. It is fat (probably gives high cholesterol :) and fits to some specific dishes that require fater meats. Still, not everybody can cook trafony: one has to know it otherwise the fat would put you off. One may need fat for a dish but not all this fat. Slicing it off is not enough, cooking requires some maestrio as well.

It was when visiting Ambohimanga administrative bureau (my village, Malaza, is part of Ambohimanga Rova municipality) that I realized how important zébus are.

I was waiting for my IDcard to be renewed and sitting at the officials' desk when I saw a "Bokin'omby " (literally: Zébus book). It keeps track of the census of zebus in the area. I've never seen such a book in the past. I asked about it and was explained that for zébus being for a great value and often easily stolen by thieves, peasants have to declare the number of zébus they have to rural municipalities so that whenever the latter have to carry out inquiries, they'll use it.

A census for zébus cattles not for pigs neither poultry products. Though, pork meat is more expensive than zébu's in Madagascar.

At the Ankarana, a Special Reserve of the Amber Mountains, two hours away by road from Diego-Suarez are the blocks of basaltic and calcareous rocks with caves knwon as grottoes. In the caves, stalactites and stalagmites glisten with the pale light of torches. Bats get hardly restless. They flutter their wings so that the grottoes have life.

Visiting the Amber Mountains National Park can be done within one day. If you decide to camp there in order to enjoy the nocturnal life of its rich fauna, good walking shoes, ample garments and waterproof clothes, a torch and some waster and an anti-mosquito repellant are necessary. Schedule one camping night and two days of walk for Ankarana Special Reserve. The kit of the trekker and the camper is recommended. Tell your guide to accompany you.