Madagascar – what do I say?! Absolutely sensational! One of the most fascinating trips I’ve ever done!
But, that said, it is probably not for the faint-hearted and definitely not for the luxury-only traveller. Not because it is unsafe – far from it IME, but the infrastructure makes it challenging – although at the same time therein lies a large part of its immense appeal.
For anyone who can’t cope with long periods of time travelling over rough roads, constantly slowing down to negotiate very decrepit sections of even sealed roads, Madagascar won’t be for them. However, for the person who can sit for long periods watching a passing and evolving landscape, vegetation, social and agricultural kaleidoscope, it is a place nigh on impossible to beat IMO. Sitting in transport reading a book and hardly looking out of the window defeats the purpose of going to Madagascar, it seems to me. Despite infrastructure challenges, the standard of accommodation exceeded my expectations.
This may sound like heresy but for me, as a biologist, it rivalled – if not exceeded – the Galapagos (and I did the full two-week double loop in a small boat there). Challenging the Galapagos in landscapes, in many ways more exciting, unique and diverse in plant and animal life, and definitely far richer in the human culture (in the social, not artistic/construction sense).
Things can get a little shambolic with travel. Definitely do not rely on Air Madagascar internal flight schedules; they chop and change like mad! They have very few aircraft – but the ATR72 I flew on was very new and the B738 was in good nick.
It might be worth putting in perspective and giving some background information about this generally off-the-radar country.
Sometimes called the ‘eighth continent’, Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries. The population is about 24M, so about the same as Australia. The demographic profile is scary: >60% of the population is aged <25years and total fertility is 4.3 births/female. The primary ethic origins of the Malagasy people are Malay (predominant in the east and highlands) and East African (predominant in the west). A pre-travel factoid that I found interesting was that Madagascar is one of the darkest places on earth at night. Certainly small towns and villages had no distributed power and large towns and cities have very limited street lighting.
Madagascar lies in the tropics so most of the time it was like being at Broome - which of course is rather nice in July. The highlands have pockets of rainforest and can be very cold at night. True size superimposed on (the most relevant part of
) Australia. Latitudinal extent is about that of NZ. It’s the world’s fourth largest island. Another look at the (slightly inaccurate) schematic of the route.
Tana is a fairly nondescript city. The French influence is evident - 2CV taxis and baguettes. Buzzing markets. It was easy to walk around and hassling by street sellers was minimal to non-existent. Generally, I found the Malagasy people to be reserved, almost to the point of shyness. The old railway station is rather fine - now tourist-orientated shops and a French-style bistro.
The first item on the agenda was to head east from Tana to the Perinet NP for two nights and some fairly slippery trekking in the rainforest in search of lemurs. It is famous for the Indri lemur which has a very piercing, melancholy song. Tana and the park at about 1300m but the park, being in the east, is much wetter. Typical of most of the island, intensive agriculture dominated by rice paddies occupies coastal flats and river valley floors and terraces, with brick-making an associated enterprise. Architecture is very often region/tribe/village-specific in style and varies substantially. My first lemur (a sifaka or ‘dancing’ lemur – definitely not easy to photograph with a pocket camera!) sighting at a reptile reserve.
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