Madagascar - Adventures among lemurs, forests and sea

It's my first "DIY" trip and in Africa on top of that. I must admit it was Vi, my partner, who made me discover the joy of travelling independently and I'll never stop thanking her for it.

We arrive in Tana on 13 August, staying at the Sakamanga. The next day a visit to the city zoo, very nice in a large park: an excellent appetiser for the excursions into the nature parks. In the evening a delicious little dinner of king prawns at the hotel restaurant. On 15 August the adventure of the "taxi brousse" begins: little vans where you travel squashed in and that leave when the vehicle is full. We head east: a stop at Andasibe where we stay in the bungalows of Feony Ala in the heart of the forest. An evocative and wonderful place, but be careful because in the evening it gets very cold! Two excursions: one at night with few sightings but very atmospheric, and one during the day to see the very charming Indri with its characteristic call. Then we return to Tana and continue our journey along the highlands road: the RN7, and we stop at Antsirabe.

We stop for two nights in the city of the pousse-pousse, learning in the end to like the friendly driver-porters despite their pushiness, and we do a lovely mountain bike excursion to Lake Tritriva. Then we continue to Fianarantsoa and there we decide to hire a car (with driver) from a very small agency (a bungalow in front of the station). A wonderful excursion to Ranofama park, full of lemur sightings. Our plan then calls for going further east to reach Manakara on the Indian Ocean. Here you get the feeling of being truly lost in the middle of the world. Very nice is the pirogue excursion along the Pangalanes canal and the visit to a typical village with vanilla plantations, the national product. At Manakara the train awaits us to take us back to Fianarantsoa and it will be a fantastic adventure.

The train leaves ten hours late due to a breakdown, and so, contrary to plan, we covered almost the whole 150 km from Manakara to Fianar in the dark with only the light of the fireflies to keep us company. Every stop (one every ten minutes!) is a party: fires, children selling every kind of food, including all the possible recipes you can make with bananas, people continually getting on and off. A unique experience. Then we return to Fianar at 4 in the morning; luckily a hotel opens its door for us. The next day an early start and, in a single day, a return towards Tana where we stay a couple of days, making a quick trip to the fun Lemur Park, a zoo park full of all the lemurs (semi-domesticated) that we had or hadn't managed to see or photograph on the long treks through the parks.

Then on 25 August the second part of our holiday begins, where we planned to do much more relaxing (that is, sea) and less adventure. With a domestic flight we then land at Diego Suarez airport and, on the plane, we decide not to go straight to Diego but to visit a small fishing village flagged up by the Bradt Guide (our faithful companion). After a fierce negotiation with the taxi drivers who feel emboldened by the fact that we're practically in the middle of a barren desert, they drop us at our destination. We fall in love immediately: the water is crystal clear, the sun finally beats down warm. We find a charming little spot on the beach run by a French family: three delightful little rooms with the restaurant alongside. We stay a good four days among blue sea, fish barbecues and excellent fruit rum (a true speciality).

Then on 29 August we return to Diego Suarez, a very characterful and lively little town where we practically sleep at the home of a friendly gentleman. From here we approach our final destination: Nosy Be, but first we treat ourselves to a fantastic day: we hire a 4x4 (again with a guide) that takes us to see the stunning red tsingy (strange rock formations created by erosion) and the sacred lake Anivorano, where we manage to see a crocodile in the wild, attracted by our noises. In fact at this lake they are used to making sacrifices of zebu to the crocodiles with songs and dances, and so as soon as they hear noises they surface: for me it was an indescribable emotion. Then we camp for two days in a wooden and straw bungalow to explore the Ankarana reserve.

This is an even more demanding visit than the previous ones and I must admit that between mosquitoes, mice and cockroaches I often wished I were in a resort. Anyway, we do two beautiful excursions. The first is very tough, ten hours among very friendly crowned lemurs, gigantic ficus trees and the extraordinary grey tsingy, perhaps less beautiful than the red ones, but these stretch for square kilometres in an extraordinary lunar landscape. The second excursion is half a day, where we go into an enormous cave and experience the thrill of being in the company of thousands of giant bats called flying foxes. Then we set off again, again by taxi brousse, towards the island of Nosy Be, where in the end we'll only stay a couple of days. The island is much more touristy than all the other places we'd been to before put together, but it has some very beautiful beaches.

Worth flagging is an excursion to Nosy Komba and Nosy Tanikely: a boat trip, breathtaking snorkelling (for the first time I see a turtle!) Then another domestic flight takes us back to Tana.

I've tried to be as concise as possible, but there'd be many stories to tell for every day of travel on the fantastic island of Madagascar, in particular about the ever-smiling and helpful inhabitants, despite the great poverty that, especially in the capital, is all too evident. I recommend everyone to travel this wonderful island backpacking; we should in fact point out that we were never in a situation of difficulty or danger. It gets chilly in the evening so you need to bring a fleece if, like us, you arrive during their winter, even if in that regard the Malagasy seemed to us a little over the top (like people going around with scarves and little hats). Moreover, the days are unfortunately very short; however I think it was a good thing to have arrived in this period, otherwise I reckon that, especially because of the humidity of the forest, we'd have died of the heat.

For the flight (Air France with a stopover in Paris) we paid 1,480 euros each plus another 380 for the two domestic flights (very expensive!!!). As for the rest, it's all very cheap, especially sleeping (we stayed in small hotels but always decent ones). Getting around is strangely more expensive than accommodation and food because in Madagascar fuel is very expensive. Anyway bear in mind that we paid about 800 euros each for everything else and, in 24 days of stay, we really didn't deny ourselves anything, including three days of car hire with a guide available 24 hours a day and a day's hire of a 4x4.

As for vaccinations we had hepatitis A, B, typhoid and antimalarial (Lariam). If you need any other info feel free to contact me. Bye everyone!