August 2007
I managed to get a little time off for a holiday. Was sad to leave the volunteers I had made friends with, but really welcomed the opportunity for a break. The availability of a free 4x4 ride from the village to Tulear (8hours south), was too good to miss, so by 6am I was packed and ready to leave. However, I did feel slightly that I was leaving like a thief in the night as I didn’t get to tell many people that I was off.
4x4’s are not the most comfortable ride on the coastal track and by the time 7 hours was up I was thoroughly exhausted. We usually ride in the back of a camion (a truck with canvas top) We put down some foam and though it is 12 hours and sometimes a little packed with bodies (23 is definitely too many as we found out once),including bags and lunch etc, it is a slow but steady journey and more comfortable than the 4x4 which is also really expensive (200 Euros a journey).
Having been to Tulear a few times now there are definitely favourite places to eat. And after leaving site, food is the most craved substance of all. Cortez Malteze is my favourite place for filet de Zebu (cow with hump) in a camembert sauce. Unfortunately it wasn’t open. Rubbish.
Nothing is easy to organize in Madagascar and trying to get to Tana (Antananarivo) was no exception. Flights were all booked so opted for the taxi-brousse, in this case a small mini-van loaded with everything.
Tulear is generally just a functional place for us in between expeditions. However it is not very functional at all when everything shuts down at 12midday and doesn’t re-open until 3pm and then closes again at 5pm, and nothing is ever open on a Sunday (we ended up having a snack lunch at a service station). Very few hours to spare and everything takes forever. So trying to find an internet café that was open took a while and we were getting slightly nervous that we would miss our transit to Tana. Stupid me, of course everything in Mad is ‘mora mora’ slowly and Malagasy time – late.
18hours later we were in Tana trying to organize a quick exit to Diego Suarez and sort a few bits and bobs. Travel being what it is, meant that we were still unable to book a flight for some reason and just had to turn up at the airport. We were told that there were a lot of seats until we arrived at the airport to find out that it was full and we had to pay a 1/3 again for club seats. We got a small sandwich and a glass of fruit juice for our money! It was a beautiful flight though, got to view Nosy Mangabe, and Sambava coastline, the mountains close to Diego Suarez and Petite Sugar Loaf (Nosy Lonja).
Diego Suarez was not much to write home about, it appeared that the only way to visit things were on tours. We found this out the hard way as tried Montagne D’Ambre, and found it cost us a fortune (wouldn’t have paid that much in the UK for sure) and to be fair it was a very generic forest park. So having met up with a couple of funny French girls we pooled our resources and planned a trip to National Park Ankarana via Tsingy Rouge.
Tsingy Rouge was fantastic, great views, and a nice walk up a braided river channel to the small eroded tsingy pinnacles, very fragile as made from sand.
Ankarana was almost overwhelming, walked through lively forest and across a dry river bed littered with volcanic and limestone rocks, up the limestone kharst to amazing views over the grey tsingy. We dropped down into a few caves, some large spiders and massive bats (80cm span), then walked along the top of the tsingy to return and were greeted with a visit from the crowned lemurs hanging out in trees very close to the clearing, and a large chameleon not trying to run away. Second day involved a 12km hike out to some more fields of Tsingy, a green lake, and an introduction to climbing crowned lemurs who were very photogenic and friendly. The heavens decided to open on our return so the lost river was not so lost and actually pretty wet as were we all.
Managed to hitch a lift with a 4x4 to Ankify, the port to Nosy Be, so avoided the taxi-brousse crush and horror, hopped in a speed boat to the island and arrived in time for lunch. Our residence looked sweet, but full of mosquitos, and when we were told to make sure we double-locked everything, even when we were in, it left me a little worried.
Gutted that all the live-aboard boats had already left or were full, we booked diving. Rain stopped our play the next day, so we rented a quad and toured the island. Highlight was definitely an abandoned and rusted sugar mill. Trains and everything left in situ and we could just walk around and look at all the machinery. Would be a death trap to the average child and I could see it as one of the 80’s safety ads (like don’t play on the railway lines, or fly kites near overhead power cables etc).
Got a little wet but not too bad!
Two rather generic dives the following day, some strong current but better visibility than we are used to in the south, but nothing special, so a bit disappointing. Heard about the dives for the following day and couldn’t choose between all the options. 3 sites I wanted to go to, but only enough money for two. In the end I made the wrong decision and missed the opportunity to see a manta ray by going to another fringing reef. Horrors of the dive center (no first aid kit, or even a plaster) and general grumpiness made the day a little bitter, in addition to NOT seeing the manta as was talked out of it by Bad dive center owner (obviously trying to sell his dives). Having said that, the sites were pretty and there were many hawksbill turtles and blue spotted rays to be seen.
Flight out of Nosy Be almost went a little wrong with not being able to book flights again, had to turn up and hope, though they were full, a few seats opened up. But almost got very stuck as they would not accept a credit card and had to dig around to find the money in three different currencies.
Back in cold Tana, and any tan I thought I had got has disappeared already. Hoping to head out west now, but chilling and looking at photos before getting on the road again.
I managed to get a little time off for a holiday. Was sad to leave the volunteers I had made friends with, but really welcomed the opportunity for a break. The availability of a free 4x4 ride from the village to Tulear (8hours south), was too good to miss, so by 6am I was packed and ready to leave. However, I did feel slightly that I was leaving like a thief in the night as I didn’t get to tell many people that I was off.
4x4’s are not the most comfortable ride on the coastal track and by the time 7 hours was up I was thoroughly exhausted. We usually ride in the back of a camion (a truck with canvas top) We put down some foam and though it is 12 hours and sometimes a little packed with bodies (23 is definitely too many as we found out once),including bags and lunch etc, it is a slow but steady journey and more comfortable than the 4x4 which is also really expensive (200 Euros a journey).
Having been to Tulear a few times now there are definitely favourite places to eat. And after leaving site, food is the most craved substance of all. Cortez Malteze is my favourite place for filet de Zebu (cow with hump) in a camembert sauce. Unfortunately it wasn’t open. Rubbish.
Nothing is easy to organize in Madagascar and trying to get to Tana (Antananarivo) was no exception. Flights were all booked so opted for the taxi-brousse, in this case a small mini-van loaded with everything.
Tulear is generally just a functional place for us in between expeditions. However it is not very functional at all when everything shuts down at 12midday and doesn’t re-open until 3pm and then closes again at 5pm, and nothing is ever open on a Sunday (we ended up having a snack lunch at a service station). Very few hours to spare and everything takes forever. So trying to find an internet café that was open took a while and we were getting slightly nervous that we would miss our transit to Tana. Stupid me, of course everything in Mad is ‘mora mora’ slowly and Malagasy time – late.
18hours later we were in Tana trying to organize a quick exit to Diego Suarez and sort a few bits and bobs. Travel being what it is, meant that we were still unable to book a flight for some reason and just had to turn up at the airport. We were told that there were a lot of seats until we arrived at the airport to find out that it was full and we had to pay a 1/3 again for club seats. We got a small sandwich and a glass of fruit juice for our money! It was a beautiful flight though, got to view Nosy Mangabe, and Sambava coastline, the mountains close to Diego Suarez and Petite Sugar Loaf (Nosy Lonja).
Diego Suarez was not much to write home about, it appeared that the only way to visit things were on tours. We found this out the hard way as tried Montagne D’Ambre, and found it cost us a fortune (wouldn’t have paid that much in the UK for sure) and to be fair it was a very generic forest park. So having met up with a couple of funny French girls we pooled our resources and planned a trip to National Park Ankarana via Tsingy Rouge.
Tsingy Rouge was fantastic, great views, and a nice walk up a braided river channel to the small eroded tsingy pinnacles, very fragile as made from sand.
Ankarana was almost overwhelming, walked through lively forest and across a dry river bed littered with volcanic and limestone rocks, up the limestone kharst to amazing views over the grey tsingy. We dropped down into a few caves, some large spiders and massive bats (80cm span), then walked along the top of the tsingy to return and were greeted with a visit from the crowned lemurs hanging out in trees very close to the clearing, and a large chameleon not trying to run away. Second day involved a 12km hike out to some more fields of Tsingy, a green lake, and an introduction to climbing crowned lemurs who were very photogenic and friendly. The heavens decided to open on our return so the lost river was not so lost and actually pretty wet as were we all.
Managed to hitch a lift with a 4x4 to Ankify, the port to Nosy Be, so avoided the taxi-brousse crush and horror, hopped in a speed boat to the island and arrived in time for lunch. Our residence looked sweet, but full of mosquitos, and when we were told to make sure we double-locked everything, even when we were in, it left me a little worried.
Gutted that all the live-aboard boats had already left or were full, we booked diving. Rain stopped our play the next day, so we rented a quad and toured the island. Highlight was definitely an abandoned and rusted sugar mill. Trains and everything left in situ and we could just walk around and look at all the machinery. Would be a death trap to the average child and I could see it as one of the 80’s safety ads (like don’t play on the railway lines, or fly kites near overhead power cables etc).
Got a little wet but not too bad!
Two rather generic dives the following day, some strong current but better visibility than we are used to in the south, but nothing special, so a bit disappointing. Heard about the dives for the following day and couldn’t choose between all the options. 3 sites I wanted to go to, but only enough money for two. In the end I made the wrong decision and missed the opportunity to see a manta ray by going to another fringing reef. Horrors of the dive center (no first aid kit, or even a plaster) and general grumpiness made the day a little bitter, in addition to NOT seeing the manta as was talked out of it by Bad dive center owner (obviously trying to sell his dives). Having said that, the sites were pretty and there were many hawksbill turtles and blue spotted rays to be seen.
Flight out of Nosy Be almost went a little wrong with not being able to book flights again, had to turn up and hope, though they were full, a few seats opened up. But almost got very stuck as they would not accept a credit card and had to dig around to find the money in three different currencies.
Back in cold Tana, and any tan I thought I had got has disappeared already. Hoping to head out west now, but chilling and looking at photos before getting on the road again.
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