Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, Madagascar is the world's
fourth-largest island. Madagascar split from Africa during the Early
Jurassic period, around 180 million years ago, and separated from the Indian
subcontinent approximately 90 million years ago. This isolation allowed native
plants and animals to evolve in relative seclusion; as a result, Madagascar is a
biodiversity hotspot and one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, with over
90% of its wildlife being endemic.
Getting there ...
We continued our journey from
Istanbul to Madagascar in the early morning at 2:30AM on 10/14 and landed in
Antananarivo Airport (TNR), Madagascar at about 2:30PM. In fact, the
flight made a stop at Mauritius first, and the majority of passengers actually
got off at Mauritius and the plane was quite
empty when we continued to Madagascar. In the late September before
our trip, there were breakouts of Gen Z protests in the capital city
Antananarivo (aka Tana) triggered by frequent water and power outages in the
city. The protests had turned violent and casualties had been reported.
We were concerned about the trip safety and we had heard some tours had been
canceled. After some discussion with our tour company
Cactus Tours, we decided to
continue our trip plan since most of our itinerary will be in rural national
parks and nature reserves.
Day 1 (10/14) ...
- The Antananarivo Airport (TNR) is surprisingly
new and modern. The immigration and luggage handling were efficient
and fast. However, when we were picked up from the airport and driven
to the hotel in the city, we immediately felt the "true" conditions of the
country. It's sad to see many kids running beside our car to beg for
something (money or candy, etc.). We were warned not to go out in the
city by ourselves. When we just walked out of our hotel to take a few
pictures on the street (still just at the hotel door), the hotel staff was
nervous and tried to escort us back to hotel as quickly as possible.
Day 2 (10/15) ...
- Drive from Antananarivo (Tana) to Andasibe
After the breakfast, we
drove to the popular Andasibe-Mantadia National Park on the east side of
Madagascar, through the scenic but winding Route Nationale 2 (RN2).
The road condition was OK (a few newly paved sections), but there were a lot
of big trucks on this
narrow
"highway".
Day 3 (10/16) ...
Day 4 (10/17) ...
- Andasibe Village
We walked through the Andasibe Village and had a
close look at the local market and streets to see how local people live.
Day 5 (10/18) ...
- We started early this morning to continue driving east to Palmarium
Reserve. The road condition was getting worse in this part as there
were many broken asphalt sections which need to be repaired. We had an
early lunch at a newly opened Chinese restaurant in a small local town.
The Cantonese
fried rice was the best food I had in this trip :-)
- Palmarium Reserve is on the scenic Canal des Pangalanes and accessible
only by an 1-hour boat ride from Manambato.
- Aye-Aye
One of the main reasons to visit Palmarium Reserve is for its
easily observed aye-ayes that live semi-wild on a small, forested island.
We took a boat after sunset to the Aye-Aye Island to the pre-planned
location to wait for aye-ayes to appear. The aye-aye is one of the
most bizarre animals in the world. It has rodent-like teeth that
perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger that they can use to catch
grubs and larvae out of tree trunks. It is the world's largest
nocturnal primate. The aye-aye was thought to be extinct in 1933, but
was rediscovered in 1957. The aye-aye is often considered evil by
local cultures, and is killed on sight.
Day 6 (10/19) ...
The Indri is the largest and heaviest living lemur.
Its voice is one of the world's "great" nature sound. Groups start calling
with a breathless hooting, and then break into long, slurred loud notes, almost
deafening at close range. Our guide triggered the calling, and then you
can hear what happened next (video).
We then walked to the lake shore and tried to find one of
the special frogs, Madagascar Reed Frog. Since it was close to the
end of the dry season, it was not easy to find any frogs around the lake beach.
When we almost gave up and started to head back, our guide suddenly found a frog
under the leaf of a bush. A minute later, we found another frog in a
nearby tree too. I think Woanyu was extremely happy with the outcome :-)
- Lake Beach
We had a relaxed afternoon and went to the beach for an
easy stroll. I took a nap in our room (in the mosquito net) with lake
breeze, and Woanyu went to the lobby area to play her games (with Internet
access).
Day 7 (10/20) ...
- Back to Antananarivo (Tana)
It was a long
journey to go back to Antananarivo: 1 hour of boat ride, and 8 hours of
driving (including a 30-min lunch break and a couple of rest stops).
The narrow highway was
busy from time to time with many construction blocks. We also saw
quite a few accidents (a truck
fell under the bridge) and broken trucks abandoned on the roadside.
Day 8 (10/21) ...
- Morondava
We had an early morning flight (schedule changed from
9:45AM to 7:30AM a few days ago) from Antananarivo to Morondava (West
Madagascar). Although it was early in the morning (5AM when we left
the hotel), we enjoyed the smooth drive in the quiet city atmosphere.
After arriving in Morondava, I was trying to get some cash from an ATM at a
local bank. But after waiting in a line for 40 minutes, the ATM did
not work for me...
We started our 2-hour bumpy drive north to Kirindy
Reserve, and passed by the famous Baobab Avenue. We stopped by for a
few pictures but did not stay too long because we will be back to the Baobab
Avenue on our last day for sunset and sunrise.
-
Kirindy Reserve
After the lunch at the hotel (Relais du Kirindy) and an
afternoon break, we headed to the Kirindy Reserve at 3PM to search for
wildlife. When we arrived at the parking lot of the reserve, we
immediately saw a group of Sifaka jumping around the trees above us (video).
The animals we saw:
Verreaux's Sifaka,
Red Fronted Brown
Lemur, Madagascar
Hoopoe, Crested Coua.
Kirindy Reserve is famous because it has the best chance to see and
photograph a “Fossa” in wild, Madagascar’s largest carnivore. But
unfortunately, we did not have our luck today.
After a break at the parking lot, we continued to have a
night walk at a different section in the Kirindy Reserve. We saw 3 kinds
of nocturnal lemurs:
Pale Fork-Marked Lemur,
Red-Tailed Sportive
Lemur, Grey Mouse Lemur.
Day 9 (10/22) ...
- Kirindy Reserve
We had an early start to visit
Kirindy Reserve in the morning. But after 2 hours of wandering in the
forest, we still did not have the luck to find a fossa...
- We continued to drive north to our next destination: Tsingy. It's
a long bumpy ride (total ~ 6 hours) with 2 river-crossings (video).
When we were close to the 2nd river crossing (not far from the destination),
one car in front of us
broke down and could not start again. We had to help them pick up
one of the passengers and some of their luggage, and dropped them off to
their hotel before went to our own hotel.
Day 10 (10/23) ...
- Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park
The Tsingys are karstic plateaus in
which groundwater has undercut the elevated uplands, and has gouged caverns
and fissures into the limestone. The dramatic limestone karst rock
formations are like a forest of often razor-sharp shards. The word
tsingy is indigenous to the Malagasy language as a description of the karst
badlands. The word can be translated into English as where one cannot walk
barefoot.
We started early at 5:30AM (with the packed breakfast from the
hotel) and picked up our local guide Edila before headed to the park.
It's another bumpy ride for about an hour. To our surprise, we saw a
fossa when we entered the Tsingy National Park boundary. The fossa ran
across the road in front of our car. Although it was a short 5-sec
encounter and no one had time to take any picture, it was really lucky to
finally see a fossa, Madagascar’s largest carnivore.
We were the 2nd car
arriving at the parking lot of the
trailhead. After putting on the climbing harnesses, we were ready
for our adventure in Tsingy. We chose the more challenging route to
climb up through the caves. When we started to climb among the
limestone karst rock formations, it felt like we were on a different planet!
There were two viewing platforms and one suspension bridge, and views around
us were just incredible beyond words. I think it is definitely worth
the long drive (more than 15 hours round-trip) through the bumpy dirt roads
to visit the Tsingy National Park.
When we returned to the forest floor, we saw another
lemur species, Decken's Sifaka. Although I could not get any decent
photos, Woanyu captured them well in
video. On
the way back to the hotel, our car stalled and could not re-start at one point,
and we had to get off and push the
car to get it re-started.
- Soleil des Tsingy
Since we started early in the morning, we could come back to the hotel in
time for lunch. In fact, we were the only guests having lunch in the
hotel (others all had packed lunch to go). When we relaxed in the
hotel, we started to smell fire burning and we could see smoke very close to
our hotel. Although the staff explained it was a Malagasy tradition to
do controlled bush fire,
we were still worried in case the fire was too close or out of control...
Day 11 (10/24) ...
- It was another long drive day to go back to Morondava. The plan
was to see the sunset at the Baobab Avenue before go to the hotel in
Morondava. We retraced the route we came from, two river-crossings and
170km of bumpy dirt road (video,
from Soleil des Tsingy to Baobab Avenue) with a few photo and rest stops
along the way.
- Baobab Avenue
After 9.5 hours (about 7.5 hours of driving and ~ 2
hours of break (lunch+rest+photo)), we arrived at the Baobab Avenue at about
4PM. Baobabs are long-lived deciduous, small to large trees from
5 to 30 m (20 to 100 ft) tall. There are eight recognized species of
Baobabs, with six endemic to Madagascar. Three types of Baobabs can be
found in the west Madagascar area. Grandidier's baobab (or the giant
baobab) is the biggest and most famous of Madagascar's six species of
baobabs. They can reach 25 to 30 m (82 to 98 ft) in height. The crown is
flat-topped, with horizontal main branches (like umbrellas).
More people started to show up during sunset time
(~5:50PM). I moved to a location across a pond from the main Baobab Avenue
where I could see sunset and reflection of Baobabs.
Day 12 (10/25) ...
- Sunrise
We got up early to drive to the Baobab Avenue at 4AM for
pre-dawn and sunrise. When we got there, we could still see stars in
the sky with a faint pink glow just above the horizon. I used the same
pond but at the opposite position to wait for the sunrise. It was a
perfect sunrise to conclude our 12-day trip in Madagascar.
Going Home ...
After went back to the hotel for a quick breakfast, we headed to Morondava
Airport at 7:20PM for our long journey home: 1.5-hour flight from
Morondava (MOQ) to Antananarivo (TNR), 5-hour layover at TNR, 12-hour flight
from TNR to Istanbul (IST), 4.5-hour layover at IST, and 13-hour flight from IST
to SFO. After more than 40 hours on the road (or in the air), we were
finally back home. I would like to thank
Cactus Tour to make our
Madagascar trip a truly amazing journey. From the planning with Rina, our
knowledgeable and reliable guides Nandih (east) and Liantsoa (west), to every
detail and request during the trip, we felt we were well taken care of and we
enjoyed every moment of experiences (and luck).
Although Madagascar is one
of the poorest countries in the world (its GDP (nominal) per capita is only $616
in 2025, ranked 191st out of 196 countries), the people here are warm and
genuinely welcoming. Although Madagascar does not have good infrastructure
for luxurious travel (road conditions, WC in the field, etc.), its untamed
nature and biodiversity are stunning and second to none. We spent more
than 20 hours (daytime and nighttime) in the jungle forests, and found 19
different lemur species. I do hope the new
government in Madagascar (after the protests this time) can do better for its
country, and bring better life and prosperity to the people, and continue to
preserve the precious ecosystem here.
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