INTRODUCTION TO MADAGASCAR
Madagascar has no parallel: an extraordinary storehouse of natural and cultural riches, it makes experienced travellers question what it means to say a country is unique. Separated from Africa and Asia at the time of the dinosaurs, animal life here has evolved in a startling myriad of forms, creating a profusion of endemic species found nowhere else on earth. Humans were not part of that process: they first colonized this huge island less than 2000 years ago, when it was a primal Eden, inhabited only by its bizarre and marvellous zoological cornucopia. As biologists discover more and more about this remarkable place, calling it the eighth continent barely does it justice: second planet seems more appropriate.
Routinely treated as a part of Africa, Madagascar’s distinctiveness is apparent from the moment you arrive: in the glinting lakes and rice fields; the brightly painted, double-storeyed, balconied houses; the rickshaws and zebu carts; and above all in the people themselves, with their Austronesian features and jangling, guttural language, spoken throughout the island.
Madagascar is not Africa: this is a country of the Indian Ocean. No amount of travel in Africa can prepare you for the beauty of the local architecture, the elaborate tombs that sometimes seem to outdo the houses of the living, or the famadihana exhumation ceremonies that – literally – give the dead a party once every seven years, allowing people to come face to face with the deceased. Very quickly you discover that while elements of Malagasy life – love of cattle, traditional clothing, bush taxis (taxis brousse) – seem to derive from Africa, the people live in a world dominated by spirits and elaborate cultural rules derived from very different roots on the other side of the Indian Ocean.
Equally, no African safari can prepare you for the intimate thrill of crouching among the rainforest foliage as lemurs float through the branches just above your head, while a chameleon stalks along a twig at arm’s length, a chaotically coloured frog gulps at your foot, and implausibly shaped insects do battle on a nearby leaf.
Some aspects of the Malagasy experience are sadly – globally – familiar: environmental destruction is an ongoing and desperately serious problem here. The old practice of slash-and-burn agriculture – exacerbated by corporate plantations – has reduced a vast proportion of the ancestral forests to a barren, scrub-covered steppe of ochre earth and dust, and the annual rains sweep more and more of the increasingly Red Island – as it is sometimes known – into the sea.
Nevertheless, where the natural vegetation remains, Madagascar’s landscapes often present entrancing tableaux. Dripping emerald rainforests, baobab trees like giant windmills towering over the savannah, and crazy outcroppings of limestone pinnacles, like a million wonky Gothic church spires, compete for your attention as you move north and south and through the island’s climatic zones.
If the national parks can look like some artwork created by Roger Dean for a particularly intense Yes album cover, the human landscapes are equally captivating: in the highlands, a thousand shades of green dazzle from the terraced rice fields, framed by dykes of red earth; water-filled nursery paddies reflect a cerulean blue sky and towering granite mountains, daubed by the pastel images of rows of multicoloured Hauts Plateaux houses.
On the east coast, you’ll find golden beaches framed by huge boulders and palm trees, lapped by the bath-warm Indian Ocean – and pummelled by annual tropical storms. Out to the west and south, rolling plains of dry savannah and range lands are interspersed by dense and alien spiny forest and carved by broad meandering rivers.
And the practicalities of travel itself? This guide goes into plenty of detail, but the most important message is to give yourself time. Madagascar is vast, and most of the roads (such as they are) radiate out like spokes from the capital, so getting around needs planning, and you’ll probably need to include some internal flights. Happily, hotels and restaurants, road transport, park entry fees and park guides are all inexpensive: and when you do get to your destination, up some remote track in the bush, or off a tiny airstrip on an offshore island, the rewards – in the form of the wildlife and the welcome from your Malagasy hosts – are great and lasting.
FACT FILE
- Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo), measuring 587,040 square kilometres – more than twice the size of Texas and nearly two-and-a-half times the size of the UK.
- At the last official estimate in 2011, Madagascar’s population was just under 21 million, giving the island a population density (35 per square kilometre) comparable to that of the USA.
- The country’s official languages are Malagasy and French, though English is increasingly important.
- Traditional religious beliefs are still widely upheld and adherents often combine them with membership of one of the country’s churches. There are some 4 million Roman Catholics, and 3.5 million members of the FJKM (the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar). Muslims, who form around 5–7 percent of the population, are less likely to adhere to older beliefs.
- Madagascar’s independence was returned to it, from France, on June 26, 1960. After years of chaotic dictatorship, the country now has a presidential, multi-party democracy. The president is elected by popular vote and selects a prime minister to form a government. Politics tends to be personality- rather than issue-led.
- Madagascar’s natural heritage is increasingly recognized as a global scientific resource. Dozens of new species are discovered every year: more then 100 species of lemurs are now recognized (from the ape-sized indri to the smallest mouse lemur) and nearly 80 species of chameleons (from specimens the size of a small paper clip to giants as big as your arm) are endemic to the island. Many more species are likely to be discovered in the years ahead – environmental destruction permitting.
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Where to go
Dominating the heart of Madagascar in every sense, Antananarivo is very likely to be your point of arrival. Charmingly adrift and unfamiliar, Tana, as it’s known, is a city that beats to a blend of traditional and modern rhythms, where shopping malls and urban transit systems have yet to make an appearance among the few spires of glass and concrete.
Antananarivo lies towards the northern end of the Central Highlands. This region of rugged ranges and plateaux is the cultural heartland of the Merina people, whose dominance over most of the island was established early in the nineteenth century. In towns like Ambatolampy, Antsirabe, Ambositra and Fianarantsoa, you’ll see traditional architecture, horse-drawn buggies and Malagasy crafts, with famadihana (reburial) ceremonies taking place through the dry season, while outside the urban centres there are hikes and natural areas to explore such as the Réserve Villageoise Anja, which protects several groups of ring-tailed lemurs, and the rainforest of the Parc National de Ranomafana, amid a landscape dominated by terraced rice fields and pastel-coloured village houses.
East of the highlands, Madagascar’s steeply sloping spine remains largely swathed in rainforest, cut by rushing streams and negotiated by just two main roads and a couple of decrepit railway lines switchbacking down to the coast. The country’s most famous national park, Andasibe-Mantadia, is located in the eastern rainforest and is home to twelve species of lemurs, including the largest – the wonderful, wailing indri. The sultry east coast features a gem of an island – beach-fringed Île Sainte Marie – and marvellously remote and rewarding rainforest areas in the shape of the tiny island reserve of Nosy Mangabe and the magnificent mountainous national parks of Masoala and Marojejy.
The island’s northern tip is crowned by the extraordinary natural harbour of Diego Suarez, with its necklace of beautiful beaches and diving spots. This town is the natural access route to the little-visited mountain rainforest park of Montagne d’Ambre and the spectacular limestone pinnacle landscape of Parc National d’Ankarana. Here, you’re within striking distance of the alluring island of Nosy Be on the northwest coast, sheltered from Madagascar’s easterly cyclones, fringed by beautiful if relatively exploited beaches, and dotted with resort hotels. To escape the high-season crowds, focus on the smaller satellite islands and remote mainland hotels.
Much of the vast region of western Madagascar – flatter and much more low-lying than the east – is barely visited backcountry, lapped by the relatively sheltered, mangrove-fringed Mozambique Channel and dotted with old fishing and trading ports such as Majunga, Morondava and Morombe. While the towns tend to be rather washed-up and the beaches aren’t the best, the snorkelling and diving can be excellent. Natural highlights such as the dry woodland of Parc National d’Ankaranfantsika, the nocturnal wildlife of the Kirindy Private Reserve, and the stunning specimens on Morondava’s Allée des Baobabs are magnetic in their own right. Above them all, though, is the utterly otherworldly limestone pinnacle landscape of the Tsingy de Bemaraha; with its almost impenetrable forest of rocky needles, it’s a paramount goal for many visitors, if never easy to reach. If you have enough time, the Bemaraha is often best accessed by one of the navigable rivers that flow through it.
In many ways southern Madagascar – drier and more temperate with its remarkable spiny forest ecosystem – is a different world. Parts of the region, especially the driest districts in the southwest, are areas of semi-desert, where impoverished pastoralist peoples like the Bara and the Mahafaly count their blessings in the number of zebu cows in their herds. The biggest attractions here are the sandstone canyons of Parc National d’Isalo, the high peaks of Parc National d’Andringitra and the habituated ring-tailed lemurs and “dancing” sifakas of the Réserve Privée Berenty. Mountains join the sea at the isolated and historic outpost of Fort Dauphin, in the far southeast, the dry spiny forest meeting the moist tropical environment of the east coast in a delightfully scenic, rewarding location, with great beaches and outstanding faunal reserves.
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When to go
At a latitude stretching from 12° to 25° south, Madagascar is well inside the tropics at its northern end and just outside the Tropic of Capricorn in the far south. Mexico and Queensland lie on similar latitudes.
With its climate dominated by the Indian Ocean’s southeastern trade winds, the island has a clear seasonal cycle. A hot, wet summer – between November and March – brings anything up to 4m of drenching rain to the eastern slopes and highlands, roughly four times the UK’s typical annual rainfall in the space of a few months. This is the season when ferocious cyclones hit the east coast and ravage their way inland – busting bridges, sweeping away roads and riverbanks and making travel extremely difficult. The rains are heavy but much less voluminous in the west and southwest of the island: and down in the semi-desert of the far southwest they don’t always do much more than spatter the parched earth. For the rest of the year, roughly from April to October, Madagascar experiences a dry, cool season – what naturalists call the austral winter. Overall, this is a good time to travel: days are bright and usually warm to very warm and nights mild. Temperatures are highest at sea level and also higher in the north and on the west coast. The south can be much chillier: July in Fort Dauphin will have you glad of a fleece and an extra blanket at night.
For particular activities, bear the following in mind. In the highlands, above about 2000m, it can rain at almost any time of year and nights at high altitude can be bitterly cold, though freezing temperatures are rare. If you’re doing some hiking or climbing, you will need warm layers. It also tends to rain heavily most months in the northeast of the island, with the Masoala Peninsula and Baie d’Antongil like a greenhouse most of the year. Natural history enthusiasts should know that during the austral winter trees lose their leaves, animals are less active and some species hibernate, though whale-watchers can enjoy a continuous regatta of humpbacks up the east coast (and to a lesser extent the west) during their June-to-September northerly migration past the island. November is often recommended as a good time for wildlife, with the first rains bringing out an explosion of courting, mating and spawning among amphibians, reptiles, birds and the fabulous fossa. Diving and snorkelling are best at the end of the dry winter season, roughly from August to October, when the sediment brought down by the rivers during the rains has had time to disperse and settle.
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Highlights
1 Fianarantsoa Fianar’s hilltop old town is one of Madagascar’s most picturesque, with narrow lanes and views across the modern city and its rice fields.
2 Parc National d’Andasibe-Mantadia Wonderful lemur-watching, including troops of habituated indris, plus night walks and decent hotels, just a three-hour drive from Antananarivo.
3 Île Sainte Marie This beautifully unspoiled island is quieter than Nosy Be, with the jewel of Île aux Nattes at its southern tip. Leave time to get back to the big island: it’s easy to get stranded by the weather.
4 Réserve Spéciale de Nosy Mangabe Heaven on a plate for beach-bum natural history buffs, with leaf-tailed geckos camouflaged obligingly on every other branch and a beach to make grown men cry.
5 Parc National de Masoala The real-life version of your local rainforest experience, complete with tumbling streams, buttress-rooted forest giants and thousands of life forms. Take a waterproof.
6 Nosy Be Madagascar’s most developed concentration of tourist resorts is low-key by global standards. Get away from the beach hotels and out to the offshore reefs or up to the hilly interior.
7 Allée des Baobabs and Kirindy Private Reserve Worth the special journey for the towering “tree-elephants” and the exhilarating nocturnal animal life of Kirindy, including fossas.
8 Tsingy de Bemaraha Hard to get to, but worth every ounce of effort for the extraordinary expanses of weirdly eroded limestone pinnacles, cut through by winding rivers.
9 Parc National d’Isalo A park of big landscapes, lush canyons and wide horizons in the dry savannah, with easy access, good hotels and camping.
10 Sainte Luce Reserve Moist coastal forest and creeks, home to lemurs and chameleons, with glorious beaches and onshore whale-watching, as well as some excellent guides.
ITINERARIES
THE NORTH: PARKS AND BEACHES
Almost all trips in Madagascar start and end in Antananarivo. Allow 3–4 weeks to cover the north by a mixture of road and air travel – or skip half these stops and do it in 10–14 days.
1 Antananarivo Give yourself a couple of days to visit the Rova palace compound and the old royal capital of Ambohimanga.
2 Parc National d’Andasibe-Mantadia Get up early to walk into the indris’ territory and hear their extraordinary call. Then plan a night walk looking for chameleons and mouse lemurs.
3 Île Sainte Marie Fly or ferry out to this old pirates’ hideaway, then rent a scooter and explore its jungle paths, clean beaches and limpid waters.
4 Nosy Mangabe Organize a boat and guide to this fabled, forest-stacked island – home to aye-ayes, leaf-tailed geckos and a host of other species, some almost certainly still to be discovered.
5 Parc National de Masoala Easily visited on the same trip as Nosy Mangabe, you can camp here with locals or stay in a fancy lodge on the beach. Either way, the steep paths of the Masoala rainforest start at your doorstep. Every minute of every hike yields wonderful sights and discoveries, from vangas to boas, from tenrecs to sportive lemurs.
6 Diego Suarez Cosmopolitan, warm and breezy, Diego Suarez – with its picturesque views and superb watersports – is the perfect rest stop between national parks.
7 Parc National de la Montagne d’Ambre Much easier to explore than the other rainforest parks, and still bursting with life, the Amber Mountain and the little town of Joffreville are worth a day and a night.
8 Parc National d’Ankarana If you don’t have time to take a boat trip to the Tsingy de Bemaraha, then this fascinating eroded plateau is the next best thing: lemurs and plenty of reptiles inhabit this rocky fortress. Take good footwear.
9 Nosy Be Don’t be put off, don’t be intimidated: Nosy Be’s beaches are beautiful, the resort trappings pretty tame and the interior well worth exploring. Don’t forget a trip to the wonderful Lokobé reserve.
10 Parc National d’Ankaranfantsika Deciduous dry forest meets lakes and erosion gulleys in this enjoyable and accessible park between Majunga and Antananarivo.
THE SOUTH: FLIGHTS, HIKES AND HIGHWAYS
Allow three weeks to cover the south by air and road. Be sure to leave time to get back to Antananarivo at the end of the trip. Renting a car and driver for the last few days of this itinerary is a good idea, rather than relying on Air Madagascar.
1 Antananarivo Visit the capital’s historic sites and markets, walk through the old quarters and check out some of its many restaurants, bars and clubs.
2 Morondava Get a flight to this west-coast port and hire a cab to see the unmissable Allée des Baobabs and do some night walks in the stunningly rich Kirindy Private Reserve.
3 Tuléar Fly south to the capital of the Vezo fishing people, with its great seafood restaurants: then taxi north to Ifaty and Mangily for spiny forest and take a boat south to snorkel and relax on the beach at Anakao.
4 Fort Dauphin Fly to Fort Dauphin: watch whales and the crashing surf, or spend a few days in natural history heaven at Sainte Luce, Berenty or on the Mandrare River.
5 Parc National d’Isalo Back in Tuléar, rent a vehicle and driver to tour up the scenic RN7: hike in the magnificent canyons of Isalo and pause at Parc National Zombitse-Vohibasia en route.
6 Réserve Villageoise Anja Stay at a charming bed and breakfast and make an early morning start on a hike through the home territories of delightful ring-tailed lemurs.
7 Fianarantsoa Explore the Merina people’s cultural capital, with its fascinating hilltop old town.
8 Parc National de Ranomafana See the rare golden bamboo lemur, along with countless other species, in this rugged and memorably scenic rainforest park.
9 Antsirabe Spend a day in this nineteenth-century spa town, shopping and eating (and possibly trying the waters, if they ever reopen the baths), before driving back to Tana.