After Andasibe, we had a long day of driving to Antsirabe. En route we stopped to watch local craftspeople work- we saw aluminum pots being made, miniture bikes crafted out of recycled goods, zebu horns sculpted into every shape imaginable, gems, and textiles. The following day we arrived in Ranofama.
It was raining heavily as we arrived so our night walk was pushed back a day. But the morning brought clear skies so we did a 3.5 walk in the park and saw four types of lemurs. The highlight was watching a family of five bamboo lemurs playing in the trees for 15 minutes. And we managed to keep the leeches away from our skin.
Our night walk kicked off with a mouse lemur in a tree and included sightings of chameleons and two kinds of frog. So Ranofama was a success from a wildlife viewing perspective.
The next morning we set off on the long drive to Andringitra with stops to see silk and floral paper production. Getting to Andringitra requires a 2.5 hour drive on a rough, unpaved track so many people miss this incredible park.
We arrived at Camp Catta around 3 pm and were greeted by a gaggle of ring tailed lemurs that eat the leaves from the camp’s trees. Between the gregarious lemurs and the camp’s playful puppy, Rich was in animal heaven. At dinner, our guide for the next day’s hike came by to give us trail options. With encouragement from Fali we opted for the longest- an 8 hour hike.
We left camp just after 7 and hiked to a lovely natural pool. Then we started to climb. We rested after about an hour of climbing and our second guide met us with our lunch and a rope. At 11 we reached the summit. We spent an hour at the top and had lunch. We assumed we’d then start to descend. But lo, after a short descent, we started to climb again. And at one point we faced a sheer rock face and our second guide scurried up barefoot and lowered a rope for us to climb. This was the first rope section.
We hit a second summit and then we really started to descend. We used one more rope on the way up but the scary part of the hike, for me at least who is afraid of heights, was lowering ourselves down a flat rock face using the ropes. I’m glad we did it. Quite the experience. And we felt we’d earned our post hike drinks as we watched the lemurs play in the trees at camp.
From Andringitra we drove to our last park in Madagascar, Isalo. Isalo, like Andringitra, is in a desert area and on the drive we saw local kids pushing carts down the road loaded with water jugs since many towns lack a water supply.
We did a seven hour hike in Isalo. The early part of the hike took us past burial caves of the Barra tribe, one of Madagascar’s eighteen tribes. We hiked to a pool with a waterfall and to a campground for lunch where we saw ring tailed lemurs and a sifaka. After lunch we hiked to more natural pools and had a swim in “the black pool” which was lovely but quite cold. Toward the end of the hike went back through the campgrounds and saw a brown lemur.
Next up was some R&R on the beach. First we went to Itafy where we went diving. The morning of our dive, there was high wind, making our dive iffy, but the weather calmed down in the afternoon allowing us to dive. The visibility was just OK, but there were brightly colored corals and fish in abundance.
From Itafy we drove to Tulear where we parted from Fali and took a boat to Anakao. Anakao was a deserted beach paradise. We were there three nights in a cabin on the beach looking out over a sandbar and the island of Nosy Ve. The first two days were spent swimming, wandering the beach, eating fresh seafood, and reading in the hammock on our deck. The third day we took a local sailboat to Nosy Ve and went snorkeling. Our captain/guides caught fresh fish and cooked them on the beach for us for lunch. It was a great way to wind down after a hectic couple of weeks of nonstop travel.
From Anakao, we headed back to Tulear and flew to Tana. We spent a little longer than expected at Tana’s airport when our tour company forgot to pick us up. Once they came for us, we did a city tour of Antananarivo with a funny, passionate rasta guide. The next day we flew to Johannesburg where we spent the night before flying to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.
