We discovered it takes a long time to get to Madagascar from Denver! Even though it actually only took us 3 flights, we left on Monday afternoon and with the time change of 9 hours, we finally arrived on the island of Nosy Be on Wednesday around the same time. In order to take one of the best most straightforward flights, we first flew to Washington DC and stayed overnight in the airport hotel. The next morning was our long flight on Ethiopian Airlines, which was a new one for us. They have one of their newer planes flying the route from DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which takes roughly 13 hours. We found Ethiopian Airlines to be pleasant with tasty food and great service. They were advertising Ethiopia as a new destination in Africa and all of the images had us bumping it up on our list of places we want to travel.

We didn't have our boarding pass for Madagascar, as we had booked it under a separate ticket, but we were able to show our ticket on email and make it to the transit desk without having to pass through immigration, which was a huge bonus. Keep in mind, you wouldn't be able to do this if you were checking bags, which is one of the reasons we prefer not to, as we purchase separate tickets quite often! A few hours waiting in the Ethiopian lounge and we were on our way to Nosy Be, also on Ethipian Airlines. Each of our 3 flights ended up being about an hour delayed, but luckily we had plenty of time in between.

After 4 more hours of flying, we landed at the tiny airport on Nosy Be island. We purchased our visas on arrival for 35 EUR per person, a super quick process and they even took credit cards. One interesting thing that happened to us is that after placing the visa sticker in our passport and stamping it, the immigration officer asked us for a tip. It felt really inappropriate, but we gave him a 10 EUR bill and moved on. We were able to take out 800,000 Ariary each (about $185) of local cash at the ATM outside the airport where there was a security guard standing by who also asked us for a tip! We gave him a 2 Euro coin. A very interesting start to our time in Madagascar.

The island of Nosy Be is a popular destination amongst Europeans with direct flights from Italy and now Poland a few times per week. We found this out later after running into a lot of Italian tourists. As French is one of the official languages of Madagascar, you will also find a lot of French tourists. The islands are on the Northern side of Madagascar and we got the feeling that a lot of people come only here without plans to see much of the mainland, as it takes too long to get around. Due to a flight change to 1 day earlier on our next leg of the trip, we only had 3 nights in this area. One quick night in Nosy Be, another 1 night stay on the much smaller Nosy Iranja, followed by another night on Nosy Be. You could definitely spend more time in this area as we had originally planned.

Nosy Be

Nosy Be is Madagascar's largest and most popular tourist island. It hosts a small international airport and has a bustling oceanfront town called Hell-Ville, which was interesting enough that we had to look up its origins. Apparently, it was named after a French admiral with the name Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell. We didn't get to spend as much time as originally planned on Nosy Be, but if you have the opportunity to come here, there is a lot to do. Not only can you take the trip out to Nosy Iranja like we did, but there are several other nearby islands to explore. The islands nearby host a lemur reserve, snorkeling with sea turtles, or you can visit a ylang-ylang or vanilla plantation to see how the perfumes are made. We could see how people can easily spend a week here.

Despite all of the touristy excursions here, you are regularly reminded that this is still Africa. Along the roadside, you will find women carrying loads on the head, carts driven by the local zebu (a cattle with large hump), tuk tuks as a primary mode of transportation, and children selling bracelets and other goods on the beach. There are reminders all around that Madagascar is still a very poor country.

The views of the sea from Nosy Be are spectacular and both of the small hotels that we stayed in were extremely warm and welcoming. On our first night there, we stayed at the Panorama Villa hotel and enjoyed their spacious rooms, sparkling clean pool and sweeping views. After returning from Nosy Iranja, we stayed another night at the Maison Le Reve. The rooms seemed brand new and the hosts made our stay special with their kindness. It felt like we were part of their family! Both hotels were located about a 15 minute drive North from the hustle of Hell-Ville which made for a quieter and more peacful stay.

Nosy Iranja

We found paradise! Nosy Iranja is a small island gem that most people only visit for a quick day trip. Instead, we had arranged to stay on the island for the night in a small bunglow on the beach at Hotel Chez Olivia. We had a guide who picked us up from our hotel and brought us to the boat where we basically joined a day tour but we were the only ones who showed up with our luggage. The ride on the speedboat was just over an hour long and bumpy. Nosy Iranja is known for its 1km long sand bar that is exposed between 2 small islands, depending on the tide. When we arrived, it was low tide and you could walk out into the white sandy bottom for what seemed like forever.

Only 2 hours later, parts of the sandbar were already disappearing! Our time on the island included all meals, drinks, the boat round trip, the guide, and our stay in the bungalow. The cost was 120 Eur per person. For lunch, we ate with the group, and it was the biggest feast! We had potato salad, rice, fresh crabs, shrimp, whole prawns and steak bites, and an enormous fresh fish, followed by fruit. It was by far superior to any other tour lunch we'd ever had. After lunch, our guide walked us through the local town and over to the bungalows set on their own white sand beach. We couldn't get over how beautiful it was. Our bungalow was a simple A-frame with bed, shared toilets, and a curtain for a door, but it was lovely and had a nice breeze the entire time. We had snacks and beer while watching the sunset back on the sandbar, which was almost gone due to high tide. It was cool to see the waves crashing in from both sides. Dinner was pasta, chicken skewers and cucumber salad back at the bungalows.

The next morning we ate breakfast quickly, packed up and walked over to see the sandbar, as we had not seen it at the premium tide yesterday. We were able to walk on the sandbar just as it was emerging from both sides of the waves and we were the first ones there, exactly as we had hoped! After walking all the way across and back, we explored another hidden beach and did some snorkeling before having another full lunch and ride back on the boat at 2:30pm. We wished we could have stayed for another night on this beautiful island!

We ended up spending more time on the phone on our last night in Nosy Be due to a flight error where both of the tickets were purchased in only one of our names! It was a bit stressful but finally got worked out. However, we had to request a refund for one ticket that might or might not get refunded and purchased an additional ticket. We were really lucky that there were still a few seats left on both of our flights! Our hosts on Nosy Be brought us to the airport and we boarded our first Madagascar Airlines flight to the capital city of Antananarivo. Madagascar Airlines is a bit unreliable and difficult to book as they don't accept credit cards on their website. They also seem to change their flight times on a whim as we had experienced for 2 out of our 3 flights. We arranged airport pickup from our Antananarivo hotel and got our first taste of the city.

On our way from the airport we passed a variety of things from people working and living in huts on the remote fields, to the rough and congested streets of the city. It was already getting dark by the time we reached our hotel, La Varangue, which seemed like a little oasis. The hotel features an extensive collection of old cars and antiques covering the walls and tables.

The next morning we explored a small part of the city by foot before leaving for the airport. We paid 80,000 Ar each way to the airport, about $18. Depending on the traffic, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. We were lucky that both of our flights were on the weekend, so not too bad. Our next flight to Toliara airport went on time and we spend the remainder of the evening walking around the small town of Tulear.

Antananarivo

Antananarivo, or Tana for short, is the most populated city in Madagascar, with somewhere between 3-4 million people. The elevation is higher in Tana and nights are chilly. There isn't a whole lot to do for tourists in the area, and we really only had one morning to explore, as it was already evening when we arrived. We had dinner at our hotel which was mostly French cuisine and one of the nicer places to eat in the area. All of the hotel reviews recommended eating there, and it is not recommended to walk around the city at night. You get a sense of how poor Madagascar is when driving around Tana, a lot more trash and run down housing. Yet, on our morning walk, everyone was friendly and walking around in the daytime seemed fine.

We walked from our hotel down many stairs leading to the Analakely market area. Being Sunday, we think parts of the market may have been closed, but there was still a lot to see. We walked through many stalls of fresh produce, fish and meat. Many of the other stalls were set up selling clothing or other essentials. People were very friendly and we weren't bothered much as we walked around. We made our way back up the stairs and ended up purchasing a small framed piece of art with a map of Madagascar made out of different types of wood for about $9. If we had more time in Tana, there is the Queen's Palace ruin, now a museum, on top of the hill that many people visit, as well as a further excursion to a lemur park.

Toliara

We landed in the small airport of Toliara, formerly known as Tulear, located in Southwestern Madagascar. From the plane, the area looked very remote and desert-like with scrub brush, flanked by the sea. There weren't many transportation options at the airport, so ended up taking the one taxi, after trying to negotiate. We paid 40,000 Ar for the trip from the Toliara airport to town. After getting into town, we noticed that the number one mode of transport were bicycle rickshaws, which could be found everywhere. We checked into the Moringa Hotel, where we would stay for 1 night. The hotel was comfortable and modern and didn't seem very busy. We set out to walk around the town, making our way to the waterfront. On our way, we stopped by 3 ATMs trying to get more cash, as we still had yet to gather enough money for our guide. The ATM situation here is not good, and we were only partly successful with one. They are either out of money or rejected our transaction for other unknown reasons.

Toliara is known for its nightlife, and lots of people were out, especially getting ready for multiple large screen watch parties around the city for the World Cup final! We walked out on a rocky pier to catch the sunset and then stopped at one of the many bars to have a beer where they were also grilling up meat skewers. For dinner, we stopped at a well rated restaurant called Chez Alice where we ordered the mixed seafood plate that came with a whole fish, crabs, a small slipper lobster, shrimp and ocotopus. We had to finish off the meal by sampling the local infused rum and a friend banana with chocolate ice cream. All of this plus 2 large beers cost us about $25. Right next door, one of the World Cup watch parties was in full swing. People had already been there for hours and the game hadn't even started yet! We enjoyed watching the locals take part in soccer competitions and then got a bicycle rickshaw back to our hotel to watch the game in our room.

Our final beach destination in Madagascar, we had arranged to visit Anakao, a remote strip of beach really only accessible by boat. Its still on the mainland, just south of Toliara, but there are no roads to take to get there. We were due to meet at the Anakao Express boat at 9am, but first visited the local Bank of Africa, the nicest looking bank in town, to try to exchange some USD to Ariary. The money exchange places at the airport had horrible rates, where we were going to lose about $180 if we had exchanged there. The Bank of Africa was willing to exchange for close to the real rate, but we needed to have a special proof of stay from our hotel, which we didn't have. Running out of time before the boat, we planned to return there with the form after our trip to Anakao.

We spent the next two days on Anakao beach, with its white sands and turquise blue waters, resting up before the remainder of our journey in Madagascar by car!

Anakao Beach

Only accessible by boat, Anakao is home to a fishing village and is an up and coming beach and surfing destination. The Vezo people local to this area are known for the style of fishing where they take out small dugout canoes, called pirogues, and either paddle or attach a large square sail. We took the Anakao express boat directly to our hotel, the Maneva Beach bugalows, set on a quiet pristine section of beach away from the town. Our home for 2 nights, a small bungalow (with electricity!), beach chairs and a restaurant run by the family that lives here. On our first night, we were the only ones staying there. For $35 a night, we loved everything about it except for the bed, which was perhaps the hardest bed ever!

On Anakao beach, you can sit back and watch the local life, women walking down the beach with a basket of fresh fish on their heads, boys driving the ox carts on the sand, and fishermen sailing on the canoes. There weren't too many people trying to sell things but if you engage with them, you're in for an entire store of souveniers being set up on the sand in front of you. The women wait on the sand until they catch your eye and then there is no stopping them. A lot of the crafts are the same as what we've seen so far, mostly wood carved or shell items made into boxes, lemurs, baobab trees or jewelery.

On our second day, we relaxed at our bungalow and caught up on some writing. Then we sat in the sun and were once again approached by someone selling souveniers. This time we entertained her and ended up purchasing 2 silver bracelets and a set of three mini carved baobab trees, costing us about $23 total. After our shopping, we walked down the beach past the entire fishing village to the other side where we enjoyed the sunset. It was about a 20 minute walk from one end to the other. The village had row after row of fishing canoes lined up on the beach. A lot of the local kids were out playing games or making sand castles. All were very friendly and some wanted their pictures taken. After our walk, we made our way back to our bungalow where we had dinner, tasted their local rum, and called it a night.

We took the Anakao Express boat back to Toliara, where our guide, JB, and driver, Michel, were waiting for us. We were all glad that the plans had worked out, as they had left several days ago to drive from their home town to meet up with us. We found JB because of his trekking company, JB Trekking, in the town of Ambalavao, near the mountains where we will be hiking and camping. He was so helpful about the hiking, and when he learned about our other travels and the fact that we didn't have a driver yet, he made a proposal for the entire drive. Since we planned to find someone (as Madagascar is not one of those countries you can really navigate on your own), and his price seemed fair, we went with it. Both of them can speak English and we could tell right away that we could get along very well!

After getting in the car, we returned to the Bank of Africa to exchange our USD and this time were successful - we had the proper form! We made a quick stop for snacks and drinks at the grocery store before starting our long drive. We settled in for what would be a lot of hours in the car from this point on. JB and Michel did a good job of keeping their eye out for things to see along the way or making quick stops to break up the journey.

Driving from Toliara to Isalo

We left Toliara and followed the national route, RN7, one of the main roads cutting across central Madagascar. We were told that the drive would take us roughly 6 hours, which ended up being accurate. It was a little closer to 7 hours after we made a few stops. The road conditions varied greatly, from dirt or gravel roads, to paved roads with many potholes and ragged edges, to sometimes a little bit of normal pavement. About 2/3 of our trip was dodging potholes and weaving on the road to avoid damage. We quickly realized that a good tactic was to drive half on and half off the road, straddling the edge, and using the dirt for half the car. We were sharing the road with very few actual cars, but had to avoid things such as pedestrians, children begging for money or candy, bicyclists carrying huge loads, ox carts, herds of goats, local busses packed with people, and huge semi-trucks transporting things.

Our first stop was for a break at a small restaurant. JB told us it would be better off if we didn't eat anything there, so we believed him and just got a beer and ate some bananas he had bought us from the side of the road. Our next stop we were told that we would stop at a local rum distillery. We both had to laugh when we pulled up to the side of the road, no buildings in sight. We had pictured a commercial type distillery, rum tasting, etc. This was truly a local distillery, making rum right there on the side of the road using large vats to ferment the sugar cane pulp combined with water and tamarind. They leave it in there for 2 weeks and then distill it by heating with fire to boil and evaporate out the alcohol. They used a hollowed out tree with water to cool the pipes of rum. We got to taste it and it wasn't bad. The funniest part was that they are selling it in bottled water bottles, and the rum is clear, so it looks like they are just selling you water. JB purchased a bottle of it for later.

As we drove further on RN7 we started passing through more small towns, many of them with large signs and storefronts for gems. We learned that this area is really big for mining sapphires. Did you know that sapphires come in a whole rainbow of colors? This area is known for some of the rarest colors which are pink, violet and light orange. We stopped in the town of Ilakaka, where one of the world's largest deposits of sapphires was discovered only as recently as the late 1990's. The town boomed from a population of less than 100 to over 50,000. We could see the land was pitted with holes and workers out with their axes and shovels. We stopped at a gem shop that had a detailed display explaining how the stones are mined and later turned into gems. They also had a showroom of many different color sapphires for sale. It was interesting to learn about the process but we had mixed feelings, even though they claim their working conditions are ethical.

We ended our day, making it to the Isalo National park area just before sunset. We checked into our lodge for 2 nights, one of our more upscale stays, at the Hôtel le Relais de la Reine. We said goodnight to JB and Michel who are provided accomodation on the property, as is custom here since all tourists come with a driver and guide. After dinner at the hotel, we got to bed early as we had to be ready by 7am for our day in the park tomorrow.

Isalo National Park

Today was a full day of seeing the beautiful Isalo National Park! We left early, at 7am, and seemed to beat most of the other tourists into the park. First, we had to stop at the park office to register, pay and get the required NP guide. These fees had already been included in what we paid for JB's proposal. Soon, we were on our way with our guide Denis, who spoke excellent English. He's been guiding these tours for 20 years and knew so much about every plant (including its uses in traditional medicine), birds, insects, and the lemurs. We had no idea how long our hike was going to be today, with mixed reports online about the loop we were doing.

The landscape was beautiful and Denis called it the "Colorado of Madagascar" but we find it is similar to Western Colorado and also Utah. We hiked up to a viewpoint to see the area and then made our way down across a desert-like terrain where we arrived at an oasis where there was a clear fresh water pool and waterfall with many palm trees. We were offered to take a swim but it was only 9am, so we just enjoyed it and then moved on. We hiked for a while across more desert where the temperature was already rising. We reached the edge of the canyon wall and descended into a lush valley with very different types of trees. This is where we saw our first group of ring-tailed lemurs! The made the cutest noises and hopped from one tree to the next.

We passed through a campground where we would return for lunch, and on to see the blue and black pools. By then we were tired and hot and eager for a swim. After another 30-40 minutes, we reached the pools and swam in the cold water before returning to the campsite for our lunch. We're pretty sure the lemurs know about lunch time at the campsite because they were all around and very aggressive once you had your dessert of banana and pineapple delivered the the table! We had to fend them off while trying to take up close photos of them and the brown lemur even tried to jump on and grab Bryan! After lunch was a short hike out where our driver was waiting. All in all, the hike ended up being 6.75 miles, starting around 8am and finishing around 1pm. We rested up for a bit at the hotel and then went out to see the sunset at the Isalo window, a popular spot with many tourists trying to see the sun setting through a natural rock window. We had the best tour guide however, as we were the only ones with rum drinks mixed with ginger and a vanilla flavored tree bark, made from the rum purchased at the roadside distillery yesterday!

We had a shorter driving day today with only about 4 1/2 hours to get from Isalo to the town of Ambalavao. Ambalavao is the home base where JB and Michel reside and is a good middle ground for many of the destinations in Eastern Madagascar. We left the sandstone of Isalo and soon were surrounded on all sides by rural plains. It felt like we had just crossed into Kansas. From there, after nearly 2 hours on some of our best road conditions yet, the landscape changed again with granite peaks rising all around. We passed very few towns on the plains but had more and more towns as we got further East. We even pulled over on the side of the road once to take pictures where there were no cars passing by for many minutes, only one man on a bicycle. On the way, it was interesting to see that many people are hand making bricks using the red dirt and mud of the area. This was something we have seen throughout a lot of our driving, not just unique to one area. Many rural homes are made from the bricks and covered in clay mud with thatched roofs on top.

As has been typical in Madagascar, there were several police stops stationed along the way. They seem to be at the entrance and exit of some towns. Usually they may check documents of the driver, but near the end of our day today there were two who needed Michel to get out and have a conversation with them. It turns out, they were upset about the back window tint on the car, as it is not allowed. He explained to us later that you need required paperwork for each area and that he explained to the police the window tint was for security of the tourists baggage. We were able to pass after a small delay. Near Ambalavao, we stopped to have lunch and visit a lemur reserve for about 2 hours. After reaching Ambalavao, we were able to visit several unique workshops with local artisans, where we learned a lot.

We checked into our hotel at the Tsienimparihy Lodge where we had a basic but comfortable bungalow room. We had dinner with Michel, which was a treat, as we learned so much from him during that short time. We had a lot of questions about Madagascar's history which he was able to clear up, as well as general knowledge on how the tourism industry works. Ready for bed, we got some sleep before our big hiking days which will begin tomorrow!

Anja Lemur Reserve

The Anja Lemur reserve is located just outside of the town Ambalavao, and is a low-key experience in a small forested lemur reserve hosting ring-tailed lemurs. JB had called ahead to reserve our lunch and guide for the park. When we arrived, lunch was ready in minutes and we ate before heading out on our walk. We were paired with a very experienced guide named Adrian, who has been working there for 26 years! Also joining us were two younger spotters who helped locate the smaller hard to find animals such as the chameleons. Adrian had a vast wealth of knownledge and spoke very good English. We learned all about the lemurs habits during different seasons, who their different predators are (boa snakes and birds mostly), how they form tribes and that they usually give birth to one at a time. A fun fact we learned is that the ring-tailed lemurs all have 14 rings on their tails.

The Anja community was once known for hunting the lemurs because they destroyed their crops (apparently, lemurs love tomatoes!), but we learned that the reserve was formed in exchange for providing the farmers with special tactics on rice farming to increase their yield. The community promised to preserve the lemur population and it has grown significantly since then. On our walk, there were many ring-tailed lemurs about, and we were able to watch them as they snacked on the tree leaves and berries, and sunbathed. There were also several species of chameleon, very hard to spot unless you are looking very closely. There were several green chameleon and the others were brown and white. It was an enjoyable walk in the reserve which also backs up to stunning granite cliffs, perfect in the late afternoon sun. For the tour guide and entrance fees, we paid 120,000 Ar ($28) plus tips to the guides.

Ambalavao Artisan Workshops

Once in Ambalavao town, we made three quick stops to see different types of handicrafts produced in the area. This was all led by Michel, as we dropped JB off to go prepare everything for the hiking tomorrow. First, we stopped at a paper making workshop. The paper making here was first introduced by the Arabs, in order to make special papers for their Koran. It was later discovered and adopted by the French and made into more of a tourist production. Here, they make paper using the bark of a tree. They need to simmer and smash the pulp, then spread it out on mats, cut it and then decorate it with fresh pressed flowers before drying it. The paper workshop was already closed for the day but Michel did an excellent job of describing all of the steps to us.

Next up was the embroidery workshop. It was a quick stop to visit a storefront for handmade embroidery products. We were impressed by the workmanship and found a small embroidery square to purchase and plan to frame it at home. The cost was 60,000 Ar ($14) and we didn't try to negotiate. Our final stop was to visit a silk workshop. For this one we got the full tour of the different kinds of silkworms, naturally found and farmed. The two types are actually quite different and the process very long for the naturally found silk worm cocoons. The natural ones are processed and then cooked for several days, then taken out, washed and dried before being hand spun into the actual thread. We were able to see all of these steps in process. After the thread is made, it is dyed into a handful of colors all using natural techniques such as rosewood bark for red or papaya leaves for green. The dyes are fixed using natural methods and hand woven using a hand loom. Very impressive! We left there with a scarf, which will come in handy during the cold nights on our upcoming camping trip! The scarf was 150,000 Ar ($35) and we didn't argue about that price after seeing the entire process of natural silk making!