"Repoblikan'i Madagasiraka" a Madagascar Travel Page by JustinJansen

Madagascar, "The Great Red Island" as it is often called, is officially known as the Malagasy Republic. It is the fourth largest island in the world (594,180 sq km) and is a land of sheer beauty. Ringed by golden beaches and date- palm trees, the interior varies from grassy plateaus, to volcanoes, and impenetrable equatorial forests. It is lush with a great variety of fruits such as mangos, grapes, peaches, peals, pineapples, avocados, and lichee nuts. All about are colorful flowers in abundance: orchids, violets, and mimosa.

Antananarivo (pop 4,000,000), the capital, is a picturesque city with narrow sloping streets and houses that seem to cling to the hillside. The open market, characteristic of all of Africa, is most exhilarating. There you will find the long black vanilla beans sold in little packets to be used in many ways. but mostly in flavoring fruit. A large portion of the crop (120 million vanilla beans) makes its way to the U.S.A. every year from Madagascar. Everywhere you see scallions, turnips, tomatoes, and a variety of green vegetables. And there is always plenty of fish.

The people of Madagascar (16.97 million) are mostly Malayan Polynesian with some admixture of Indian, Arab, African, and European. There are eighteen major ethnic groups, including Merina (27%), Betsimisaraka (15%), Betsileo (12%), Tsimihety (7%), Sakalava (6%), Antaisaka (5%) and Antandroy (5%).
Despite the variety of races one language is used throughout the island, Malagasy; the second language is French. Rice is the staple of the island and is served three times a day. Most of it is home grown.

You can recognize the influence of the French in the food, which is not as highly spiced as in most of Africa. While the curry is much like that of Malaysia, subtle and not overpowering, it is just different enough to be interesting

On the map along side is mentioned where we went to on our trip!
1. Ramanofana
2. Isalo National Parc
3. Zombitse
4. Ifaty
5. Toliara
6. Mahajunga
7. Ampijora
9. Perinet/Mantadia

The best times to go are April to October (the southern winter) is the best time to go; you will miss the sticky southern summer (November to March), also known as hurricane season. But because Madagascar experiences wide climatic variation, the central highlands can still be pleasant during summer while the east coast gets most of its rain between June and September.

The trip was made as followed:

Arrived late at night in Antananarivo and slept in a small hotel about 7 kilometres from the Airport. Already arranged a bus and driver for the next days!
Drove on 22 august towards Ramanofana and had lunch at Antsirabe!
From 22 to 25 august we where at Ramanofana, then we drove to Fianarantsoa and spent the night over there. Next day we drove to Ranohira and spent our night there and watched some birds at Isala NP. Next day via Zombitse Np we drove towards Tulear (Toliara). Next day we headed towards Ifaty and spent 2 nights here. Then we flew by plane towards Majunga (Mahajanga) via Tolanaro (Ford Dauphin), Anatanarivo. After a night here, we drove to Annaofasika spent two nights her and drove back to Mahajanga. The day after we drove thewhole way towards Antananarvi. After a short night we went for our final stage towards Perinet/Mantadia and fle on the 1th to Mauritius again.This trip was made for birds and lemurs. We succeeded in seeing except 11 species all endemics for Madagascar and logged no less the 19 mammal species, including some very good lemur species!