Eastern Madagascar
Pirates aren’t stupid.
Pirates aren’t stupid.
Mada’s second city, Toamasina (often still known by its French name Tamatave) was developed as a resort during colonial times.
Hot, weird and wild, Southern Madagascar is a cinematographer’s wet dream.
Driving the thousand odd kilometres between Antananarivo and Toliara on the famous Route Nationale 7 (RN7; Route du Sud) takes you straight through Central Madagascar, where the scenery is as stimulating and surreal as the culture.
The ‘wild west’ attracts two types of cowboys – those in search of tough travel in rough country and ones looking to charter a private plane to the ultimate hidden paradise.
Fort Dauphin (its rarely used Malagasy name is Taolagnaro) was just starting to become a popular stop on the tourist trail; then a group of rich foreign companies decided to extract titanium from the soil outside town, and ruined it all.
Madagascar’s second-largest city, Fianarantsoa, is nothing to write home about.
Slightly grimy and definitely sweltering against the humid backdrop of the Tropic of Capricorn, the ‘white city’, so-called by central highlanders because of the light-coloured buildings, is becoming southern Madagascar’s leading town.
There seems to be a pousse-pousse (rickshaw) for every person in Antsirabe (ant-sira-bay), a bustling city where the look and attitude is classic highland Madagascar.
Mahajanga is a sprawling and somnolent port town with a palm-lined seaside promenade, wide avenues, shady arcades and walls draped with gorgeous bougainvillea.
Morondava is a laid-back seaside town with sandy streets and gently decaying clapboard houses.
Maroantsetra (maro-ant-setr), set on Baie d’Antongil near the mouth of the Antainambalana River, is a remote and isolated place full of languid charm, surrounded by beautiful riverine scenery.
Antananarivo is a bustling place with activity on every corner.
Parc National de l’Isalo (ish-ah-loo) covers 81, 540 hectares of the eroded Jurassic sandstone massif of the same name.
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