Introducing Western Madagascar

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.

Madagascar’s hard-to-reach western region – divided in two, with no roads linking the south and north – looks like it fell off another planet. It is pockmarked with trippy natural attractions. You can swim in a bottomless bowl of tomato bisque lapping against a deserted white-sand beach in the south – the ocean along the coast north of Morondava is a brick-red colour highlighted with a range of muddy browns (the odd colouring is, sadly, a direct effect of deforestation and erosion, which cause lateritic soils to leach into the water). Or to really blow your mind, walk the celebrated Avenue du Baobab, just outside Morondava, staring up at a line of giant trees more than one thousand years old.

In the national parks, forests of bizarre looking tsingy (karst) rise in spikes and crippled spires and create the kind of landscapes described in sci-fi novels. With thousands of acres of dry, deciduous forests, they are havens for hikers and cyclists. River rats can get their fix with a float trip down the Tsiribihina River, while scuba and sun lovers can spend days exploring uninhabited islands and diving in the coral reefs off the southwest coast near Bel-Sur-Mer.

Western Madagascar is also attracting a growing number of travelling lovebirds who fly in specifically to stay at the romantic, often luxurious, vaguely safari-style hideaways on secluded far-north beaches.

Getting There & Away

With the exception of the well-maintained Route Nationale 4 (RN4) between Antanana­rivo and Mahajanga, the roads in this region are poor (although slowly improving) and transport outside cities can be tough. The only way to get from Morondava in the south and Mahajanga in the north by road is to backtrack through Antananarivo. The road between Antananarivo and Morondava is in bad condition, especially during the rainy season, and the trip takes at least two days. The road north to Mahajanga is a pleasure to drive. The 560km stretch of pavement is one of Madagascar’s easiest road journeys and takes only 10 hours.

Flying is your best option for fast travel. Air Madagascar has regular flights to the large towns, plus twin-engine otters servicing the smaller villages. The fly-in resorts on the north coast use private charters.