Trekking without a guide

Unless you know someone in the village and park where you will be hiking at, it is very risky and I wouldn't advise ever just wondering around the woods in Madagascar or anywhere for that matter. Gasy can take great offense and you could stumble into areas that are fady (taboo) or burial places. Guides know what these are. Madagascar is a very traditional place, and those in and near the parks take great offense if you go into these types of place.

I lived there for two years and my husband is from there.

If you enter any of the national parks in Madagascar, you must be accompanied by a guide who is accredited with ANGAP, the parks authority. Quite apart from the risks described by #1, which are real, if you are found without a guide, you are liable to arrest and prosecution.

Most parks have patrols on the lookout for encroachment by local people, but who are also authorised to detain tourists encountered without a guide. If you're discovered by one of the guides, you're unlikely to be treated sympathetically, as you're effectively depriving them of a source of earnings. They will report you.

The south is certainly likely to be drier in December, but not warmer. The current temperatures in the North-East, for example are just short of 30 Celsius, and this will continue into December and beyond. "Rainy season" doesn't mean it rains all day and every day. You can get days, often several at a time, when you can enjoy brilliant sunshine, as well as days of continuous downpour.

In fact most parks would be perfectly safe and easy to explore on your own, if only you were allowed to - but you are not, in any park!

So any DIY trekking will have to be outside the park system.
You can still see some pretty scenery and experience the culture, but probably will not see much in the way of intact natural habitat and wildlife.

I'm certainly not immune to the feelings of irritation that sometimes get expressed on this forum about the need to be accompanied by a guide at all times in Madagascar's national parks. But it is necessary to remember that if the parks and the wildlife and plantlife that they hold are to survive, then it's necessary for the people who live close to them to be involved in the work of the parks and be motivated to conserve them. The guides rule ensures that the parks provide reasonably paid employment to more local people than would otherwise be the case, and the fee a guide earns often supports a quite a large number of people.

The same consideration applies to the dual pricing practice. A proportion of the high entrance fees charged to foreigners goes to financing projects in the local communities around the parks and so helps prevent encroachment and illegal hunting. The much lower entrance fee charged to Malagasy nationals encourages them to visit the parks and see them as their own valuable heritage.

In my opinion, too, Laszlo's comment "In fact most parks would be perfectly safe and easy to explore on your own" is too great a generalisation. On the one hand, it's in most cases true for experienced trekkers who have a responsible attitude and who take the trouble to get themselves properly equipped (although the valid points made by April at #1 are an issue for this group, too). On the other hand, there are also tourists coming in who seriously overestimate their own stamina and sense of orientation or who are ill equipped for what they want to do, and there are some who behave completely irresponsibly, even when they're accompanied by guides.

I do a lot of work together with the Masoala guides, and in recent years I've normally visited other parks in the company of one of the Masoala guides. As a result, I've heard a good many of the stories that guides tell each other about their clients, and some of them are hair-raising. There are people out there that I wouldn't want to let loose on their own in London Zoo, let alone in a national park in the tropics.

Fortunately this type of person is very much the minority, as the guides are quick to point out - but how on earth are the park authorities going to recognise in advance who is fit to go alone and who isn't?

Well, many countries with very similar parks (tropical forests with well-worn trails), such as Thailand and Malaysia, do allow unguided walking, and it works fine.

I would sort of agree that some income must be generated by the local people.

However when a day's walk in places like Andasibe or Ranomafana costs as much as an average monthly rural wage in the country, that is not what I can call reasonable.

In some parks I found rates lower, and guides very knowledgeable and helpful.
Those were worth the cash. Marojejy is a good example.

In others, there seem to be some real crooks around, who only ever get hired as they are compulsory. In Masoala, of all places, I was given a real criminal, who even tried to use police to extort money from me after I sent him off (thereby forgoing exploring the park).
And that bloke gets assigned to every other visitor as he gives a commission to the lady in charge of issuing permits in the office.
Such things could simply not happen if tourists had a choice over whether they want a guide or not.

But anyway, this is a take it or leave it situation for now.

The Masoala guides are expected to inform the police if they suspect someone is intending to enter the park without a guide, but they're supposed to just do it, not use it as a lever to extort money.

Laszlo, it'd be very useful if you could pm me with the name of the guide, approximately when this happened and also, if you know it, the name of the woman he's paying commission to (there are two women authorised to issue permits).

The last thing Masoala needs is that kind of behaviour.

I will happily name the guide here, as others visitors I have met have also had him assigned to them, and were very unhappy about it (he did not know the trails, forcing them to hire a second, local guide, asked for extra money on top of the official fee, etc).
They even went to the park office to complain, but never got beyond the desk lady whom they found "very protective of the guides".
Unfortunately, I only heard this AFTER I already agreed to hire that crook, and even paid one day's wage in advance on his request.

He is Dona, one of the pisteurs.
I don't know the lady's name, I only ever saw one in the office, kind of biggish.
I did however see Dona handing over some money to her right after he was assigned and introduced to me.

In fact before leaving, I got the email of the boss (S.H.) who asked me to send him an account how the trek goes and how the guide is (maybe he has heard complaints before), which I duely did but never heard back from him.

Thanks for the information Laszlo, I might have known it would be him. I’ve known Dona for many years, and in reality he falls more into the category of intellectually challenged loser than seasoned criminal. Getting onto the guide training programme was his big chance, and he’s going to blow it. In fact, I feel desperately sorry for him, but he’s not a person I’d want to have as my guide in Masoala. In contrast to other “guides pisteurs” he has an entirely unrealistic view of his own abilities and can be “economical with the truth”. Peer pressure from other guides and from his family should stop him making foolish threats, and I’ve passed your story on.

There are one or two aspects of your experience that need comment for the information of others visiting Masoala. “Guides pisteurs” are the cheapest category of guide in Masoala, currently at 10,000 ariary per day. Those based in Maroantsetra are in fact the young intake into the new training programme – they were started only in February and March of this year, and they simply haven’t yet had time to learn everything that a guide needs to know. If you ask for or are assigned one of them, you’ll normally get someone who is ambitious, enthusiastic and anxious to please, but not yet able or knowledgeable enough to give you the service you’d expect from the trained up categories “stagiaire” and “agréé”. If you want an experienced and knowledgeable guide, then pay the extra and ask for one of these last two categories if they’re available (they tend to get snapped up). “Guides stagiaires” currently cost 18,000 ariary per day, “guides agréés” are 24,000. In terms of ability there is in fact little to choose between them, and some of the “stagiaires” will ask you to pay the higher rate. This is not allowed, but you might consider doing it if you’re satisfied with their service.

There is one older, experienced “guide pisteur” called Augustin who I can recommend – the main reason he’s still ranked as a “pisteur” is that he doesn’t seem to be any good at exams.

I think you’re mistaken in believing Dona pays a commission to the woman you mention. I know her family’s financial circumstances, and I doubt if any amount Dona could afford to pay would interest her. There are any number of reasons why he might have handed over money to her, not least the fact that he tends to get used as a general errand boy.

Is she “protective of the guides”? Yes, certainly. And possibly in a way that tourists who have a complaint to make will find unwelcome. On the other hand, there are always two sides to any story, and when a tourist makes a complaint, she is only hearing the one side. Complaints do get passed on though.

A final important point – and I don’t know whether this has any relevance to your incident with Dona and wouldn’t want to judge. Anyone has the right to refuse to accept a particular guide, and also to ask for a different one if they’re dissatisfied with the one they’ve got, but if you accept a guide and s/he accompanies you anywhere or does anything for you, then the daily fee is due, and you’re expected to pay it. If you don’t, you’ll be seen as a swindler, and you can expect little sympathy. In Madagascar, the courts are not an option for settling disputes about the quality of service provided, and there are no brownie points to be gained by someone who can afford an intercontinental airfare to Madagascar refusing to pay 4 euros (or 6 or 10) to someone whose general economic position is light years away from their own.

Fortunately, cases of this kind are very rare indeed, and relations between tourists visiting Masoala and their guides are normally very cordial. However, there have been a couple of incidents in the past which have achieved legendary status and have no doubt been embellished in the telling, and these ensure that if a tourist does refuse to pay a fee which is seen as due, then the reaction will be a threat to involve the police.

You are making the wrong assumptions!

Just to be clear, I would like to press that I not only did pat Dona his due daily fee, but did so IN ADVANCE, at his own request! This rang the first alarm bells, actually.

After sending him off, he actually wanted to use police (unsuccessfully) to extort money for subsequent days, PLUS MORE!

Both myself and the other couple who had been unfortunate enough to have to use that crook specifically tried asking that lady to give us another pisteur, but she claimed none were available (a bit strange considering that there were not that many tourists around).
And the reason I asked for the cheapest category of guides avaiable was that I knew that having one was a mere formality. I knew more about wildlife than did Dona, the trail to Antalaha is impossible to miss, and even when hiring him I was still supoposed to hire rangers for exploring the park.

As a matter of fact, I feel it was something of a scam to be told that a guide is required merely to use the Antalaha trail.
As the policeman Dona tried to use himself pointed out, that trail is actually part of a public route system, passing a mere 1 km of the park, and in EVERY other national park that has a road through it, neither paying a park fee nor hiring a guide is necessary to use that road!

Sorry to say, but something definitely stinks in Masola.
The only park in Madagascar where I have encountered such issues.