Problem Transport from Morondava to Toliara

Bonjour à tous

I am planning to stay in Madagascar for 4 weeks ( end of december until end of january) with two friends. At the moment we are preparing a route for our tour. We want to start from Tana tavelling to the west coast ( Antsirabe, Miandrivazo, drifting down the Tsiribihina River, visiting the Reserve Forestiere de Kirindy and/or the Parc National des Tsingy de Bemaraha). Afterwards we want to travel from Morondava south to Toliara.

This route arises some questions for us and we hope that somebody here is able to give us some advises. First of all, ist this route possible in 4 week, especially in the rainy season?

We think that the main problem will be the transport from Morondava to Toliara. Unfortunatly there is not much said about in the Lonely Planet, except the possibility to fly ( due to the costs, we don't want to fly) and several camions-brousses connecting Morondava with Toliara during the dry season. Does anybody know if the vehicles also operate during the rainy season? If yes, what does ist cost and how much time it will need? Is there also the opportunity to rent a car ( including a driver)?

Thanks a lot for your help!!!!!

Steven

Hello,
For the Tsingy in Dec it's not possible it's closed at the end of Nov so just river trip and then visit Kirindy park then reach Morondava .
For the transport from Morondava to Toliary you can take taxi-brousse from there to Antsirabe and then Antsirabe to Toliary you need 03days for all but you can saty one night in Antsirabe because long journey and the road is bad (Morondava-Antsirabe) After here it's good road but it's far (800km).
It's good idea too rent car to make sur your security but depend your budget.
If you need more info, or need local guide who organise your tour write to me in my private message i'll send you his adress because here it's not legal.
Good luck!
Ken

Hi Steven,

Re #1: Of course it’s legal to post the address of a guide you’d like to recommend. The reason why “F3008” doesn’t do it any more (he used to) is that he himself is the guide he’s recommending.

He’s currently “Ken”, but if you follow his postings back through the search feature (instead of recent activity) you’ll find he’s had several different names in the past. You’ll also find that most – though to be fair not all – of his postings are similar to this, that is they don’t answer the question but try to persuade the poster to do something else that he as a guide can handle.

On what you actually want to know: Going south by road from Morondava to Toliara is, to put it mildly, challenging, and I’m afraid that we chickened out and took the soft option going round via Antsirabe. All the info we could get pointed to the route south being very time-consuming, with the risk of being stranded for days at intermediate points waiting for the next onward transport. At that point I didn’t have enough time to risk that.

If it was going to be challenging in the dry, then it’ll be even more so in the wet. I haven’t been to Morondava in the wet, so I don’t know if the transport keeps running – but a general rule in Madagascar is that if it’s at all possible for a vehicle to get through, then one will go. You would have to reckon with the trip taking much longer, and probably having longer waits for onward transport at intermediate points.

There was the possibility of renting a 4x4, but the price quoted was more than I was able to pay. It would have been cheaper to fly, but we didn’t want to do that.

In December and January, the Tsingy de Bemaraha are usually inaccessible, so that will save you some time. If you decide against trying to go directly south, then four weeks is enough to visit the parks along the blacktop road from Antsirabe to Toliara (Ranomafana, Isalo, Zombitse) and also Andasibe to the east of Tana after you’ve done your river trip and visited Kirindy.

Hi,
Your planning sounds very well but just two things which might be impossible;the Tsingy de Bemaraha and driving from Morondava to Toliary.
We've just done Morondava - Toliary last week.Almost all 4x4 drivers of Morondava refused to do it.By chance we met the only one pick up driver who accepted.
It's true there was a river to cross just one hour after leaving Morondava.The water level is now getting very high but the driver knew his car very well and he could drive us to the other side safely.Afterwards no more problems.However he told us that it might be his last time to cross this river untill next year .
We think the best way to reach Toliary after Morondava is to fly(150€).Then you can drive back up step by step doing those National parks till Tana aftewards.(Isalo,Ranomafana and Andasibe at the end).You can also do the famous train Fianarantsoa -Manakara before Ranomafana.
However I personally advise people to contact in advance someone who knows and able to arrange everything for them.You're free to contact any tour operators or local guides of your choice . As for us we wrote to one guide in advance which could make everything very clear to us and we decided to do most of out trip with him.
If it may help you I can give you his address.He is very efficient and reliable and is recommended by many guide books.His name is Désiré and he works for a small tour operator in Antsirabe but he can also do everything on is own.his e-mail address is :
"discovermad@yahoo.com"
Wish you good luck and enjoy mainly your river trip but also the rest.
Damy

I found about 10 days ago (before it started raining) that camion brousse only went from Morondava to Toliara every 3 or 4 days. As I did not want to wait for 3 days, I chose to go back to Antsirabe and take R7.
Most taxi brousse from Morondava to Toliara take that route, running daily.

I imagine transport along the coastal route will become even more rare as the rains have now started!

My replies in this thread might be of some help
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1629125