Itinerary advice - west or nearer Tana

We are currently on a tour that started in Tana today (29th) and will generally follow RN7 to Antsirabe, Fianrantosoa, Isalo and then finish in Fianarantsoa on the 6th. We need to be in Tana by the 16th of December so between the 6th and 16th we have time. Cost is an issue; we don't want to spend too much, but equally don't want money to stop us seeing the best sights.

A possible route we considered was going straight from Fianarantsoa and then heading west to Morondava, maybe having a night there, doing Avenue of the Baobabs and a beach, and maybe a couple of other nearby places. Would we absolutely have to hire a car with driver in Fianarantsoa or would it be easy to make the journey to Morondava by taxi-brousse and then get around by taxis and taxi-brousse?

How easy is it to hire a car and driver in Fianarantsoa, and does anyone have any recommendations? I've read about people picking up empty cars on their way back to Tana; how would we do this?

If it would be a faff to go west, our other option is to continue our RN7 tour and end up in Tana on the 7th - we could then do Andasibe and other stuff from there. What would you recommend for our short-ish time frame?

Big thanks in advance!

Hi there,
If you have 10 days left from Fianarantsoa, you can drive to Morondava, and I would like to suggest you to hire a car from there to Morondava, the road is good so you don't need to hire 4WD, you can visit Kirindy and Baobab forest on 1 day then back to Morondava, this place hasn't beautiful beach so you have to drive 15 km from this town to Ankimony then back to Morondava. I want not to recommend you take a taxi- brousse because it's not comfortable and you will lose many hours waiting the bus will be full. From Morondava you can drive back directly to Tana and visit Andasibe if you like and continue to Ampefy .
Good luck!!!!
Terreza

Why you go back to Fiana from Isalo? Just carry on to Tulear by taxi brousse. Its a straight road - no issues. Stay a day in Tulear, explore then a couple of days at the nice beach in Ifaty - and yes, then fly back to Tana.

Still cheaper then hiring all those overpriced cars with drivers + pay for the expensive gasoline.