tsingy de namoroka

has anyone been here? Any info? How to get there, what to take?

Much obliged,

Daniel

Hello,
I hope that my respond is not to late.
Tsingy Namoroka are really difficult to reach. You need 4x4, and after 1 day walk. There is completely no infrastructure, even when I visited there last time (5 years ago) there was no ANGAP office.
Climbing and visiting is very difficult because there is completely lack of any facilities.
Good luck!
Tom

The bungalows in Katsepy are now 30.000 ar and they have two rooms for 25.000.
There is a room in town somewhere which you can rent for 10.000.
Alternatively you could pitch your tent or mozzienet for free at madame Jacky’s (that’s right where the big ferry arrives). I actually bought a tent in Majunga at the Indian owned shop in between the score supermarket and ferry landing place. 57.000 ar for a waterproof 2 person tent! not bad eh? But bloody hot to sleep in! I only slept in it when it rained.

The ferry’s go every morning (if enough passengers) around 6.30/7.00 from Majunga. And return immediately to Majunga at around 8.00. In the afternoon the ferries leave at around 14.30 from majunga. The smaller one is the faster one.
You can usually get your ticket aboard where things can get crampy. Takes about an hour.
There are also two speedboats leaving at more irregularly times, but usually ahead of the big ferries.
prices are 2500 ar per person.

I visited NAMOROKA NP. 50 other people did so too this year, so they tell me. If you want to visit this too make sure you visit the ANGAP office in Majunga beforehand.
It was half november and already quite the rainy season. This turned the usual 8 hour taxibrousse ride from katsepy to Andranomavo into an 20 hour trial! 35.000 ar pp. I was offered to sleep in the co-drivers bed in andranomavo, since it was too late to call in at the local ‘hotel’.
I felt like the outlaw in some western movie when i walked down the street next morning in Andranomavo: everyone stopped talking when they saw me.
Apparantly not many vazaha come through here. In Andranomavo you can buy food and water, which they have not much of in Vilanandro, the Park headquarters of NAMOROKA NP.
then from Andranomavo i got lucky and hitched a ride with a big truck for the remaining 20 kms to Vilanandro for 5000 ar.
alternatively you can arrange for a charety (zebucar) or rent a motorcycle in andranomavo.
In Vilanandro you can pitch your tent or sleep on the floor of one of the 4 park agents! Very hospitable! They’ll share their food with you if you want too! Agent Tantely prepaired meals which consisted of rice and macaroni which i spiced up with a locally purchased can of sardines. They had biscuits in the shop too! So i had that for breakfast.
Water comes from the little creek where you can wash too. probably bilharzia infested water so don’t forget to take you praziquintel (40 mg per kg of bodyweight in one doze. available at every drugstore) when you get back home.
they did have some cokebottles, but no beer.
Anyway, all that is not so important. The park was great. There are two guides currently working at the park: Mauril can speak a little french and Justin understands a little french, so it was good that i can speak a little gasy.
Guide fees are 5000 ar a day. Which is a very low price, but then they’re more pisteurs than guides really. But still, you’d have to at least double it for all the walking they’re doing. And provide food for them. One guide was willing to carry my not too heavy backpack for two days when we went camping near the fresh water source Mandevy.
if you have not your own wheels, visiting the park involves a lot of walking!
I visited Mandevy: 15 km, 4h30 mins in the sun! Umbrella would have been nice!
just before you reach it, on a slope going down, you can find loads and loads of marine fossils on the piste.
The water there at Mandevy, the surroundings was all paradisical. clouds of butterflies, mango’s everywhere, little white flowers on the water, the water 20 meter deep crystal clear blue mineral drinking water comes bubbling to the surface.
Only thing that spoiled it a bit was my comprehension of the word VOAY. It means crocodile, but i never saw one. Still, it made the swim a bit less carefree. But apparantly they are around.
There is also a village nearby and they might be passing by with their carts and zebus.

next day we visited the tsingy caves and a bit of forest that surrounded it.
the caves where nice, but there was already quite a bit of water in them. still i saw bats and the dishes of early 20th century or late 19th century ‘dahalo’ or bandits. They used dutch and german tableware.
In the forest i saw baobabs and pachapodiae.
Unfortunately some logging had been done recently. sometimes just to get to honey, or to strip young trees of their bark and put it to use as rope.
Same distance as previous day: 15 kms.

I also visited a place which has ‘omby’ in it, maybe ambovomomby? it’s a about 7 km walk through open grassland till you reach the tsingy, where there are some small caves with water where the cow come to drink.
The surrounding forest have a lot of lemurs: deckens sifaka and mongoose lemur. In every tree it seemed and they were very excited to see me too!
Saw plenty of birds too: eagle, blue coua, pintade (one dead in a trap unfortunately).
It is a wonderful spot, sometimes you feel like you’re walking through a sculpture garden. I think it would be great to camp here.
We took a different and beautiful route back to vilanandro, through forested area. the guide lost his way for a while, so it was good that i brought my compass along!

the only negative thing were the cowflies! so don’t wear shorts! And there were loads of tiny bees, which are attracted to the salt on your skin, but don’t itch or bite.

After four nights i arranged for a zebucar (20.000 ar) to carry my luggage to Soalala (56km), i preferred to walk in front of it.
The zebudrivers prefer to leave in the afternoon, otherwise it is too hot for the cows. We rested for about 4 hrs at night, so the cows could eat and rest too. The track was very muddy. Most of it was during the night, so i cant say what it looked like much. But we seemed to pass through some part of forest. It seemed pretty.
we arrived at 9 am in soalala.
In the afternoon, 14.00hrs, i took the taxibrousse (4×4, 30,000 ar) back to Katsepy, where i arrived at around midnight.

Soalala definately seems worth a visit. Once a week there is a shrimpboat from COMAS (chinese shrimp farm in Soalala) which leaves from majunga and reaches Soalala in a day (50.000 ar, one way.) I would definately recommend taking this option to the strenuous taxibrousse ride.
Although you could make it less strenuous by making a stop at Mitsinjo (85 km from Katsepy) and visit the lake (4hrs by zebucar, apparantly there is a gite, a guesthouse of sorts near the lake, ask around in Mitsinjo. There is a representative of the ministry of eaux et forets in Mitsinjo, who speaks good french.)

in soalala there is a hotel run by a Vazaha, i didn’t have time to visit. Especially baie de Bali with its endemic turtle seems to be worth a visit, i think you’d have to bring your own tent.
there is also an ANGAP office in town. I found Soalala to be the hottest place in Madagascar, hotter even than Maevatanana! The white sand reflects the sunlight which adds to the heat.