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Magnificent Island

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The intriguing scenes of isalo

The Tombs of Isalo National Park: Isalo national park is over 800km2 of arid sandstone formations, canyons and forests in southwestern Madagascar, about three hours by bus from the coastal city of Tulear. It is one of the most popular places in Madagascar and the details of how to get to Isalo national park are relatively simple.

Manakara to fianarantsoa by railway?

As of January 2019 is the only running passenger train I could find on the island with the others undergoing repairs and without a certain date of return. It runs from Manakara to Fianarantsoa on Wednesdays and Sundays and back the other way on Tuesdays and Saturdays. A colonial era railway built by the French using forced labour and tracks taken from Germany after world war one it is now a lifeline for many of the people who live along its route.

Berenty and the southwest

Laces to see Dancing Lemurs: One of the best places to see dating lemurs in Madagascar is Berenty reserve in the southwest of the country. The reserve’s most famous residents the Verreaux’s Sifaka can be can be found here. Otherwise known as the dancing lemur because of the way they travel along the ground which is in a distinctive sideways trot. They stand up on their hind legs and spring sideways while their arms waving in the air as they go. This is just their natural way of movement but it one of the most unique ways of getting around I have ever seen.

Riding the bush truck to fort dauphin

They ply the routes which other forms of transport cannot navigate on roads that hold the title of national highways and byways but in places are little more than tracks which turn into mush when it rains. On sections of the route between Tulear on the southeast coast and Fort Dauphin on the south west coast it gets so rocky that everyone has to get off and walk while the truck bounces its way along and waits for the passengers once things have become a bit smoother.

A taste of antananarivo

During the day however the city centre is a safe and buzzing place to be. The streets of Antananarivo come alive during daylight hours, though they are largely deserted at night, and depending on where you are in the city during the day, the sheer number of people about can be disconcerting.

RUM DRINKING GECKOS

Behind the bar of a hotel called La Banane on the island of Sainte Marie can be found a very rare species, the rum drinking geckos. The hotel is barely a stones throw from the port and these geckos certainly drink like sailors.

I first saw them when I sat at the bar in La Banane and tried a few of the flavoured rums lined up along the shelf of the bar. Sat there in thunderstorm conditions I was studying the coloured bottles with handwritten labels trying to figure out what was in each bottle.

MODEL CARS IN MADAGASCAR

Down an unpaved bumpy road outside the village of Imerinatsiatosika, about an hour outside Antananarivo, I returned a week after my previous visit to see what progress had been made with regard to the model cars I had ordered.

Bearing in mind the whole trip back to Madagascar is based around the idea of buying these model cars in Madagascar and sending them home to Ireland to sell, this visit certainly had the moment of truth feel about it. If the models are not of good quality then they won’t sell back home.

If the ones produced here are not up to scratch, then I face the possibility of looking for somewhere else that makes them which will cause delays and may prove difficult to complete before the end of my trip.

Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world and one of the most magical places on earth. When I decided to try to explore this huge island independently I had two problems. The roads are mostly terrible and there was so little information about the kind of trip I wanted to that I knew I would be chancing things a lot of the time.
What unfolded was a three month adventure encountering cattle rustlers, stylish pastors, a speeding undertaker, government corruption as well as visits to some of the most unique national parks in the world.

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