Madagascar 02-17 July, 2025

Baobab Forest in Ifaty

Not gonna lie, Antananavaro (Tana), the capital and biggest city of Madagascar, didn’t initially give me the warm and fuzzies. I haven’t felt uncomfortable in too many cities but here I initially struggled to keep my phone and wallet close enough to feel very secure. The ride from the airport into our hotel, 25K away and near the main stadium, took almost an hour. Near the airport there is a lot of development and a new highway under construction, so It looks like there is progress. But once we got into the city proper, past a few miles of lush rice paddies, vegetable fields and shanties, the city quickly closed in. Hideous traffic, a constant flow of street merchants and beggars knocking on the car windows, and the most heartbreaking part was the 5-6 year old kids following the cars along the street looking for money. The sad faces and tattered clothes kills me every time.

I ventured out for a walk mid-afternoon, as we were told it was best to not wander alone after dark. Oddly enough, we are told this in EVERY city we've been to in Africa, but I actually feel safer in all of them than I ever did driving on Kingshighway or the I-70 to work in StL. (side note, I haven't heard a gunshot in the six months we've been away - I used to hear them multiple times per week in StL) Nevertheless, I got about a mile before I decided it was time to return to the hotel…(On successive trips into the area I felt much more comfortable, though...must have picked the wrong direction on the first day!)

On a positive note, our guest house, The Citizen, took the prize for best family hotel so far...and they had an amazing restaurant, actually one of my favorites of the entire trip, so we didn’t need to really get out in our short time in town. Which is a pity as I really love to explore any new area we stay in.

Over the past few months, calculating exchange rates has become a bit of a game, as every two to four weeks we need to stock up on local currency. The hotel had a worker walk us through the hilly, labyrinthine streets to find a working cash machine. The local currency, the Ariary (MGA), runs at about 4400 to the $1, so to get a few hundred dollars we ended up with a half-inch thick stack of 20,000 MGA bills…looked a bit like a drug dealer exiting the cash machine. It was funny actually asking for a MILLION units of currency and then seeing a bank service charge of 9,600!

A highlight, and something we have been looking forward to for a while, was getting to meet the team at the Missouri Botanical Garden facility in Tana. Lyd has been really involved with the StL organization for years (even though she is completely unable to keep a non-plastic plant alive) and they have had a huge presence on the conservation front in Madagascar for over 30 years. We were able to spend a little time with Christian and Chris (more Chris's!) and even though I understood only a third of what they said (scientific speak) it was heartening to see some brilliant and passionate people actually working for good in this world and trying to save the planet, or at least some parts of it, in real time.

Toliara / Ifaty

Toliara / Ifaty (S/W side of island)

Flying to the coastal town of Toliara in a twin prop, we got an excellent chance to see the countryside a little closer than the incoming jet allowed a couple days prior. For a few hundred miles the country looked completely remote, with villages and communities dotting mountains and valleys, connected only by snaky, windy dirt roads. The topography reminds me a bit of a brain, with all of the peaks and valleys. And then it turns into nothingness…fewer mountains with expansive plains and almost no visible communities. No roads, just meandering rivers and the occasional smoke plume from a burn that someone is managing.

This sounds worse in writing than it did in my head…but here goes anyway. Been at this beautiful little seaside hotel in Ifaty for four days now and I’m really not enjoying it, which sounds crazy. It has the makings of a really wonderful place, there is a barrier reef about a kilometer out that creates this beautiful, flat and placid long beach of nice white sand. Looking due west, there is nothing in front of me for about 500 miles…until Mozambique. The place has a bunch of fairly modern cabanas a really nice but super freezing pool, and amazing grounds. And to top it off, we haven’t seen a cloud in four days. I’m not enjoying it because of the surrounding poverty. I feel bad trying to talk to the locals…I want to have a conversation but the severe poverty rift between us means that they only see me as a money tree. The hotel has a small fence in front, about 50 feet from the water. But on the other side of that fence sit about 20 locals at any one time…they’ve been there since 7 and won’t leave until 6 tonight, everyday. If you walk out past the fence, you’re immediately mobbed by massage and hair braiding ladies, guys with a machete and a coconut, boys selling baobab carvings…it’s relentless, and really makes you want to stay in your own little cocoon, behind the makeshift fence. But even then, if you make any sort of eye contact they immediately make their way to you, taking care not to cross the fence or else the hotel bouncer runs over to them. What a sad thing to say and embarrassing to feel. I hate the poverty and we see it everywhere we go, but here it’s pervasive. An island of 32 million people and there isn’t a McDonalds. Or any fully functioning roads connecting one end to the other. To get from the capital to our village, 954 K, or just under 600 miles, it takes 21 hours. It’s almost impossible to rent a car because the roads are so bad - in order to get to the other side of the island you need to hire a driver for a multi-day trip. Most people we met had a private driver for a week in order to get to the hot-spots around the country. It’s a place where most of the cars you see are either taxis or belong to worldwide aid or research agencies. To illustrate the poverty, there are 500K people here per dentist and 8K people per doctor.

There are bright spots, though...there is a wonderful Italian based medical ship, Mercy Ships, that docks on the island and provides health professionals performing charity work. We met both US Govt employees and USAID workers here that were sadly closing up their locations due to the current political issues in the US - unfortunately these services are vital and relatively inexpensive to provide and save lots of lives. This to me has been a bit a shot in the stomach over the past few months...where the US is vacating leadership and humanitarian roles around the world, other countries are stepping in and trying to pick up the slack. We've seen tons of Chinese and Japanese representation and investment in places like Mexico, Morocco, S. Africa and Madagascar, especially. Granted, they are shipping cotton and kelp back to their countries in return, but it appears they are providing help and jobs to the locals, at least.

Ile St. Marie (island in NE Madagascar) (St Mary’s Island for you non-French speaking heathens)

We have been looking forward to a nice beach spot for a while, as the trip has been pretty non-stop driving for the past few weeks...months...countries...hell, it's been non-stop since we started it. This proved to be the place as the little 45K long island has a wonderful community, new roads and amazing beaches. Unfortunately, it rained almost every day! I got to do a little diving but the highlight of the few days was a rain-soaked Quad trip around the island. Our guide, Sergio, gave us a wonderful tour of the island, including the island specialty of Crab Curry, albeit it in almost non-stop driving rain. I was so soaked that puddles formed in my lap while we were driving, but it was super fun. The sun came out for about thirty minutes and just as I was starting to dry off, the skies drenched us again. I expect this activity will be a recurring theme, as Wife doesn't really get bigger smiles on her face than when she's speeding along off-road. Oh, and we also got to see the President of Madasgar making a speech. We couldn't understand a word said but it was interesting being there as they celebrated the completion of the new island roads.

-Today, our last day before heading back to Antananarivo and then to Mauritius, marks the 6-month anniversary of the start of our trip.  And the day started off in the most amazing form. As we were eating breakfast, we saw boats racing about 500 meters off the beach as two massive humpback whale tails slapped down. The larger of the two was easily twice as high as the nearest boat (15-20 feet??) to it and we could hear the smack on the water from our seats. I jumped up and Lyd started clapping like a little kid and screeched a little…which she rarely does. We jumped up from our omelets and ran a few feet to the beach to get a better look, as the mom and baby started putting on a tail slapping show. I’ve never seen a whale outside of SeaWorld before and it was really exciting…wish we would have been on that boat!

Leaving the island, as flight delays go this one ranks up in the top all time for me. We’re at the airport waiting to leave Ile St. Marie mid-afternoon, after three days of rain, and just as the plane gets delayed the skies open up and we see some sun. SO, the island is the size of St. Louis and the locals that are there to pick up hotel guests just start turning around to head back to the hotels like it’s normal, which apparently it is. Air Madagascar has only three or four planes, all twin prop jobbers that are almost the only service that the island has, and if one flight is late it gums up the entire country, in our case giving us four more hours at the beach… So, we hitch a ride with our hotel team back to their beach, resuming our search for whale sightings and jumping back into the hotels amazing vanilla rum collection. I’m not even a huge rum fan but the waves lapping at the shore a few meters away just call for a pirate drink. Or four...ooops!

Unfortunately, neither of us LOVED Madagascar but I also think we didn't manage Madasgar the correct way...this was due entirely to NOT wanting to drive for 40 hours to get to a site and back. If they are able to improve the infrastructure and internal roads, this could easily be a wonderful trip. If we were to recommend a path to experience Madasgar better, we'd say to sign on with a tour company or hire a private driver for a week in order to see the middle of the island and the major Baobab forest, and then fly to Ile St. Marie or Nosy Be (another resort island) for a few days of beach time. I'd skip Toliara/Ifaty, but if you do add that to your trip, you can't miss the Arboretum d'Antsokay, which is a wonderful private garden collection of endemic species. And once you get past the gritty veneer of Antananarivo it's really not a bad place to explore. But two days there is likely enough.