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Madagascar 2006 part 3, the north. Day 17 flight to Antananarivo At 6 we start packing our bags. Today we fly back to Tana. Erwin and Tom are going to pay the bill for bungalow 6, it is just within our estimate of 400000 Ariary. Now the stack of Ariary is fastly shrinking. After breakfast we get into two minivans which will bring us to the airport of Tolear. The road between Ifaty and Tolear is bad, and because of the strong wind of the last days there is even more sand on the road. The worst sanddune is being shoveled away by a man. It is a private initiative judging to the driver who gives the man a tip for his work. We are very early at the small airport of Tolear. This means wait, wait, and more waiting. Much to our surprise the bar does open after an hour, so we can have some coffee and tea. Suddenly we hear a airraid alarm. Not much later the plane, that is going to take us to Tana, lands. Air Madagascar doesn't work with preassigned seats, so there is a lot of pushing in the row to the gate. We decide to wait a little, it is only a short flight. And what we expected happened: there are not two seats together left. After an hour, we even get a drink and a sandwich aboard, we land at the international airport near the capital. Sacha is waiting for us. He brings us to a hotel close to the airport. That is a dissappointment as we expected to stay in the centre of town. Together with Erwin and Patricia we took a taxi to the citycentre. We find one that only asks 10000 Ariary (normal price is around 15000). In hotel France we find NoraLiva and Allain waiting for us. Nice to see them again. After a cold refreshing beer we take Allains car to the uppercity. There we make pictures of the burnt palace of the queen, the view over the city and the palace of justice. Then we walk down to the restaurant to have a real Malagassy dinner. Allains driver doesn't mind to bring us back to the hotel and Allain and Nora Liva join us. They are a bit surprised we have a hotel in such a desolated area. But we didn't choose the hotel, the travelagent did...... In the hotel they just finished dinner, we join them for a drink. Dag 18 flight to Diego Suarez Again an airport day. Today we fly up north to Diego, We don't have to rise extremely early because our hotel is close to the airport. At 6:45 we have breakfast and at 7:15 Sacha brings us to teh airport. The checking in is again chaotic, but still we have an enormous amount of time left before the flight leaves. After a stop in Sambava we arrive in Diego Suarez just before noon. There is an old, worn out, minibus waiting for us, so we don't expect much of the hotel. At every shabby building we think we arrived. But we are wrong the hotel are lovely bungalows with a view on the sugarloaf mountain the bay. They also have a pool (filled with water this time). So we start with a refreshing splash and then there is lunch in the hotel. At 3 in the afternoon the minibus is taking us to Diego, which is a view kilometers away. Diego Suarez is not exactly what we expected. Everything is worn out, the streets are deserted, and many shops and bars are closed. We have seen it very quickly and take a taxi back to the hotel. The hotel is outside the city so the taxi has to put gas in its tank, exactly 1.00 liter. Why they take so little gas is not clear, but all taxis do it this way. A cold beer at the edge of the pool. And then it is time for an enormous diner, loosing weight this trip is an utopia. Day 19 Ambermountains Breakfast is as late as 8:15, but nobody manages to stay in bed that long. At 9 two 2 minibusses are picking us up, this is our transport for the next few days. We start with a citytrip through Diego Suarez. The city itself is not very special, but that was no shock since yesterday. But nevertheless we ask for a photostop at the harbour, where we see several shipwrecks. Not much further we stop at a special Baobab tree that only is found in Diego. After that we set course for the Ambermountains. The french found Amber in this mountains, but they cleaned the place out. They also built some nice houses in Joffreville. That is why they created a botanical garden here in the mountains. This garden is now a national park and doesn't look anything like a designed garden anymore. At the entrance we pick up our two guides. The busses drive to the campground. From there we go for a walk to the sacred falls. It is only 300 meters, and the guides think it will take us one hour. This means the slow, slower, slowest walking we ever did. We are back within an hour but the cooks managed to prepare lunch anyway. It is great, there is is salad, rice, crab, grilled zebu and a banana for dessert. While we are eating a ringtailed mongoose comes to see what is in the wastebin. And one of the guides found the smallest chameleon, the brookesia minima. It is nice to see such a small creature with all the features of its larger relatives. Then we go for a serious walk in the park, in a part knows as the forrest of the 1000 trees. We see some lemurs up close, without anybody feeding them. It is more natural. The guides like to walk slowly and tell us we can't go to the waterfall there is no time. It takes some discussion but then we go to the falls. It was a dissapointment and we barely manage to reach the boundaries of the park before closing time. The minibusses drive us to the Benedictine nunnery St Jean Baptiste. Here we spend the night. We have nice rooms even with a warm shower. Only the toilets have to be shared and are located on each floor. The nuns prepared a good meal for us. And we end the day with one of the homebrewed liquors. Day 20-21 Ankarana Park At 7:45 we enjoy the fresh homemade bread with jam of the nuns (also for sale in the shop). At 8:30 we leave the mountains. We make different stops along the way. At a kapok tree and a bit further at a few Pachypodiums Then we stop at a market to buy meat to feed the crocodiles in the sacred lake. This is the oportunaty for Erwin and Tom to buy a chicken to give as a birthday present to Loes. It is supposed to be a tradition: having a birthday, getting a chicken. Loes won't eat the chicken and gives it away at the next village. The guide, who has to translate, doesn't get it. Why give a perfectly good chicken to a strange woman? Strange tourists... At the sacred lake the guides are tempting the crocodiles to get out of the water for some nice pieces of zebu. Two crocodiles think it is worth it and show up. The guide tells us they don't know how many there are because the lake is sacred and there can't be an investigation. After a while on the road we turn left at a few wooden sheds. It is not clear right away, but this is where we stay the next two nights. Uuh… No electricity, no streaming water. We do have a toilet which you can flush with water from a barrel outside. The same water from the barrel can be used to wash yourself. At dinner that night some people of the group tell us there is a shower at the other side of the road where they sleep. We don't believe it and think they are making fun of it. But it is true and there is water in the showers too. After the lunch, a stew, we walk into the Ankarana park. We see some nightlemurs still in their hole and we go into the batcave. It is dark when we return to the camp. The cooks prepared a good dinner with: chicken. Especially for the birthdaygirl Loes they have a birthday cake for dessert. After that the party starts with lots of rum. After a good night sleep, with an early wakeup call by zebu behind our cabin, we have time to enjoy the morning sun on the 'balcony'. Breakfast is at 7:45. Today we walk to the Tsingy, sharp pointy rockformations. It is very hot in the Ankarana park, and we are very happy they opened a shorter track to the Tsingy. It used to be a 9 hour hike, today we can do it in 5 hours. It is a special moment when the Tsingy appear between the trees. It is an enormous area with only bare sharp rocks. It looks like a different planet. Except these special rocks we also see the crowned lemur and some rare endemic birds. After the lunch we drive back along the RN6. The first village we encounter is where they find sapphire. In a huge hole about two kilometers behind the village they dig for the precious stones. It is illegal, but they risk punishment because of the profit. Others do some panning in the river close to the village, just to find some splinters. This is not an excursion we would recommend, when you are not looking to buy sapphire it is a waste of time. Back at our cabin there is some time to relax. Dinner is not as generous as we are used to. No starters just a main course, spaghetti bolognese. Day 22-24 island Nosy Be Again breakfast at 7:45, we leave our comfortable cabins at 8:30. Driving further south. In Ambilobe we were supposed to go to a local market, but the guide brings us to a inconspicuous house. This the home of the King of Antankarana, and we can go on an audience. It is a normal man, sitting on a special decorated chair. He tells us his kingdom stretches far into the north of Madagascar, there are 80000 people living here. There can only be kings, who are choosen from the royal family. He was shocked to hear that we have a (weak?) queen. His pride is an old french sword. He says it is made of gold….But it is missing some precious stones on its handle. We all have to look at the sword and feel it. After that we can take pictures with the king. It was a nice visit. When it didn't have ended with the request for a gift from us it would have been a great visit. We walk along the market of ambilobe, where Dorian buys some dried bananas to taste in the bus. And we go on south in the direction of the harbour of Ankify. The area around us is changing, it is getting green. There are plantations everywhere. We stop at one with a varied product choice. There is vanilla, cacao, coffee, pineapple, peper and more. After taking some pictures we return at the minibusses and they prepared a lunch. Baguette with the bolgnese sauce leftover from yesterdays dinner. An extra tomato and some mayonaise makes it complete. A banana and a piece of jackfruit for dessert and we are full. In the harbour of Ankify we see to our horror there is only a small catamaran waiting to sail us across to Nosy Be island. The weather is not good for a safe crossing on such a small and open boat. The wind is heavy. They have some problems to store all the luggage in the compartments. At the end we find out that it didn't matter because the luggage compartments were not watertight anyway. The crew decides to take us around Nosy Kumba so we can sail a large part under the cover of this island with less wind. But when we leave the shelter of Nosy Komba the waves are pounding against the bow and everybody sitting in the front of the boat is getting very wet. When i look backwards and see the entire engine disappear under water i get a little scared. But we manage to reach Nosy Be, wet and with some wet luggage. A bus waits for us to bring us to the hotel. We leave Hellville and turn into a dirtroad in the direction of Ambatoloaka. It is very touristy island for Madagascar standards. The village of Ambatoloaka is no exception. But there are not many tourists today. There are lots of elderly men with young Malagassy women though. The hotel is good, but it is not located along the beach and there is no restaurant. so we go out for dinner to restaurant L'Ylang Ylang. With Erwin, Patricia and Dorian we have a table outside along the beach. But we are the only ones to do so. The food is not special. And tomorrow we will have a look at another restaurant. After dinner we go for a drink at a bar across the street. Ten minutes before eleven the seatcovers are removed and the bar is closed. OK, back to the hotel Yesterday we ordered breakfast in the hotel. It costs 5 Euro, a huge amount for Malagassy standards. But now we understand. There are pancakes, fruitsalad, fruitjuice, crème brule and a bread roll with jam. We could have booked an excursion for today to the naturereserve Lokobe, or go snorkling. But we decided to have a relaxing day along the beaches of Nosy be. With Erwin and Patricia we rent 4 scooters in the village. Slowly we cruise to the north of the island. We drive between sugarcane fields. No an then there is a great view of the ocean. At the very northend of the island we find an eclusive resort. But not far from there is a great beach with a small restaurant. A cool drink and it is time to test the water. It is warm! A short swim and back to the shadow of the palmtrees. The restaurant is only serving entire menus of three courses. A bit too much for our likings. So we getting on our scooters and drive south. At Coral Noir, a beautiful hotel, we can have one course of our choice. Tom and Erwin choose large shrimps in pepersauce, Patricia and i go for the Romazava, a Malagassy stew. It is tasting great. After lunch we start our scooters, at least 3 of the 4. Patricia can't start hers, no matter how hard she tries. after a while of watching and smiling a local busdriver comes to help her. He manages to start the thing. So we can drive south to Hellville. First stop is the graveyard. Some nicely overgrown graves, but also a zebu grazing here. The traffuic in Hellville is hectic and our scooters don't have very good brakes, so we decide to go back to the hotel. At returning the scooters we pay for two days so we can have them tomorrow too. For another day of fun in the sun. A great italian dinner tonight. While we are walking through the village we are again surprised about the emptiness of bars and restaurants. If this is the tourist part of Madagascar, then tourism is really not much here. The sun is shining again. We are early at the breakfast table this morning. Most of our groupmembers go for an excursion today. But we are taking of with the four of us and our scooters again. First stop is hotel Vanilla. A beautiful resort where we get a friendly welcome and a free tour of the hotel. Height of the tour is the African suite, with jacuzzi on the balcony overlooking the ocean. We decide to have a coffe here. After that we drive on to our favorite beach. Again it is very quiet on the beach and we can easily find 4 beachchairs to put in the shade of the palmtrees. The ocean is warm. The water is shallow for a long time, ideal for the poor swimmers among us. We want to have lunch in the Venta Club, but the security of the expensive resort stops us. We can't enter. We can't even get some information about the resort from the reception. We are allowed to come back at 6 tonight to collect a brochure. Well, we pass on that offer. Back to our favorite beach then, we order lunch at the restaurant there. Smoked fih for starters, grilled fish for main course and fruit for dessert. another swim and we go back to Ambatoloaka. The others are all very enthousiastic about their excursions. In Loboke they saw an enormous boa and the snorkling group swam with a turtle. The last night here we have dinner in Baobab Kafe, an open bar/restaurant at the second floor with a cooling seabreeze. Day 25-26 Nosy Be, flight via Antananarivo to Amsterdam Our very last day in Madagascar. We are taking it easy, we have to leave the room at 11. The bus to the airport leaves not before 2 in the afternoon. After some reading in the lounge we walk into the village. We have to collect a t-shirt. A farewell present for Dorian, it has special embroidery on it. After we payed for it we go to the beach to find a restaurant for lunch. At 2 a very long travellingday starts. It will takes us at least 24 hours to get home. We start with a flight from Nosy Be to Antananarivo. A small van of the IC hotel is picking us up, he takes us to the hotel for our farewell dinner. At 10 we leave again for the airport. At check in for our flight to Paris it is not easy to get a seat next to eachother. Only few succeed in it. Inside the plane people are chainging seats one after another. The very unpleasant crew is not pleased with Tom not sitting on his assigned seat. Now they have to search where to deliver the vegetarian meal. But that is why they are here, isn't it, to serve the passengers. But we are wrong again. We don't see them again the entire flight. Not before breakfast. Air France, not our airline. In Paris Wim notices he has an earlier flight them the rest of us. We have to wait another hour to fly on to Amsterdam. There we find him waiting at the luggageclaim. Not very pleased we say goodbye to our fellow travellers, a great journey is over. More of our pictures at our Multiply page. Math and Patricia filmed this trip, the short movie is at our movie page. Back to the first week of our trip: from Antananarivo to Ranomafana. Back to the second week of the trip: from Ambalavao to Ifaty. Or choose another trip from the links below. Our travels    Africa    America    Australia    Asia