Welcome to Madagascar! Firstly, we welcome you at the airport. Then private transfer to the San Cristobal Boutique Hotel. Once we arrive, you will be greeted by friendly and caring staff. 

After that, dinner briefing with the guide that will accompany you throughout the tour. We do this to best organise your days schedule and answer questions about each stop.

PS: Keep in mind that airline flights are not included in the package, so you can decide from which airport you leave, at what time and with the airline you prefer… This is to give you maximum freedom of choice!

Travel day between Antananarivo and the town of Antsirabe.

Breakfast early because we have a 6-hour drive ahead of us, but I assure you that it is worth it.

While leaving the capital, we can admire small villages typical for their skills and constructions.

In addition, the foie gras village, the rope-makers and the handcrafted aluminium foundries are waiting for us to start seeing the highlands and the beautiful rice fields of Madagascar.

Once arrived, we have a quick lunch and in the afternoon we visit the colonial town of Antsirabe, famous for its hot springs and rickshaws.

Moreover, we visit the volcanic lakes of Andraikiba and Titriva and the bucolic landscapes that surround them.

To end the day, dinner and overnight at the Royal Palace Hotel.

After a delicious breakfast we will begin the journey again. Just outside the city we arrive at the foot of the Ibity massif. That is one of the highest mountains in all of Madagascar on whose slopes flows the Manandona River, creating a spectacular patchwork of rice paddies and cultivated vegetable gardens.

We’ll reach the town of Ambositra, a center of multiethnic exchange where we can admire the woodwork of the Zafimaniry artisans. They have been elected a UNESCO World Heritage Site for their art and the history they bring with them.

Then we have lunch at a quaint local restaurant with costumed singing and dancing enlivening our meal.

Later in the afternoon, we enter more and more on the green and tropical part of Madagascar. We will arrive in the characteristic town of Sahambavy, which is dedicated to tea growing. Once arrived, we watch the sunset amidst these rolling hills all cultivated. To end the day in the best way, we sleep in a dreamy place: the Lac hotel, in characteristic bungalows on stilts.

In the beginning we take a walk, accompanied by a friendly local guide, among the villages of Betsileo farmers. Here, surrounded by lots of smiling children, we enter villages bordering the river to observe the Madagascar countryside’s life. Glimpses of the slow life of the fields, zebu and ducks, men at work in the rice fields. That is a medieval yet contemporary world that will captivate the attentive traveler.

At the end of the walk we enter Anja Park. That is a forest that contains one of the most important communities of catta lemurs, the cute ring-tailed lemurs. In this small valley wedged between imposing rock massifs that dominate the landscape, hundreds of these lemurs have found refuge and you will be able to observe them truly up close.

Once the hike is over, we then leave Ambalavao and enter the deep south, characterized by wide plains and savannas.

While on the road, Far West views lead us to Madagascar’s most visited park: the Isalo Park.

Once arrived, we stay in a splendid hotel completely integrated into the nature and built entirely of rock. It’s name is: the Relais de la Reine.

Ultimately, overnight stay and dinner at the hotel.

In light of the beauty of Isalo Park,  we trekking all day through the gorges and canyons. Beautiful natural pools and waterfalls suddenly appear among the rocks where you can swim!

To emphasize, the landscape is reminiscent of Colorado with savannas and mountains eroded by the natural elements.

Again, overnight and dinner at the Relais de la Reine hotel.

We leave early in the morning to reach, after a few kilometers, the small town of Ilakaka. That is  corner of the contemporary Wild West that in a very few years has risen starting from zero, driven by the economy of the world’s largest sapphire mine. We visit the men at work in the immense chasms dug by hand, the drilling tens of meters underground that serve as soundings to discover new deposits, the markets where the rough is traded, and the bustling town that has grown up all around this treasure.

Leaving Ilakaka, we will see the first giant baobabs, the plants that most represent Madagascar. Meanwhile we head into the semi-desert south.

Then we reach the coast of the Mozambique Channel and cross the Tropic of Capricorn. Once there, before lunch we admire the hundreds of traditional outrigger canoes returning from a day of reef fishing.

After that, in the afternoon, we visit Reniala Park, the park of the bottle baobabs, a species that only grows in this corner of the world, and which characterises this thorny forest, a dense forest growing on the desert sand.

Seeing that, we go head to the splendid Bakuba hotel, a small gem of design and hospitality for dinner and overnight stay!

We come to the end of such an intense journey! You can take either an internal flight from Tulear to Antananarivo and a connecting flight to go back home, or add a sea extension. Must be remember that the last point of our journey is the region with the third largest coral reef in the world and home to the best beaches on the island.

Provided that, we will send you home with lasting memories, in the hope of seeing you again in the future for a new adventure with MyMadagascar!