The final leg of our Madagascan tour
Leaving the highlands behind
After breakfast we leave our hotel and the highlands behind and head south west towards the Mozambique Channel. As soon as we leave the mountains the landscape becomes barren and even though the rainy season has only just finished the riverbeds are bone dry.
Little children maybe four or five years old sit by the side of the road and beg passengers on passing buses for empty water bottles ( or even better full bottles ). Collecting water is their job in the family and they fill the bottles at the nearest clean water supply which can often be many kilometers walk from their home. If we thought life was hard for the Malagasy people in the north of the country it is even harder once we get into this area as there is less rain and fewer natural resources so farming is much harder and even more back-breaking. The locals distill an illegal rum which is sixty or seventy per cent proof and drink it to take away the pain of work. Sadly the concentration of alcohol in the rum not only numbs the pain but has the dreadful side effect of causing blindness. Life truly is a very hard for the Malagasy people.
Heading for the beach
We travel towards the coast through Tulear which is the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana region, catching our first glimpse of the famous baobab trees that are iconic to Madagascar. It is almost the end of our trip and have now traveled nearly nine hundred and fifty kilometers on our little bus. It has been an amazing trip but also very tiring and we are all looking forward to relaxing at our hotel in Ifaty.
And we are not disappointed as our hotel is located directly on the beach. We arrive early evening and drop our cases in our bungalow, then after a quick freshen up we head to the bar for a pre-dinner drink. It’s so nice to finally relax knowing that we have a day at leisure tomorrow and don’t have to get up and board the bus again. The wine and conversation in the group flows freely as we share our favourite moments of the trip. So many memories to cherish, the people, the scenery, the colours and the wildlife which is what initially brought most of us to this amazing country. Then exhausted we’re off to bed.
My final day with the group
The following day is at leisure, no early morning wake -up, no bumpy bus ride and no more new places to visit. We choose how we want to spend our day, some of the group relax by the pool, others visit the baobab forest and some take advantage of the hotel’s spa facilities.
I wake just before sunrise and take my yoga mat with me to the beach for my daily practice. After everything we have seen and experienced over the past days it is a good feeling to just relax and connect with such a beautiful place. I spend about 30 minutes here before heading up to our hotel for breakfast and the rest of my day.
I have arranged to do a snorkeling trip with two others from the group so we walk down to the beach to meet our guides. They are waiting for us with the boat which will transport us out to the offshore reef and the snorkeling site. It is a wooden hand carved canoe which has been made out of a hollowed out tree trunk and looks a bit like an outrigger. We clamber on board and settle ourselves inside the hollowed out trunk whilst two of the crew start paddling out towards the open ocean. After we have rounded the headland we pull up onto the beach and the crew raise a tattered sail with a huge hole in it. It appears to have been sewn together and repaired many times and to be honest we all wonder how it will get us out to the reef, and perhaps more worrying, how it will get us back, but we clamber back in anyway and hope for the best. In no time we arrive at the reef. We jump from the canoes into the crystal clear water and snorkel for about 30 minutes. It’s great to be in the open ocean but it’s only a small reef compared to many I have visited in my life but still beautiful in it’s own way. After our snorkel we clamber back into the rickety canoe and head back to the hotel to relax round the pool.
Later we have our last dinner together as the rest of the group are flying back to Antananarivo tomorrow but I am staying on a further week in Ifaty. We met as strangers at the start of the tour and have spent nine days cramped together in a small bus. This type of tour is not for everyone but I have really enjoyed it and will be sad to say goodbye to my fellow travellers. I had intended to do this trip with a good friend but she has unfortunately been ill and her doctor would not allow her to travel so I came on my own.
Travelling alone can be daunting for some people but if you bite the bullet and open yourself up to new experiences it can be a great way to see new places and meet new people. I have already made arrangements to meet up again with the lovely couple from Auckland who joined me for the snorkeling as we connected right from the start of our trip. But, even if you don’t meet new friends it’s a great way to see the world.
If you’re on your own I recommend you try it. I booked this ten day Madagascar trip through #LuxuryEscapes. It was very well organised and definitely worth the money.
So give it a try - who knows this might change your life!!
