Hi all, Wondering who has some personal experience doing tours of Madagascar, specifically of seeing Sifaka's. Also looking to source a personal guide. I am heading over and seems to be way to many to choose from! Thank you in advance.
I believe the best person to speak with might well be @lintworm as I know he has been to Madagascar in recent years.
Travel in Madagascar is complicated as the road network is rather poor and the country is basically divided in north and south with Antananarivo (Tana) as only connection point. I would very much advise to get the excellent Bradt guide to Madagascar (the lonely planet is significantly worse...). I have done Madagascar completely independently, but you could do without a guide if you hire a car with drive in Tana. Every national park has obligatory guides, so taking your own already is a bit double and your driver will probably act as a guide along the road anyway... Additionally the Mammals of Madagascar guide by Nick Garbutt is really valuable. Where you should go depends all on your interests, if it is purely sifaka, you could possibly see 6 species in 3-4 weeks, but it involves some travelling... Regardless of where you go, Andasibe Mantadia (Perinet) should be on your itinerary as it has habituated indri and diademed sifaka groups. Another amazing rainforest is Ranomafana in the southern part, which has 3 species of bamboo lemur and Milne-Edwards sifaka. A place I have not been is the Morondava area, but this has beautiful landscapes (Avenue des baobabs, Tsingy rocks). Here you can visit Kirindy forest (not the national park, but the privately managed one), which in dry season guarantees fossa sightings and Verreaux's sifaka occur here, just as many other lemurs and votsotsa and narrow-striped mongoose. Just north of here is Tsingy de Bemaraha, a national park with beautiful Tsingy rocks and Decken's sifaka and western bamboo lemur. Additionally you could spend a few days in Ankarafantsika, a national park a day northwest from Tana with habituated Coquerel sifaka and 6 other lemur species easily seen and Madagascar fish eagle. A few hours further on are forests where Crowned sifaka can be seen. The holy grail: the silky sifaka can be seen in Marojejy but this is more difficult to get to if you are not flying, in the north also Golden-crowned and Perriers sifaka occur, but they are more hard to get to... Travelling in Madagascar is a slow business, as roads are poor and driving at night must be avoided at all times due to armed robberies being quite frequent... But you can fly to most larger cities from Tana, with Air Madagascar. If you opt for that, book when in the country, that saves you 33% of the costs.
Thank you TLD, Lintworm WOW! Exactly the info I had hoped for. I will be flying rather than driving where ever possible.
OMG! Madagascar may just have the most expensive internal flights in the world!! Thank you for the tip of booking on arrival, I will save $$$. Have to share this from the Madagascar Airlines web site. The economy class is called.... "Economy,Vanilla Premium" Unfortunately I will only have 6 nights in Magagascar as I am only tagging this trip onto a family holiday in the Mauritius Iintworm i am thinking Perinet & Ankarafantsika 3 bites each I particularly like hiking and these two seem the easiest and safest options. Do you have accomodation recommendations that don't include Ground Boa?
If you have only 6 nights, sticking to Andasibe and Ankarafantsika makes sense. And in that case it is easier to just rent a car (no 4-wheel drive necessary) in Tana, which will be cheaper than flying and probably less stressful. I could give you an e-mail of a driver I used for 2 days, who was very good and affordable. For accomodation I can't give you and advice for Andasibe, as I haven't been there. In Ankarafantsika I stayed at the accomodation from the national park itself, which was very basic but ok. There is some better accomodation on the south end of the park, where most tourists seem to go. And you don't have to bother about the boas, they are not really harmful and especially the Sanzinia are perfectly docile.
