Enchanting Escapades: Chronicles from Magical Madagascar

Magical Madagascar

My first post to this website is all about a recent trip to Madagascar. This was a fascinating trip, not least because it was my first visit to what is the fourth largest island in the world, there was so much diversity in terms of landscape and wildlife and we were able to see many different species of the native lemurs.

Madagascar isn’t the easiest of locations to get to, but that all added to the anticipation - I hadn’t quite prepared myself though for the culture shock, but the experience was wonderful not least for the lovely people. I’d thought roads in Costa Rica were the worst I had previously experienced, however Madagascan roads have now taken first place and Costa Rica bumped to second place. If I’d read the book by Dervla Murphy “Muddling Through Madagascar” before undertaking some of these journeys I would have had more appreciation about how harrowing road transport can be. That said, travelling by the national airline, Air Madagascar, easily lived up to its reputation as unreliable and prone to cancellations.

I’d also read quite extensively about corruption in Madagascar but until you experience it first hand it’s quite difficult to comprehend as so alien to Europe, the US or so many other countries throughout the world. After being asked for “a gift” from Police and Immigration Officials a number of times, I soon understood why there were many references to this on TripAdvisor posts.