January 2020
Andapa – ? – ? – ? – ? – Maroantsetra
My last 2017 trek in Madagascar had not really gone according to plan. After this ill fortuned trek I had actually not planned to go back here. The climate and terrain just didn’t seem made for trekking. However in 2019 I was again drawn to this corner of the world. Despite all practical issues and hostile terrain I could not resist the unexplored trails and valleys . So in 2020 right at new year I landed in Antananarivo to get my revenge for my 2017 trip.
As I felt my previous trek had lacked in large rain forests I tried to plan my route right through some of the best preserved rain forests of Madagascar. Truth be told, there are not many left, but the north east of the country is luckily still an exception and is covered with dense jungles. I would Walk from Andapa to Maroantsetra. Both places are well known for their Unesco World Haritage Andapa and Masoala rain forests. In between I would pass through the lesser knwon Makira national park.
The route is completely undocumented online. Same as last time it was just a gamble that there would be a route. It did not seem unlikely. Andapa and Maroantsetra are two large towns not too far apart and there indeed seemed to be enough human activity in between. There was only one stretch of about 12 kilometers of dense jungle about which I did not feel so certain. I studied the satellite imagery of this region very closely. I concluded that there were two options for a possible route. But I had no idea which of the two it was and weather there would be a route in the first place.
As opposed to previous time the objective of the trek was a success. This was due to the valuable experience I had gathered in my previous trip as well as some luck regarding the quality of the trail (In no way obvious, but definitely findable if you pay very close attention).
The small jungle trail crossed the hilly landscape through dense jungles and many small villages. In many places the forests were scared by slash burn agriculture. Now and then with active rice fields and now and then pioneer vegetation taking over once the field is no longer in use. Though very bad from an ecological standpoint, these slash burns are from a scenic perspective rather beautiful and form a welcome variation to the dense forests in which you can’t see much further than 50 meters away (if even).
Videos
Packing list
Villages do not lay more than 4 hours appart. Though comunication is very difficult I was able to get everything I needed. Leave tent, sleeping bag, cooking equipment and food at home. In the rainy season you should be able to get enough drinking water so purification is not really needed either. As it only rains once a day you need 3 to 4 liter worth of bottles.
Sandals are better then shoes, but still the sanding of the mud will make your feet hurt. I don’t know what kind of footware would prevent this. If you do please let me know…
There are a lot of mosquitoes so a net may be worth your while.
It’s hot as hell so do yourself a favour and just carry as little as you possibly can.
How to get there
The start point Andapa can in theory be reached from Antananarivo by bus. This will be multi-day adventure of tortuous driving. I would recomand flying to Sambava (daily flight) and taking the 3 hour busdrive to Andapa from there. If you insists on not traveling by air you might consider taking the bus to Tamatave and hitching a boat to Antalaha from there. From Antalaha it’s just a 5 hour busdrive to reach Andapa.
From Maroantsetra I took a flight back to Antananarivo (flights are on Tuesday and Saturday). This time anti-air folk has better luck. You can take the bi-weekly boat from Maroantsetra to Tamatave. This boat only takes about 8 hours. From Tamatave you can take a bus of about 7 hours to Antananarivo. In principle Maroantsetra is connected to Antananarivo by road, but route 5 cannot by taken seriously as a road.
Season
Madagascar has two seasons. The hot wet season from October to April and the slightly less hot dry season from May to September. I trekked here in January, the rains made the trails into pools of mud, but it’s perfectly doable. In the dry season you should probably take something to purify water as rainwater won’t fall daily.
Trip report
day 1
I had traveled to Andapa in one go. I still felt tired, one night of mediocre sleep was not enough.
I had taken the plane from Amsterdam to Antananarivo. I landed at almost exactly new year and had spent the night at the airport to catch my 11am flight. When I landed in Sambava at 1am I should have called it a day, but I decided to press on to make it to Andapa the same day. It was new year so there were no public buses. Coincidentally a Belgium guy with his Malagese wife passed by. They were on the way to her family in Andapa, if I chipped in a bit I could ride along. The road connecting Sambava and Andapa was remarkably good, even great for Malagese standards. In a swift 3 hours we were at the house of their family. I could stay over for the night. I was tired and after dinner I went to bed as soon as I reasonably could.
I had only slept about 4 hours in the last 50 hours. It was a great feeling to finaly lay in a bed. The joy was short lived. I woke two hours later by loud music. I slept next to the living room in which they were playing extremely loud upbeat Malagese music. Great. It tried to sleep through it as well as I could. But the noise was simply to loud. Well if you cann’t ignore it just embrace it I thought. I stood up and went to the living room to join the rest on the dance floor.
day 2
Man was I sorry I hadn’t brought my mosquitoe net… My skin was itching everywhere and I had slept poorly. I was not looking forward to the nights to come. The man and woman I had been staying with made ma some breakfast. I gave tham some money and went on my way. I was excited. The trail was already remarkably beautiful and it promised to be a good trek.
I slowly but steadily climbed up. Below I could see Andapa in the distance and further the mountains of Marojejy national park. I had undertaken the trip for the rain forests and it looked like I had come to the right place. On the hilltops east of me I could already see the forests begin. I passed another small village after which the trail became more quiet. I took my time to enjoy the route and took many breaks by the streams that I crossed. I knew I had way too much time on my hands anyway.
I passed a snake chilling out on the trail. Last time I had visited Madagascar I had heard there were no dangerous snakes in the country. But of course I was not going to take any chances. I threw rocks and sticks from a save distance till it decided to slider back into the bush.
The trail now started to rapidly ascend. The jungle around me grew into a dense rain forest. I was amazed by the large insects and strange noises around me. I was really charmed by the forest, but a little less so by the trail. It was a muddy and slippery. I almost fell a few times and I had to take off my sandals for long periods of time to prevent wounds on my feet due to the sanding.
Once on top of the ridge the trail started a rapid descent. It took way longer than I thought. I had been walking a solid 3 hours till I finally arrived in the next village. When I entered the village I immediately knew I wanted to stay for the night. It was beautifully located next to a jungle stream and some impressive trees.
It took some convincing but I found a family where I could stay for the night. They were quite nice to me and I enjoyed seeing their everyday live. Communication was difficult to say the least, but I understood that they were warning me for a river with high water ahead. Darn, just when I thought I would have a worriless trek, they give me something to be concerned about. In the evening we had some very heavy rains that did not at all lift my fear. It would not be the first time high waters would get me into trouble.
day 3
I left in good spirits. This time I walked a bit quicker as I believed there to be a more challenging river not far ahead. The first hour of the walk took me to some pristine rain forest. The forest however gradually made way for pioneer vegetation and agriculture.
The terrain got more and more populated and I started to realize that this river was probably way further ahead then I had thought. I would probably not get to see it this day.
I passed a few quite large villages. I was warmly greeted everywhere and was invited in for something to eat or to watch some TV quite a lot. There was some very capable singing going on in many of the churches. I also visited a few schools, but there did not seem to be much activity going on there.
On my paper I read that there was a longer stretch of forest ahead. I bough some baguette and went on my way. I think it took me about 3 hours to reach the next village. It was still quite early in the day, but I decided to stay there anyway. I stayed in a larger house in an actual bed with a man who as far as I could tell worked in the church in the upper part of the village.
day 4
I woke up in a busy house. My landlord had 3 children and they were all over the place. Luckily they sat down to watch some old tv shows on their old pc. It was rather strange to see Windows boot in the middle of the jungle.
I hid the road rather early, hoping to beat the summer heat. I passed a few larger villages. At some point someone asked me where I was going. I showed him my route and it turned out that I was just about to take a wrong turn. I was getting over confident and had stopped asking the way at every village. He showed me a way smaller trail behind the village that I had to take.
The trail rapidly go smaller and I lost it quite a few times. Especially when the route went across a river it was difficult to make out where you needed to exit the river again. I passed a few wooden houses where I wanted to ask a few women working in the field for the way. Unfortunately they ran of when I approached. The route was really vague so I just spent 15 minutes walking randomly around cultivated and overgrown fields. After a while a friendly man passed by an pointed me the way. It turned out that I needed to step into the river and simply wade upstream…
The trail kept getting narrower. most of the way the route was just a small stream I needed to follow upwards. The jungle was extremely dense. I could not see further then 20 meters away. I had no idea in which direction I was walking.
Just when I started to wonder how much further the next village would be I passed 3 small houses. A younger man with an older woman (presumably his mother) were having lunch and invited me over. The sun was at it’s highest point and since I had lost my umbrella this morning I happily came in to avoid the hour in which my skin suffered most. While we were eating rice I made out that the next larger settlement was not far ahead. I thought to myself it might be best to stay overnight there. There were not many people on the trail here and villages lay significantly further apart. I really did not want to spent the night in the jungle…
When I continued to the next village I went as slow as I could. Each time that the clouds broke I rested in the shadow for a bit. Without my umbrella I was burning alive… Despite doing everything I could to go as slow as possible I still made it to the village at around 4pm. The villagers said that I could easily make it to the next. I did not want to press them in hosting me for the night so I continued on. I did not know exactly how far the next village would be, but I had a bad feeling about it.
The trail followed the stream up. Now and then alongside the bank now and then in the water itself. 30 minutes went by and the sun was clearly setting. I told myself to stay overnight at the very first place I would see. Not much later I passed a small bamboo hut. I saw smoke coming out so I went up the hill to check it out. I met an older man and a younger fellow. I gestured that I wanted to stay overnight as the sun was setting. They were a bit surprised that I would want to sleep in this shack. They told me that I could easily make it to the next village. They seemed to be more concerned about the incoming rain. Maybe there was large river ahead?
After some deliberating the younger man took me with him. I assumed he was going to the same place as I was. We hiked onward together. He was pretty quick and I could hardly keep up with him. I was still under the impression that there was a big river ahead and that we were hurrying to make it across. I did what I could to keep up with him.
At some point he got out of the river and started to follow a very narrow and overgrown trail. He needed his knife to cut through at some places. I was surprised by this move. This trail was way smaller then what I had seen thus far, I would have definitely opted to keep following the river. I will always keep wandering if the route via the river would have been right as well and weather I would have been able to find this trail by myself.
I was getting pretty exhausted following my ‘guide’. What made it worse was that I had no idea how much longer I would have to walk. Being out of water did not help much either. At one point I thought that we were there, but it turned out to be a smaller house where he lived. His wife gave him a torch and we pressed on. The fact that he brought a torch probably meant we still had quite some way to go…
We kept hiking up and down. I began to think there was no significant river ahead and that they had just assumed that I wanted to get there as soon as possible. The trail kept winding through the dense jungle. Each time I thought we would finally start descending the trail went even further up. I stopped thinking about it. You will get there when you get there I told myself. I focused on how much I would enjoy drinking a ‘Bonbon Anglais’ once I would get there.
After at least an hour rushing through the jungle the moment was finally there. We got to a broad burnt hillside with planted rice. Way below us I could see the village. And what do you know, there was indeed a broad river that needed to be crossed. The sun had completely set by now and in about 30 minutes it would be dark. My ‘guide’ said goodbye and went on his way back home. Apparently he did not need to be over there and had just taken me to help me out. I thanked him and give him some money as gratitude.
I quickly hiked down. Once down I crossed the river. It was a big one. The water came till well over my stomach. Luckily it was not streaming very fast. I made it across with the very last rays of light. Had I been 5 minutes later I would have to find my way in the absolute dark. It all felt into place I was immediately greeted by some folk with a large house by whom I could stay overnight. I bought some bonbon Anglais for myself and the family. It tasted as great as I had imagined. As I was drinking the rain outside started to poor. Everything was just in time, just in time…
day 5
I reviewed my options in the morning. I was way ahead of schedule. The wet sand had started to erode my feet pretty bad. I was in a beautiful place in the middle of the jungle. I could swim in the river next to me. It was an easy decision. I was taking a resting day!
I spent the day wandering around the village and trying to communicate for a bit. I was surprised by the size of the village, there were over a hundred houses here in the middle of the jungle without any maintained trail leading here.
People in this region of Madagascar are really nice and hospitable. In my last trek near Mandritsara and Mananara some people were to be kind to your face but definitely talking about you behind your back… Or sometimes even outright trying to scam you. Here however almost all folk were genuinely interested and kind.
My host had offered to go with me to Maroantsetra. I was still doubting. I was quite confident I would be able to find my way, but it might be wise. I knew there was a large stretch of jungle ahead without any houses. After a few hours I decided that it would be best to travel together. Later in the day there was an older man who also wanted to guide me through the jungle. Wow, it was really easy to get guided up here…
day 6
Today would be the big day. I would cross the large stretch of forest that still stood between me and the Maroantsetra region. My landlord an now guide Herman told me to wake up early at 4am. It would be a long way and we wanted to cross all rivers before the evening rains moved in.
The day was off for a confusing start. Herman and I walked to the river east of the village to check the water levels. Herman did not have his luggage with him yet. He first wanted to see if it there was not too much water. Despite of the heavy rain of last evening the water was relatively low, so we could continue. Herman went back for his luggage and I told him that I would wait for him. When he was away my impatience and tendency to hike unguided quickly tempted me to cross the river solo and go ahead. Herman would quickly catch up I thought. I pushed ahead via a ill defined trail. The further I went the more I began to question why Herman had not caught up yet and weather I was maybe following the wrong trail.
As the trail grew narrower I knew I had taken a wrong turn. The trail went steep uphill and was completely overgrown. I went back to the point where I probably should have crossed a stream instead of climbing up the hill. When I got down to the stream I did not see a clear way. I did not want to do too much trail and error for I could easily miss Herman that way. I decided to just walk back to the river where I had last seen Herman and meet up with him there.
Of course Herman was not at the riverside where we parted ways. It’s always remarkable how easy you can lose one another in vast landscapes… I went to the village and it turned out that Herman had gone back there to look for me. He had just gone back to the river again. There were two slightly different routes you could take here. And in that stretch of just 50 meters I had just missed him.
Herman was now ahead of me. I quickly went back to the river, but of course Herman had already crossed. I knew he hiked much faster so I probably would not be able to catch up with him. A helpful lad however run ahead to halt him. That was finally the end of the comical theater of clumsiness that morning.
We hiked in a quick, but alright phase. As we continued more people joined our party. By the time we made it to the last village we were with a group of 5 people. As we continued beyond the last village the jungle became older and more beautiful. Herman told me we were now in the protected forest. For a protected forest there were still some very suspicious cuttings and rice fields every now and then, but the forest did feel a lot different than that of the two days. It seemed quite likely to spot a lemur here.
The older man who had offered to guide me yesterday had joined our group and was constantly helping and micromanaging me. It was quite annoying and I was already looking for excuses to leave the group. It was especially annoying because I suspected that he just helped out to claim some money in the end. I made some attempt to leave the group, but they were quite persistent in keeping with them. Well I just decided to put up with it. The jungle was absolutely stunning, so I should just focus on that.
When I looked at my satellite phone I finally knew which route we had taken. From Google Earth I suspected that the route would either go eastward through a short stretch of forest or southward across a longer stretch of forest with some farms every know an then. It turned out to be the later one. This had been my initial guess when I had started to study the area, but I right now my first guess had been the shorter route eastward.
The route south meant that the trek was a bit longer then I had thought and more importantly that later this day we would need to cross a very big river. This was especially worrisome as the skies were clearly getting grayer by the minute. Our group started to make haste. By now we were descending. The river felt close. The first rain started to fall. Our quick phase became run as we pressed on. When we spotted the river the rain really started to poor. We could see the water rising. We quickly made a group of three and crossed it. It was easier than it looked. The water came to my stomach, but the current was gentle. Though if you get here after a heavy rain, you probably need to wait out a day before you can cross.
Once across the river I knew the crux of the route was behind us. I felt great. I cheered in the poring rain. Unlike last time I had made my trek in Madagascar a success! From here I expected no real obstacles on the route to Maroantsetra.
Now we were across the river we started a very steep climb up the other valley side. About half way we stopped for lunch at small hut. Our group with some other travelers ate some rice and meat, while I was eating bananas. I was kind of done with the rice, I don’t know how they managed to ruin rice, but somehow they did.
After lunch we finished the climb up. Once above the hill top I said good bye to my guides. Just as I expected, the older man started to beg for some money. I gave him some and Herman as well. Herman had guided me out of genuine kindness, but I did not want to pay the older man without paying Herman as well.
As they moved further I finally had the trail for myself again. The views from the hill top were amazing. Damp and misty jungles as far as the eye could see. Views were quite rare, as the jungle was usually to dense to even see 100 meters away. But here the hill top had recently been cut so you could see all the hills around. I saw a lightning bolt striking the hill top east of me. It was an amazing sight.
I followed the quiet but clear trail for another 1,5 hour till I got to the first village. There I met up with Herman again. I slept over with some family of him.
day 7
I had slept together with Herman and his brother in a tiny room on the floor. It goes without saying that I woke early in the morning. I was really looking forward to spending a night by myself in a room… When I thought of it, I hadn’t spent a single night in a private room since I left home.
Herman had decided to stay in the village to help is aunt on the farm next couple of days so I was on my own again. I hiked very slowly, my feet were covered by wounds and as I was mostly hiking bare feet I needed to pay attention not to open any wounds and not to get too much dirt in them.
I could permit going slow as I still had way to much time on my hands. Relaxing a bit on the beach was alright, but currently it looked like I had to spent 5 full days in Maroantsetra.
Surprisingly enough the route did not follow the valley. based on farms I had seen on Google Earth I had really expected this. Instead the trail ascended the mountain ridge south. Once again I found myself in dense and untouched jungle. This might actually even be the largest untouched stretch that I would see on this trek. I even got to see a few lemurs passing over my head.
As it became later in the afternoon I started to increase my phase. I had not seen a single village or met other people for 2 hours and I started to worry whether or not I would reach a village before nightfall. The trail was broad, broader then I had seen in the rest of the trek, so I knew I was on the right trek. I tried looking on the map on my satellite phone to get a grasp of where I was. Unfortunately the jungle was so dense that GPS and messaging were not working. This was kind of scary, I never seen my satellite dysfunction before.
My worries where unfounded. Just before the evening moved in I came across the first rice fields. About 20 minutes later I entered a reasonable large village. At first I was ignored, but once the ice was broken they all gathered around me for some good old fashioned unabashed staring.
I was escorted to the see the head of the village. There were no French or English speakers so we just sat around for 20 minutes with a few dozen children staring at us. Till at last it was decided that an older man would take me in for the night. Finally some privacy, be it relative privacy, I of course still needed to share the room.
day 8
Today I would probably make it to Maroantsetra! It was another 15 kilometers birds flight, but the route was probably quite easy.
Once again I left early in the morning. I shared the trail with some children heading for school. The rice fields right next to the village were quite beautiful in the morning sun.
As I continued I met one of their teachers. He seemed to be inviting me to something. As I had way by enough time I said sure, even though I did not really know what he was saying. The only thing I could make up was the word ‘special’. We walked to the larger town further ahead. We wade through the river to go the the center of the town. (They seem to believe bridges to be really overrated down here.)
As I entered the town I was placed in a shop. The teacher went on his way. As I sat around I wondered what the plan was. I bought some soft drink and looked around. After 20 minutes I went on my way. The shopkeeper stopped me. There was something I needed to wait for. I still did not get what.
After a while I finally got it. I was waiting for ‘special’ transport. They were preparing a boat for me to take me to Maroantsetra. Under normal circumstance I would probably have declined the offer, but my feet were really hurting. The wounds were infected and had started to ignite. I bargained a bit on the price but haply agreed.
The first kilometer went slow, but as soon as the water became broader they could use the motor. We arrived in Maroantsetra within just one hour. The fare through the wetlands was quite enjoyable. The valley floor between the overgrown hills was completely flat and formed one big swamp.
Once in Maroantsetera I settled for a luxury hotel. All cheap local hotels were fully booked. I didn’t mind too much, it had been a cheap vacation till now and frankly I could use some luxury.
After I had called and chatted with everybody back home I started to worry about how I would kill the time. My flight would not depart for another 5 days. A pretty long wait all by yourself. I tried rescheduling my flight, but there was only one other flight that week and altering my departure costed quite a bit of money, so I decided not to. I only had one day of overlay between my domestic and international flight so I really hoped I would not regret this decision.
After two nights I changed to a cheaper hotel that had availability. I spent most of the time reading and watching Netflix. The next day I upgraded again to a small hut next to the beach. It was located under the palm trees right next to the beach. It was simply too idyllic to pass down on.
I spent another 2 days reading and watching Netflix. This time I had broadened my repertoire a little to include swimming in the ocean and walking on the beach as well. I really enjoyed the last leisure days, the only cloud over my head was the fear of missing my international flight. There was only a handful of other tourists in maroantsetra, but all had honor stories of people getting stuck down here.
My flight was on time, relatively speaking. I was lucky, delays of more then 24 hours are not uncommon. I would not cut it this close if I were to do this again…
Last frontiers on foot 