Far North and Islands

Chris arrives in Tana and an early flight to Diego Surez for the start of the last leg in this wonderful country.

The airport taxi’s are cute, but pretty small, glad we have a driver arranged as we certainly would not all fit in one with our bags.

First stop supermarket – finally an Airbnb where we can self cater – bliss.
Great airbnb, well set up with lovely balcony and comfortable chairs in and out. If we wanted the housekeeper would even cook our meals, but not our style.

We had planned to go to a lake near here for some special water birds, but it was not accessible due to a bush fire – sure this is more common due to all the non-native Eucalyptus trees.

We have discovered from our driver that on Tuesday’s no-one will work in rice fields as apparently they believe that the ancestors walk in the fields on a Tuesday. Other beliefs are certainly interesting, not sure of the origin or why though.

Night walk in Amber mountain was really good with lots of Dwarf and Mouse Lemurs along with Gecko’s and Chameleon’s The guides are really a credit to this country, so knowledgeable with many speaking at least 3 languages. And their average wage is around 9 AUD per day….

Red Tsingy Camp was beautiful, very remote but stunning scenery and unexpected breakfast visitors.

We had planned to do a 2-3 hour walk but as there was no shade and it was 38 we opted for a short walk to the best part of the Red Tsingy (sandstone) – stunning but our photos do not do it justice at all.

Ankarana Reserve is our next stop to see the Tsingy (limestone) Uneso site. A good walk with lemurs and reptiles but again we are not good enough photographers to be able to catch the stunning landscape in any good way.

So far on this part of our trip the roads are in much better condition than in the south, in fact one major road completely re-surfaced.

A stay in Ambilobe to break the journey where we saw some interesting sights. A tourist couple having rum and coke with pizza for breakfast…? And the staff and porters eat anything left over on the table from tourist breakfasts. Great to avoid wastage but not sure I would like to do that.

Last mainland drive to the remote port of Ankify, past 2 bridges that are only half bridges due to cyclones, luckily temporary ones have been created.

Arriving in Nosy Be port our ride is not there, tried to ring hotel, numbers do not connect. A taxi driver comes to our aid and eventually speaks to hotel who seem to have forgotten about picking us up. No worries, he takes us to the next boat harbour and they send the boat over, a short ride but lots of wading in very sinky mudflats.

We came here to see 3 specific species of lemur – of which 2 were in a mango tree next to our room at Zara Village. Saves us the cost and time of a daytime walk in the park.

Night walk in Lokobe Reserve needed for the 3rd. Lovely birds in the grounds too.

Hotel is really nice and a lovely setting, beautiful grounds but meals take a very long time and not always what you ordered – a language problem I think.

The guide for the night walk was great – how he walks through the forest in bare feet amazes me as we find it hard enough on the rough ground with shoes on. The best night walk so far – so many lemurs, frogs, gecko’s and chameleon’s.

This forest is just jam packed with wildlife and we were having a great time and then the heavens opened – none of us had brought our rain jackets as not a cloud in the sky when we left. A good half our walk in torrential rain with the ground getting slipperier by the minute. At least it is not cold. November is the start of the monsoon so I guess it just started.

Leaving Zara Village we managed to go at high tide – no wading, a definite bonus. Driving around Nosy Be there are fields and fields of Ylang Ylang trees, really odd shape. They are used for Chanel No. 5 perfume.

The trees are a bit like grapevine’s on steroids.

Our 2nd Airbnb, right on the beach is really lovely and great to be able to cook again. Especially as only 5 restaurants on this beach and all are very expensive and mainly seafood.
The next beach has many and a good variety but the tuk tuk’s charge $10 each way, very expensive.

Of to the marine park with a dive boat for snorkeling. Not expecting a lot but it was better than I thought it would be. Patchy but good coral in the first spot and quite a good variety of fish.

After a while we started to head back to the boat and WOW I found 2 Octopus mating, Steve realised and then Chris looked back and came back to see what we had found so we were all very lucky to see them in fairly shallow water. Such a great sight to watch.

Not sure if the brown one (below) is male and the black and white female or vice versa.

Unfortunately so much dead coral (so many boats) and most is obviously being damaged by anchors. The second spot for snorkeling which is from the boat is much better, more coral and lots of much bigger fish. Plenty of turtles in both spots.