Andasibe

This episode gives you the ins and outs of visiting the amazing Andasibe area of Madagascar with some tips on hotels, which parks to visit, what you will see there, and our recommendations about the area.

We love Andasibe and even if you are only in Madagascar for a couple of days, this is the one area that we recommend that you visit.  If you are on an extended tour of the country, do not miss to add Andasibe to your itinerary...

My episodes are becoming less and less frequent I am sorry, and, they are becoming less and less edited, so, you have to excuse my ummmms and ahhhhhhs as I quite brutally record these podcast episodes whenever I get a moment and publish them without much polish... 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello, um, this is Brett from Dadamanga in Madagascar, bringing you another episode of the Madagascar Travel Show. Now, today we're going to be talking about Andasi Bay National Park. Um, before I get into that, let me just say, look, sorry, guys. I started this podcast with the very best of intentions, but I am actually a working travel professional, and we have high season right now. We have people all over Madagascar from left to right, and I just have been a bit too busy. So I'm sorry that I haven't been able to get more done. The good news is that I have got myself a new laptop and a microphone that will work with it. So I'm going to be able to do these now when I can sneak a bit of spare time. Right now I'm in Antena Narivo at the dentist, visiting the dentist, actually. So I'm profiting to make a quick recording while I'm here in my hotel room. Like I said, today we're talking about Andasi Bay. But just before I get into that, I want to say we've had a lot of um experience this year so far, a high, high incidence of delayed baggage. Um, this has nothing to do with Madagascar, the bags get lost uh on the way from all over the place and uh from all airlines. So I just want to let you know if you're planning a trip to Madagascar, be really sensible in your packing. And we've noticed that it's especially with people who are coming on complicated routes. So Malta to Rome, Rome to Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa to Antonarivo, and the bags don't get past Rome. So uh I just really do want to warn you, uh suggest that you be prepared. Have your first few days' essentials in your hand baggage. So when you're packing, think carefully about what you're putting in your hand baggage. Have a couple of changes of clothes, most especially any vital medicines that you need in your hand luggage, so that if uh your bags do get delayed, and look, it doesn't happen to everyone, but we have noticed a really high incidence of it. So if your bags are delayed, you have enough stuff for the first few days. Now, um, if that does happen, your tour operator should be able to help you to get your bag back to you. If by horrible chance you your bags are delayed, you need to help help your tour operator to help you. So when you're registering at the airport, filling out the form, give the um airport staff the number, telephone number, name and telephone number of your tour operator, and make sure your tour operator has a photocopy of your passport and everything that they need um to help you, which would include a copy of the reference file number of the lost baggage report. So, yeah, we like we've had people who came um landed in Tana, did a uh a one-week road trip to the south of Madagascar, flew back to Tana, still didn't have their bags, flew up to Nosi Bay, and we ended up getting their bags to them on Nosi Bay. We had other people who we had to get their bags to them in Diego Suarez, like, and it was very last minute. They were just about to set off to Ankara National Park, so they would have been in the middle of nowhere, but we managed to get the bags to them. So I just want to warn you just be a little bit careful and plan well with your hand baggage. Right, so let's get into this about Andasi Bay National Park. Andasi Bay is probably the most visited park in Madagascar. It's only a four to five hour drive. Now, look, some things some places say three hours. We have historically for the last two years said four hours. We're starting to say four to five hours. The roads have been deteriorating around the country, so we are starting to say four to five hours drive now, which is still a pretty quick drive from Tana out to Andasi Bay, and you're in the rainforest. It's a X um forestry station, so it was once uh intended to be logged. Um, it's about 155 square kilometers, the Andasi Bay Mantadia National Park. Um, it's primarily um primary growth forest, but the formerly logged sections are secondary growth. It ranges from about 800 to about 1200 uh meters of altitude, so it's a bit it can be a little bit cool with a very humid climate. There's about 210 days of rainfall each year. So that tells you to prepare. Um take a spray jacket, uh, light rain gear when you're going to Andasi Bay. Okay, now I am not going to rattle off species lists. It would just drive everyone insane and drive me insane. And you can use Google for that. But the rainforests around Andasi Bay are habitat to a vast species biodiversity, like it's really an extraordinary place. Mostly we're talking about endemic and rare species, endangered species. There are 11 species of lemas there. I'm not going to talk, I'm I'm definitely not going to do species lists, so it just does I don't see the point in that. The park has two main components. So the Mantadia National Park and the Anala Mazuta Reserve. Now these fragmented forests, once part of a great rainforest that r went down to the ocean and to the top of the mountains, which has now been fragmented and cleared. These areas around Mountadilla and Nandasi Bay are more or less the same forest, but they've been fragmented. So the the species are not different from fragment to fragment to a certain extent. There are actually some endemics to specific fragments, but that's too detailed for this podcast. So two main components, Mantadia and Anala Mazutra. Anala Mazutra is what people most people know as Andaci Bay. So it's near the village of Andassi Bay. It consists of the Anala Mazutra National Park, and then various sections of the forest that are run by local people or local community groups. And then there's Mantadiya National Park, which is a couple of hours' drive out of town. The area is mainly known by most people as Andace Bay, but like I said, the park is Anala Mazutra, which is the former Perene. So you'll see this named many ways. Could be Perine, could be Analamazutra, could be Andae Bay. It's the same place. Perine was the name of the French um forestry station. The main threats to these forests are in fact less and less these days local people growing uh rice, doing Tavi slash and bird agriculture for food and rice. Mainly it's the expansion of eucalyptus and pine forests for charcoal making, which is used to supply Antananarivo with charcoal, the capital city. These forests are really important with incredibly important uh endemics, and they house some of the most um what's the word I want to use? Charismatic, charismatic of our lemurs, being the injury injury and the diademed shefuck, which are my two favorites. If I was gonna have favorites, they would be my favorites. There has been uh some intro reintroduction work. Uh as the forests have been fragmented, small fragments become unable to support these very large lemurs. So starting in around 2006, the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership with Madagascar National Parks and the Ministry of Forests started to do reintroduction. So they would capture the lemurs from the tiny fragments that could no longer really support them in any sustainable way. I mean, the animals were living, but these populations could never grow or develop in these tiny fragments. So these animals were captured, translocated into the larger fragments, and have been monitored ever since. That's why you will notice, or it's one of the reasons why you will notice, some of the lemas that you will see in these forests have collars. Um, these are radio collars that help track the animals and help scientists maintain research into what's going on with them. Um they collect poo samples, um, which helps them to evaluate the the health of the animals and uh the food that they're eating, this the health of the habitat, and um various other subjects that scientists love to look at poo for. The project uh in has been really successful, actually, and there are now several generations of babies born in the park from these um translocated and relocated um animals. Okay, so preparing to go to Andaci Bay, you're already in Madagascar. We've already covered that. We've uh you've landed in Antanana Rivo, and I'm gonna go through Antananarivo in another episode because it's so enormous. Um preparing to go to Andaci Bay. Okay, so we've already discussed that it's wet. When you're walking through these parks, generally they're they're pretty well maintained. The paths are pretty well maintained, but you do walk through some sloppy mud at times. So, you know, wear suitable shoes. That's the first most logical thing I have to tell you is wear suitable shoes. Um, light rain gear may be useful. You may or may not get rained on. Um you don't actually have to like wade through water normally. Um but yeah, there is some sloppy ground. So some people, if you have expensive suede hiking boots, you might like to spray them with a waterproofing product. Um, but I would recommend wearing the simple, hard wearing um waterproof gear. Okay, the other thing that you're gonna need is a torch. You're gonna need a head torch. You're going to want to go out in the night because a lot of these animals are nocturnal, and although the national parks of Madagascar are not open in the night, the private parks are. And a lot of people don't even bother with that, they just walk along the road with a guide spotting with torches. You see the eyeshadow of the lemurs, and then you can follow them. It's really fun. Uh, so I highly recommend that you have a really good quality head torch. Also, note that some areas of Madagascar have very regular power cuts, uh, Andasi Bay being one of them. And having a torch can help you just get around your hotel at night. They're the main things to prepare for when going to Andasi Bay. Your journey to get there, uh, as we've already covered, about four to five hours. The different transportation options, well, really, first of all, I would say that the best option for you to go to Andasi Bay is a private car. The reason why I say that is because the hotels are not clustered in a village which is next to the entrance to the park. So the hotels and the park and the village are all quite distant from each other. It's a long straight road from the highway that goes from Antana Narivo to Masana or Tamatav. Take a detour off that road into the Andasi Bay village, and all along that road are hotels dotted in their own private compounds, some of them quite long ways along private roads to get to the hotel. Then you get to the park entrance, then you get to the village, and then it's even further again if you want to go to Manta Dia Park itself. So, private car number one option. There is public transport available, and you can take a taxi Bruce from Antananarivu to Moramanga at the Mora Manga bus stop where you get off. You just go to the kiosk and look for the kiosk that says Andasi Bay or Tuomasana and go and talk to people there. There will be people there trying to sell you a ticket and you will be able to get public transport to Andasi Bay. And look, it's kind of okay. I've done it myself. I stayed in a cheap hotel called Feo Niala, one of my first visits to Andasi Bay, and I just walked to the park every day, and it was okay. I mean, I I did it, but I didn't get to see all of the fascinating things that I would have liked to have seen. Um nowadays you can hire cars in Andasi Bay to take you to these other places, but if you're going to do that, frankly, just take a car from Tana. Along the way, there's not a great deal of interest. I mean, it's a lovely drive. Um there aren't a great deal of things that you can stop at. The two main things that I could suggest, well, for lunch, you could stop at a place called Mandraka Park. You can look that up on Google or on TripAdvisor. Mandraka, M-A-N-D-R-A-K-A. Or you can stop in the village of Um Moramanga, the town of Moramanga. It's quite a it's quite a decent sized town, and at Mora Manga, Moramanga means cheap mangoes. Um at Mora Manga, there's a place that we often hear uh recommended called Le Coq d'Or, the Golden Rooster. So there's plenty of restaurants in Morumanga though. Also along the way is a fascinating place which you you may love and you may hate, depending on your ethics. Um we know that some people have very strong ethics against animals being caged. If you if you object to caged animals, then put your fingers in your ears for my explanation about Perias. Pereiras reserve or otherwise known as Madagascar Exotic was formerly run by a guy, uh Andre Perieras, who was a naturalist. Um there are animals and plants named after him, but he was also an exporter of wildlife. He bred and exported, collected bread and exported Madagascar reptiles, particularly chameleons, uh, to the pet trade. Um when all of that became impossible due to sighties laws and other things, the the Madagascar exotic um evolved into what is now a really fascinating park. It's well kept by younger generations of the family, um the it employs a team of Malagasy people who keep chameleons and other reptiles, lots of geckos, in uh uh uh in cages um for tourists to come and see. Now look, I'm not going to discuss the ethics of this, I'm just going to talk to you about what it is, what it's like. There's a very large cage with some fantastically um huge mature chameleons. This place is full of crickets. They pay local kids to collect uh grasshoppers and they use these to feed to the chameleons. And look, it is fascinating. Um, particularly personally, I don't really like uh the idea of keeping animals in cages. But from a point of view of someone who may come to Madagascar one time in their life, these animals are very well taken care of. These are big spacious cages and um they're very well fed. There is then another section of smaller cages where you can see all sorts of different species uh of um geckos. That part I was, I confess, less convinced about. Um the cages aren't so big, but they're very natural conditions. They're full of moss and bark and trees, branches, and um there are also comet moths and some other very interesting things that you can see there. The visit takes about 45 minutes and it's pretty cheap. Uh so that's the only thing that you can really do on the road from Antonanarivo to Andasi Bay. When you get into Andasi Bay, I guess the first thing you're going to want to do is choose a hotel. Now, this is where it kind of gets complicated. There are lots and lots of hotels in Andasi Bay, but it depends on the time of the year that you're coming. If you're coming in the high season, say August, September, you need to book well in advance if you want to be choosy. If you're not so choosy, then you will always get a room somewhere, I I think. But I would still highly recommend trying to make a booking if you're coming in July, August, or September. Outside of those times, there'll be plenty of accommodation that that's suitable for everybody. Today I'm going to talk about places that we recommend. And that's going to kind of be my go in this podcast, is I'm not going to talk about places that I wouldn't send people to that much unless it's vital. So at the very highest end, let's start at the top. The brand new, open about 18 months, opened during COVID, Manzaranu Lodge and Spa. A very luxurious hotel that is loved by everyone that we've sent there so far. It's a spectacularly beautiful place, lovely swimming pool, beautiful bungalows on the edge of a lake, and it's owned by the same people that own the next hotel I'm going to talk about, Vakuna. So Vakuna Lodge is the oldest of the nice hotels in Andasi Bay. It has really beautiful, beautiful, spectacular established gardens, a really, really lovely central communal building where the restaurant is housed and the bar, a huge open fire that burns in the cooler months, and where the internet connection can be found, usually if it works. Vacana rooms are um let's say verging on a little bit tired. It's a perfectly fine hotel. I would stay there myself. Um, it's just not as modern as some of the others. Um standard hotel that we use now more than anywhere else is Manta Deer Lodge. Manta Deer Lodge is uh also fairly recently built. It has an excellent restaurant, the rooms are beautiful, spotless, nice bathrooms, modern, clean, and really comfortable. It's highly recommended. And they have just opened an annex hotel called the Ralais de Mantadilla. Then, if we're going down in price a little bit, I would recommend Andasi Bay Lima's Lodge and the Sahatandra River Hotel. At the bottom end of the scale is uh nearing the bottom is the Goyave, also a very clean place that we have been sending people to for many years if they if they don't have the budget for the other places. And and then finally on the end, the bottom end of the scale is Feoniala. Now, look, there are other places I know. We've sent people there recently, and it's been a bit of a uh a non-event. They have we've had complaints, so I'm not going to talk about them. And that includes Grace Lodge, uh, which needs to get its act together. So Feoniala is a very, very popular place. It's on the main road, it's the first place you pass uh more or less when you're driving on the road from the turnoff into Andasi Bay. It's there on your right, it's um been there for a very long time. I stayed there. In 1987, I think, on my first visit to Andasi Bay. Good Chinese food, very, very tired bungalows, leaky toilets. I mean, we've had some some complaints that it was very hard to get a decent night's sleep there. They are very they're quite old bungalows. But cheap and cheerful, and um, you know, a lot of people very happily stay there. It has a spectacular spot in that it's um it faces directly the forest, and I've been there when the injury have come right to the edge of the forest in front of my bedroom and been calling in the morning. I haven't mentioned this, but the injury lemurs call, they have an amazing voice that sounds a bit like whale song, and you hear it from very early in the morning, and then you hear it again in the evening when the the lemurs are communicating with each other, and it uh it it's one of the things that makes a visit to Andasi Be really unique and special to wake up in the morning in this rare environment with the song of the injury uh across the treetops. It's it's really what makes Andasi Bay quite amazing. Um, right, so that's the hotel. So from the top we have uh, as I said, Manzaranu Lodge and Spa, very luxurious. My next choice down would be Mantadia Lodge and the Raleigh de Mantadilla. My next choice down would be Vakuna, and then we go to Andasi Bey Lima's Lodge, Le Goyave, and Feoniala. Um, when you're in any of these hotels, uh you know, like as I've described, they're a little bit far from each other. So normally you would eat in in-house. And if your driver has been driving you all day, and you know, you don't want to ask him to take you out somewhere and sit outside in the car while you have dinner and you know, make his day a 14-hour day or something like that. Um, most of these places have decent restaurants. Um, there is a place in town called Shaymaria where you can get decent Malagasy food and it might be a good place to have lunch. I do recommend um, and here again we're going to talk about uh captive animals. I do recommend Vacuner Hotel for lunch if you're going to visit Lemas Island because you can have lunch and then visit Lemas Island in the afternoon after lunch. Lemas Island and the Vacuner Reserve is another captive animal experience. They have an island where they have various lemurs on the island. You cross to the island in a canoe, and these um lemurs are habituated to humans and um will come very close. It's an extraordinary opportunity for photos, but once again, it depends on whether you agree with or do not agree with animals and captivity. And I'm not going into that debate here, I'm just telling it like it is. It has an amazing river, it's a natural river, and they've managed to control it um in such a way that they have this incredible population of crocodiles living in this river, and you walk around the edges of the river, and there's kind of an island in the middle, and it's just dense with crocodiles, and some of them are huge, and it's a fantastic opportunity to see these animals because they're swimming around and living in the way they would normally live, and they're really well fed and fat, sleeping on the river bank. Um, and that's a fantastic thing to see. But they do have a section with kind of small cages with birds in them that I think is a bit meh, and I don't know. We I mean we tell we tell our clients what it's like. Um, some people like to go, some people don't. Um but these are definitely excellent photo opportunities without me going into the morality of the situation. So that's accommodation. There is for if you want to camp, I would recommend contacting Association Mitsinzu because they do run camping at the Mitsinzu Reserve, and you can find them online. Um, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about them in a moment. So now we're gonna talk about um the parks. What are you gonna do? So you've got to Andasi Bay and you've got yourself in a hotel. Hopefully, you're in a private car so you can get around a little bit. There are really a number of opportunities and options in Andasi Bay, the first one being the national park itself. As I've said, these are this is all the same forest. Part of it is national park, part of it's run by community groups. Um so your choice, or go to them all. Um there is absolutely no reason why you would not want to support Madagascar National Parks. Um they really rely on the funding from these visits, and um the Anala Masutra section of the of this national park is a lovely visit. Uh there are so this is right in the middle of town. It's it's not far from the um Andasi Bay village. The park entrance is very well organized. There are guides waiting around who uh are pretty highly experienced. Anala Mazutra, like most well-visited Madagascar National Parks, uses um spotters. So they have spotters in the forest who follow the lemas, and the spotters communicate with the guides who take you for your work network, so you are guaranteed to see animals. All Madagascar National Parks, it is obligatory to take a local guide with you, and I really um encourage you to enjoy your local guide. Uh, using local guides means that conservation gives employment to local people, number one, very, very important. But you will never in a million years see the things that that you will see with a guide if you're on your own. These guys have got eyes like hawks, they know what they're looking for. They can spot these so the the animals of Madagascar, many of them are very, very highly camouflaged. So without the experienced eyes of local guides, your experience of the park would be extremely diminished. So enjoy your guide. They have guides who speak multiple languages waiting at the gate of the park. So there you go, go get your ticket, get organized. It's very easy to do. Enter the park. Now Andasi Bay has mainly fairly short walks. The one that we send most people on is the Injury 2 circuit, which takes about three hours, passes through a couple of injury families. You will also very likely see the Diademed Shifaka, which is just gorgeous animals, um, with the most beautiful fur, um orange and white. Really spectacular. I I don't know how to describe it. Look them up. Diademed Shifaka. Um right, so that's Anala Mazutra. The longest circuit in Anala Mazutra is the adventure circuit, which takes about five hours. So it's it's a half day trip. Then we have the Vui Ma VOI, VOI in Madagascar is um there are parks called VUI something all over the country. Um VOI normally stands for Vundrun Ulana Ifutini, the base community, the people of the village. And then the Ma in this case Vui Ma Ma is um so it's Vundrunulana Miaru Mitiya Ala. Um local people who love the forest. Uh Miaru protect, local people who protect and love the forest. Um so it's a uh community, uh a group of villagers who in 2012 set up their own association. They got hold of a bit of the forest from the government to run themselves, and they run it as their private um ecotourism project. Um these local people uh run this forest. There's about 10 employees, they run a small office, a souvenir shop, and they manage their part of the forest. So the part of the money raised from the Voima Park is used on community projects in Andasi Bay village itself, so building water infrastructure or other things to help the community. These community-run projects need to be supported, they're very important. Uh, another famous one in Madagascar is the ANZA Community Reserve. So these community-driven projects are really important and help local people see the benefit of conservation, without which there would be no conservation. Let me tell you, the Malagasy are fantastically efficient at removing forests. So, you know, it's very, very important to encourage community support of all conservation efforts going on in the country. Um, another good thing about Vuima is that it opens a bit snigkly early in the morning. Up um the national parks tend to have like an 8 a.m. gate opening time, whereas the private ones can be more flexible. And Vuima you can get into from about 6.30 in the morning. Um, and it tends to stay open a little bit later, but will always be closed by sunset. Then we have Mitsinzu. Um Association Mitsinzu was formed in 1999, also by residents of Andasi Bay, um, who were again interested to set up their own business, kind of I guess in competition to the national park. Um and in 2003 they got uh management of the Anala Mazutra Forest Station. As I've said earlier, this was once a French forestry station. So Association Mitsinzu now manages that part of the forest, which is now known as Mitsinzu Park. Um they also did some work in Turuturufutsi, which is a Ramsar site for bird conservation. But we've we've heard various bad stories that Turuturifutsi has been more or less trashed by the communities surrounding it. Um but Mitsinzu not so beautiful forest, well managed. Um the Association Mitsinzu has about uh is composed of about 50 members of the local Andasi Bay community. About half of the members are certified tour guides for Andasi Bay. And in total, the activities of Association Mitsinzu impact positively on about 400 households in Andasi Bay. So it's a great park to visit. Again, same animals. You're going to see injury, you're going to see um diadensufaca, you're going to see mainly the same reptiles and amphibians. It's mainly the same stuff, just a different section of the forest. They also have a small um section of their park dedicated to orchids, which is a short visit of about one hour. On to Park Manta itself. Umta Dia is the more primary section of the national park. It's now, because of the really terrible road, about two hours drive from Andasi Bay to get to Mantadilla. So two hours to get there over a rough track, and two hours to get back. So remember that when you're planning your trip. Like I said, this is um gonna the same sort of forest, same sort of animals. You're gonna see injury, you're gonna see various sifaka, you may see black and white rough lemons if you're lucky. Um, but let's not get into the species listing. Um, it's a much more primary forest. The circuits are a little bit, can be a little bit tougher. There are some simple ones, and circuits range from a couple of hours to the very long circuit that's called the trekking circuit or circuit trekking, that would take about seven to eight hours to complete. So that would be a two-hour drive in the morning, seven to eight hours of hiking, and then a two-hour drive to get back to Andasi Bay. For the experience, if you've got the time, I would recommend it. I mean, I would recommend you visit all of these um parks, both of the national parks and all of the privately run or association run parks, to put your bucks into the pockets of all of them because they're all doing very important work to support this last important piece of habitat for these extraordinary animals. They all deserve support. Um if you're particularly interested in birding, there's a place called Yaruka. Yaruka is another place run by a VOI, local people. It's most well known. It's not far from Andasi Bay. It's well known for birds. Um, most people people go there for the excellent birding. Again, I'm not going to do species of this, but it's a great place to see the helmet vanga if that means anything to you. Um another place, if you've got plenty of time, is Maru Mizar. Umce again, uh, same forest, same animals, but it's another community-run reserve which equally deserves your support. So I think from the the parks that I've given you there, if you're the type of person who isn't going to be frustrated by, oh my god, I've seen the same lima four times, um, you know, you could spend three or four days in Andasi Bay easily visiting each of these parks and just enjoying the walk. The terrain is beautiful, the flora is spectacular, the under understory palm uh flora is really beautiful if you're interested in flora at all. All of these forests have incredible um small understory palms that are just really beautiful, um, plenty of orchids, it's a lovely forest to wander through. So, I mean, I would recommend spending as long as you can in the Andasi Bay area. Now I'm coming to the end of this segment. I think I've given you enough information for you to understand what's going on there. I've given you some tips on accommodation. Um, I've given you some tips on uh the parks, I've talked to you about the hotels. Um in conclusion, let's just summarize four to five hours from Tana. Best to go in a private car, in my opinion. Um important to visit as many of the different fragments, different parts of the forest as you can, to support as many of these local associations as you can. Um and all in all, I think it's if there is one must visit place in Madagascar, I would say it's Andasi Bay. The injury injury is a really spectacular sight and sound, and just waking up in that village is amazing. We actually recommend if our clients are arriving in the day, and Andasi Bay is a first part of their circuit, part of their tour, we recommend transferring straight from the international arrival to Andasi Bay so you don't wake up in the city with the pollution and the horns and the smell of petrol, um, and then drive to Andasi Bay through the horrible city traffic. We recommend you uh land in Ivartu International Airport and get straight in your car and drive to Andasi Bay. So your first wake-up in Madagascar is in the near the rainforest with the sound of the injury floating across the forest tops around you. It's a beautiful experience. So moving on, um, thank you for tuning in and listening to me rave on about uh Andasi Bay today. I haven't cut, I haven't been stopping and starting like I normally do. So I hope the audio is okay because I'm publishing this regardless. So if the audio is a bit rough, I apologize. I haven't been stopping and starting and checking my levels. I don't check any levels, all I do is plug in the microphone and start talking into it. So um I hope the audio is okay. And uh I just want to let you know before you go, um uh I'm from the travel company Datamanga. We are uh tour operators who specialize in English speaking clients who want to visit Madagascar. For the last many years, we've been doing tailor-made tours only for private customers, so definitely a business-to-client situation where you and I personally talk. My colleague Urban, who develops uh helps me develop itineraries between he and I and you, we plan um uh the itinerary that suits you exactly. Now, we've noticed that um we get a lot of demand from people traveling by themselves or people who want to save a little bit of money by joining a group. So for the first time ever, we are now developing group tours which will have fixed date departures starting in 2024. If this is the sort of thing that will interest you, I recommend you to please have a look at our website after the 15th of September. I promise it will be launched by the 15th of September. There will be initially four types of tours available. So even if you've got plenty of money but you would still like to save a little bit, and you enjoy the company of others and uh would prefer not to travel alone or just as a couple, we are doing a super luxury tour by private charter. So that tour will be from Antanarivo to flying by private plane to the Tsinghi of Tsinghi de Bemara National Park. Um, with ground services there, having a hike through the Tsinghi, back into your private plane and flying down to Morundava, where you will overnight, sunset at the Avenue of Bayababs, and then the next day you could do sunrise at the Avenue of Bayabs too if you wanted to. And then in your private plane again, flying to Ishalu National Park, you'll have some time in Ishalu National Park, and then the only part of the j of the this particular tour that's uh really by road is from Ranu Hira to Ranamafana. Now we we do this intentionally because it's a spectacular drive. You drive through the amazing Andrinkacha Mountains where you stop at Anza Community Park and see Ringtad Limas in the wild. It's a fantastic experience. Um, and then drive on to Ranamafana National Park. Visit Ranamafana National Park and then drive just two hours back to Fernaransua where you will meet your private plane and fly back to Antonanarivo, where you will then meet a private charter and fly up to Masuala National Park, staying at the really spectacular Masuala Forest Lodge, our favorite partners in that area. This is a spectacular, super luxury tour with the very best hotels flying with in a private charter all around the country, seeing key national parks, and it's for a group of eight people with uh a tour guide and a tour leader. This is in a Cessna Grand Caravan, which sees 12, so we're only putting eight passengers in it, which will give you a bit of extra um weight for luggage because these things are very restricted by weight as well. So that tool will be going online with fixed date departures, and we could also arrange that tool for you if you wanted to do it privately. The next type of tool we're going to be doing fixed date departure groups for is Is a road and fly tour. So this will be a mainly a road trip, um and uh but with usually one only domestic flight. So it might be, for example, a domestic flight from Tana to Tulia and then driving all the way back up the RN7, visiting um Zumbitsi, Ishalu, Andringita, Anza, Ranamafana, Dasi Bay, and Sira Bay, and back to Tana, uh, etc. So there are a number of those, so I'm not going to go through the itineraries, but they will also be in groups of 10. Maximum group size is 10. And then we have a road only. So the road-only tours have absolutely no domestic flights involved. The road-only tours require some backtracking, but we're a bit clever about it, so we stop in different places in each direction. So we may do, for example, a road only to the Tsinghi de Bemara, but that would be. Two nights camping on the riverbank on the Tsirabiana River, and then you land in Baikupika for the Tsinghi de Baymaraha National Park. Tour the Tsinghi and then drive south to Kurindi National Park, the Avenue of Bayababs, Morundava, and then drive back from Morundava to Antananarivo and end your tour in Andasi Bay. So there would also be on this new part of our website, which will be launched on the 15th of September, some popular requests that we get for day trips around Antananarivo. So visiting the museums, visiting the Palace of Umbuimanga, the Palace of Manzaka Miadana, visiting the Museum of Photography, so various history and culture tours, and uh we're gonna have a couple of culinary offers, so where you can combine a um uh historical visit with a lunch in a delicious some delicious place. We have some secrets up our sleeve where you can test um Malagasy traditional food that's been presented in a modern with a modern twist. Um so there are the four types of tours that would be going online with fixed date departures for 2024. So it's uh by private plane luxury tour, road and fly, road only, and then day trips. So please keep your eyes peeled for those tours and um book early to avoid disappointment. We know that they're going to fill up quickly because we've had a lot of uh in demand for these products, and the products have been developed because of the demand of you guys. Um, upcoming uh episodes, next episode, I'm going to talk about Antonarivo in more detail. Um, I encourage you please to uh rate this podcast and give it leave a nice, friendly, happy review. Look for us on dadamanga.mg. It's d-a-d-a-m-a-n-g A. You can find us easily by just using Google. Look for Dadamanga, D-A-D-A-M-A-N-G-A. You will find our Facebook page, you will find our Instagram, you will find our um what's it called now? X, formerly Twitter, for the the X formerly known as Twitter. You will find our TikTok, you will find everything about us and lots of short videos on YouTube. Um on our website, you will find a direct link to our registration form. So if you'd like to ask us for a tour, just look for the Create and Your Adventure tab on our website. Fill out that registration form, and that will be sent to us, and we will get all of the information that we need to get back to you within usually about 48 hours with a tailor-made itinerary. That's enough of the plug about Dadamanga. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode. I'm going to be back sooner than later. Thanks so much. This was Brett bringing you the Madagascar Travel Show.