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Essential Madagascar

A Scouting Trip with Jeremy Woodhouse

Tour Description

Daily Itinerary

Day 1: Tana – Morondava (South West part of Madagascar)
The charter plane will take around 1hour 20minutes to reach Morondava. We leave in the morning, 9 am the latest and will lunch in Morondava. The hotel is half an hour from the airport, at the shore of the beach. You need to be careful though, the beach here is not good, dirty because people use to do their toilet at the beach, if ever you decide to walk there, you need to be careful, check well where you step on.

After lunch, before going to the Baobab Avenue which is the highlight here, we can leave earlier from the hotel to go to the local market to take pictures of the everyday life of people. The Baobab Avenue is 16 miles from the hotel and can be made in 45 minutes. The 3 last miles before reaching the place is done on uneven road. We wait for the sunset and come back to the hotel for dinner.

Day 2: Morondava – Kirindy Park
Kirindy Park is in the northern part of Morondava, 40 miles from there and it takes around 2 hours and half to reach it. It has a dry deciduous forest, and you can see forest of Baobab there along with 2 species of diurnal lemurs: the red fronted brown lemur and the Verreaux’s Sifaka, the white dancing lemur, you can find the biggest carnivorous animal of Madagascar, the fossa as well. And this is apart from the birds, most endemic to Madagascar, reptile like chameleons, geckos … it’s worth to visit this park especially for this fossa, very elusive animal but present here. This is the only place it is easy to see it and we will not encounter it in the next places we will be.

Going to this park from the hotel, we pass by the Baobab Avenue and on the way back as well. So, to take picture of the sunrise is a possibility. Anyway, to go to this park, it’s better to leave the hotel very early in the morning, with Dan and Tanya, we use to leave the latest 5 am, not for the sunrise but to reach the park when it is still fresh for us and especially for the animal, the fossa because in November it’s really hot there, can be up to 100°F during the day and when it’s hot, the animals are lurking inside the bush thus it’s hard to take picture of them. This is for the fossa not for the lemurs, these latter ones can be taken at any time. We can be at the park for 3 or 4 hours. Then, we have option, we go back directly to hotel for lunch or lunch at the park and still enjoying the wildlife and going back in the afternoon to reach again the Baobab Avenue for another sunset. If we decide to go back to the hotel for lunch, we can still go back to the Baobab Avenue the afternoon. It all depends on you or the guests.

Day 3: Morondava – Tsingy
We leave Morondava in the morning, around 9 am and have a short flight, around 20 minutes to arrive to the Tsingy. It takes one hour to reach the hotel on a very dirt road. We reach the hotel and take a rest. We can go to the Tsingy National Park in the afternoon to be in the “little Tsingy”, this park is 20 minutes from the hotel, and the visit is around one hour. It’s a limestone formation like the big Tsingy but in a smaller scale. Or you can stay at the hotel since they have a private park (the last time I went there I didn’t see that yet but I will ask more information when I’ll call them for the new room rates).

After that, we go back to the hotel for dinner and rest.

Day 4: Tsingy
This day is for the “big Tsingy” discovery and it can be around 3 hours in the park depending on the way we walk inside. And do not forget to calculate the time we reach the park, around 45 minutes from the hotel to the park and the way back. We leave the hotel early to avoid the heat on the rocks. We might see 2 species of lemurs at the park, the ring tailed lemur and the white lemur called Decken’s Sifaka.

Day 5: Tsingy – Berenty (south east part of Madagascar)
We leave in the morning the latest the hotel 7:30am and depart for our next destination 9 am at the Tsingy runway. This time, we will fly to the south east part of Madagascar, almost at the bottom and reach Berenty. They do have private runway at their lodge, we will arrive there by 11:30 am. After lunch, we can explore this private reserve, they do have forest gallery, spiny forest. The ring-tailed lemurs, the brown lemurs and the famous dancing lemur Verreaux’s Sifaka (white lemur) are here. If ever you have seen this dancing lemur somewhere in a documentary, there’s a good chance it’s from this lodge. What is good here, the lemurs are around the lodge and you or the guests can explore the area by yourselves. But, we will have local guide who will be with us to show things around. We can have night walk safari in the evening to see nocturnal species of lemurs, birds and chameleons.

We will stay for 3 nights to enjoy all they have here.

Day 6 – 7: Berenty private Reserve

Day 8: Berenty – Tana
In the morning, we fly back to Tana and arrive by noon or 1 pm. The flight is around 3 hours.

Day 9: Tana – Andasibe
We leave in the morning by van to Andasibe in the eastern part of the capital. We are having around 90 miles to make. We will drive through villages, rice fields, brick factories on a windy road… we see life of people living in the highland (central part of the country). Half way, after around two and half hour-drive, we stop in a reptile reserve to see chameleons, frogs, geckos, butterflies … what is interesting here is the number of different species of animals they have in this reserve, if ever you want to see them in the nature, we need to go far to different areas when the time is not permitted for us. This place is worth to visit and good for photography, animals are very close, and most even you shoot them on macro mode.

We will take a picnic lunch from the hotel we stay in Tana and lunch in this park. We will continue after till our hotel and rest the afternoon while waiting for the nocturnal walk safari we can make this night or the next day to look for nocturnal species of lemurs, chameleons, frogs … most of the time, all nocturnal walk we do is for one hour till 1 hour and half maximum and all is before we have dinner. It all starts around 6 pm.

Day 10: Andasibe
Today, we will be at the reserve of the hotel we stay to see the playful lemurs that can be on your shoulders (some of them). We will encounter few species of lemurs here, we can be there as long as we want since the lodge is 2 minutes by car. The afternoon, those who want to go to the village to see life of the population in this area can go. It is located 20 minutes by car from the hotel or coming back to the lemurs for those who still want.

Day 11: Andasibe – Palmarium
We leave early morning by 7:30 am Andasibe by car for 95 miles to reach the Pangalanes Canal in the east coast which is the second longest man-made canal in the world, then when we reach the canal, we will have one hour boat ride till the hotel we stay.

Arriving here, the lemurs are around the lodge as well. We will meet few species and one of the highlight is the Indri Indri, the biggest of all living lemurs and its piercing call (unique). We will have a nocturnal safaris as well here, one is to see the most elusive and secretive of all lemurs, the aye-aye (nocturnal species). For this one, we must go by boat till the place we will see them. And if we still want to see more nocturnal lemurs, we will make it around the lodge.

We stay 3 nights here, so we have time to see the lemurs playing around especially during the day.

Day 12 – 13: Palmarium

Day 14: Palmarium – Tana
We leave in the morning by boat this place for 40 miles to reach the first sea port of Madagascar where we will take our flight back to Tana. The flight is around one hour and we go to our hotel.

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Tour Details
Tour dates: Nov, 2020
Cost: Approx $TBA
Deposit: $1,000
Single Supplement: $TBA
Max Group Size: 6
6 SPOTS OPEN
Photographer: Jeremy Woodhouse

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Flight Information
Once you have made your flight arrangements, please fill in the form at the link below

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Tour Fee Includes

All meals on full board and bottles of mineral water throughout the trip
All of the transfers from/to the airport/hotel
The boat transfers to reach the last hotel
The jeeps we need in Morondava, the Tsingy and the last hotel
The bus we need to go to the east coast after coming back to Tana
All of the parks fees we will be, entrance fees and local guiding fees which are compulsory in every park.
All taxes.

Tour Fee Does not Include

International flights, visa upon arrival.
Charter flights
Beverages
Insurance
Emergency evacuation
Tipping of guides through out stay or staff at restaurants/hotels
Banking fees incurred.

Paying by check
If you would like to pay your deposit and/or balance with a check, please make the check payable to: Pixelchrome, Inc and mail it to:

Nicole Woodhouse
Pixelchrome, Inc,
605 Rouen Drive,
McKinney TX 75070

Paying by Wire Transfer
If you would like to pay by Wire Transfer please send the funds to the following bank account (please make sure that you cover the fee for the draft).

Please inform us by email once you have sent the draft.

Pixelchrome, Inc
Bank: Wells Fargo Bank, NA
Account #: 4428-000051
Routing #: 121000248
Swift #: WFBIUS6S

Bank Address
Wells Fargo Bank, NA
2851 South Ridge Road
McKinney, TX 75072
USA
Phone: (972) 439-3416

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