The forest of Mitsinjo is part of the Andasibe area a 4 to 5-hours-drive east of Tana. Besides the eponymous Andasibe National Park and Mitsinjo forest, there are several other protected areas such as VOIMMA, a small community-based park, Mantadia National Park, Torotorofotsy Reserve, Maromizaha Reserve and Vohimana Reserve, all trying to protect chunks of […]
Kategorie: landscape
Brickmaking – Die Ziegelherstellung
As one travels the island of Madagascar, it gets quite clear that wood is somehow out of reach as construction material, because it is needed as combustible and there is not much left of it – in general. Where people at the south tend to live in huts made of palm leaves, bamboo, and some […]
Transport Malagasy
Transport facilities in Madagascar are quite quixotic, because there ain´t that many roads worthy of that name. Travelling Madagascar is a fascinating thing to do, but it´s also tough and time-consuming. Infrastructure would be too strong a word for the possibilities on the island. It´s mainly three so-called National Roads linking Antsiranana (Diego-Suarez) in the […]
Les Chutes de la Lily
In Ampefy, it is Sakay river that drains Lake Itasy before taking a turn to the south 50 kilometres west of the town. Then, it converges with another river and flows into the Mahajil coming from the highland, where it was named Kitsamby. On its way west to the Channel of Mozambique, Mahajil river passes […]
The stars above Lac Itasy – Die Sterne über dem Itasy-See
If you are heading west from Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, the landscape becomes even more barren than it is around Tana. The Route National 1 is going up as far as 1.700m in altitude, and about 130km west of Tana, you are reaching the rough but beautiful volcanic area around Lake Itasy at approximately 1.300m. The […]
My heart is in the highland
The central highlands are Madagascar’s backbone, stretching along the eastern part of the island from the Massif du Tsaratanana – south of Ambilobe – all the way down south to the Andringitra Massif west of Manakara. In the southeast it is linked to the Massiv d´Antaivondro, a mountain range almost reaching Taolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) at […]
Arboretum Raponda Walker (Foret de Mondah)
We spent the last days of our journey through Gabon in Libreville, but we had planned one last excursion. This should lead us to the Foret de Mondah, a forest at the northern tip of the Libreville peninsula. Beyond that peninsula, there is already Equatorial Guinea. Parts of the Mondah forest had been cleared in […]
Return to Lopé – Rückkehr nach Lopé
We tried to reach Loango National Park from Mayumba in the south, but when we called there, they brusquely told us that they were fully booked and camping not allowed. That only made us shrug indifferently. Gabon doesn´t want tourists, we already got that! Wir versuchten noch, von Mayumba aus den Süden des Loango Nationalparks […]
Mayumba – The most beautiful beach in the world – Der schönste Strand der Welt
From Mouila, we took a shared taxi via Ndendé to Tchibanga in the south. There were three women and a man with us, and the youngest of the women was a shy adolescent without a decent passport. All she had was a permit to go from Mouila to her village. There was a direct way, […]
Lac Bleu
By far the main attraction of Mouila and its surroundings is Lac Bleu, the blue lake a few kilometres south of the city. It is linked to Ngounié river and accessible in no more than fifteen minutes on a rough dirt road. Despite the murky water of Ngounié river, the water of the lake is […]