KE Adventure

Web: www.keadventure.com
Tel: +44 (0)17687 73966

Explore Madagascar

Madagascar walking and sightseeing vacation

A superb trekking and touring holiday visiting the highlights of Southern Madagascar
Trekking in Isola and Adringitra National Parks
Dawn views from Peak Boby, 2nd highest peak in Madagascar
Unique wildlife spotting, including lemurs and the Indri Indri
Trek through the stunning rainforest of Ranomafana

Madagascar is located in the Indian Ocean some 250 miles from Africa’s east coast. More than twice the size of Great Britain, Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island and contains an incredible variety of landscape and ecosystems. The island lies almost entirely between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn and therefore is sub-tropical but as well as extensive rain forest and lush jungle, Madagascar contains extensive highland areas rising to over 2500 metres (8000 feet) giving rise to temperate grassland and deep canyons. Madagascar’s long isolation from any other land mass also means that approximately 80% of its plant and animal life is found only here, and this fact is even more impressive when you consider that the island accounts for 5% of the entire planet’s plant and animal species.

This amazing adventure holiday combines the best of Madagascar's trekking with a chance to experience its great cultural and natural variety. Travelling from Tulear on the south-west coast to the capital city of Antananarivo, our first trek is within the Isalo National Park, walking amongst dramatic rock formations, open grassland and forest. A transfer then brings us to the Andringitra Mountains, for a 3-day trek and the opportunity to summit the huge granite dome of Peak Boby (2658m), Madagascar’s second highest mountain. We aim to get there as the sun rises – an unforgettable experience. Continuing our journey north, we enjoy the contrast of a day-walk in the decidedly lush rainforest of Ranomafana, home to medicinal plants and several species of lemurs. Our last stop is in Perinet National Park to see the amazing Indri Indri lemur with their distinctive call. Craft workshop visits, colourful produce markets and village walks allow plenty of opportunity to meet the friendly people of this engaging and little-known land. Providing an unbeatable mix of trekking and sightseeing, this is a dream holiday for nature lovers.

Trip Guide

This is principally a trekking holiday. However, in order to see as much of this diverse African country as possible, it is necessary to cover quite a bit of ground. The holiday includes 3 full days of driving and 2 shorter days. On these days the driving will not be continuous and the journey will be broken with visits to interesting sites along the way. Some of the roads used to access the remote areas where we trek will be rough in parts. The trekking element of this holiday is not continuous or sustained. However the trekking days do provide reasonably challenging walking through a wide variety of landscape. During these treks we will encounter rain forest, open grassland and rocky canyon-lands. You should be comfortable with walking for around 6 hours each day over several days, mostly on good trails but occasionally over rough and sometimes steep ground. The temperatures can be hot and humid. There are four nights on the holiday that are spent camping and two in a basic dormitory style mountain gite. Otherwise the accommodation for this adventure is in comfortable hotels and lodges and this is also reflected in the overall grade of the holiday which we have set at the lower end of MODERATE.