Madagascar Natural Tours

Skip Aye-Aye Camp, skip Madagascar Natural Tours, and book directly with Dounia Lodge

Speaking as to the 8 day Masoala Safari Adventure - just skip the agent entirely. Aye-Aye Camp suffers from severe deferred maintenance - the toilet seat was broken to the point where I was sitting on sharp plastic bits which bit into my arse, and there was no replacement available although there were only two occupied huts; the wood in the front steps to my hut was so badly rotted that it broke under my weight; and the pillows were moldy. Dounia Lodge, and the manager of Dounia Lodge, Maya, were exceptional. The lodge was clean, the food was well prepared (although the portions were small for the amount of walking we were doing each day), and there is both beer and alcohol available for purchase. If seeing the elusive Aye-aye is high on your list, I suggest an overnight on Nosy Mangabe in place of Aye-aye camp. The manager of Aye-aye camp was the only location that requested and worked around our food restrictions.
Please be aware that you will need to rely on Madagascar Airlines and my flight to Maroantsetra was delayed 4 hours, eliminating any activities on the night of arrival, and my flight back to Tana was cancelled and didn't fly until 27 hour later. Do not plan a Masoala adventure around Madagascar Air being on time or even the same day as scheduled.

As for the remainder of my tour that I arranged with Harilala - it was a disaster featuring a hotel in Bekopaka that I wouldn't have stayed in when I was in my 20s and doing budget travel with the boys. Strong smell of urine, stained sheets, and a shower with no shower head - just a hose. The other lodging places secured for the second half of my stay each smelled of old, musty, mildewy linens. I find this to be unnecessary, as the linens at Dounia, in Masoala, the wettest place on the island of Madagascar, smelled fine.

The guides that were provided for Aye-Aye Camp and Dounia Lodge were not good. Neither of them wanted to be there, and other vacationers staying in the same locations and doing forest walks at the same time with different guides, all saw more animals than we did - every day. I do not know who arranges the individual guides, but they were evidently the cheapest available, and either marginally skilled, or uninterested in being there.

Andisibe and the surrounding area - I don't understand why anyone would pay to go here. Harilala squeezed this in between Maroantsetra and Morandava due to a purported flight cancellation by Madagascar Air, leaving us with a gap between our days on the wet side of the island and the dry side of the island. The road is horrific - and if you are going to drive it for 5 hours each way, you should be planning at least 3 days at Andisibe to justify the ride. I wouldn't though. Not worth it. This part of the trip is not what we contracted for, and wasn't anything we wanted to do, but it was thrust upon us by Harilala. We agreed to go, but in retrospect, the time could have been better spent doing nearly anything else.

Morandava - the guide assigned to us for the dry side of the island, Marina, was a delight. She worked really hard to fix the shortcomings of the tour that Harilala booked, was attentive to our needs and desires, and did get us to see and do what we really wanted to do on the dry side of the island. Even though Harilala's schedule forced us to hike Tsingy des Bemaraha at the hottest part of the day - which I really advise against.

As to me, this is my prior experience with African safari travel and safari lodges. I have done game drives in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Tanzania previously, participated in a walking safari in Zambia, and in a boat safari in Chobe, Botswana; summited Kilimanjaro; and gone on a 5-day whitewater trip on the Zambezi.

Overall, the island is wonderful, don't plan on doing anything the same day as you travel on Madagascar Air, and maybe take a pass on Madagascar Natural Tours.