We woke before the 4am alarm and got ourselves ready for our 5am journey to the airport......we were given a breakfast pack - freshly cooked rolls and pastries - butter and jam but no knife - I improvised - what else are fingers and wet wipes for! The journey only took 20-25 minutes as there was hardly any traffic on the roads. I jumped out at the international terminal so I could restock our money supplies from the ATM there while John went straight to the domestic terminal with the luggage; I joined him 5 minutes later via a short connecting corridor with 400,000 ariary in my pocket in 5000 notes - on the current exchange rate that is approx £114 most of which will go on fruit juice and tips.
Today was a getting in the wrong queue day - not once but twice - all the check in desks had Mondorova or Nosy Be flights on a screen above them - so you could seemingly choose any desk to check in - well when we were 3 from the front a lady with a Nosy Be flight ticket (same as us) was told she was at the wrong counter - despite protesting 6-8 of us moved to the back of the next queue and started all over again - but this check in assistant had a problem while checking in the luggage of two English girls ....eventually an hour after joining the first check in queue we made it. At least John was able to get his one and only allowed moan about the inefficiency of Madagascan airways in early today. However even he would have to concede that thereafter everything went well! Today it was a scheduled two hop - 1hour to Nosy Be and 20 minutes, on the same plane to Antsiranana - or Diego Suarez - the capital of the North. A big thumbs up we arrived ahead of schedule and with all our luggage!!!
We were collected by our guide Jack - a Malagassy with bleached blonde hair - the first I have seen! We were scheduled on his schedule for a city tour,lunch and slow drive to our hotel - on our schedule it was straight to the hotel and a visit to the national park. He thankfully changed to our schedule albeit we did have a brief tour of the city which was very good - a much smarter place than the capital - lots of colonial houses in good condition because due to the very large natural harbour this became a French garrison town and then a vibrant port. It is a lively multicultural city - Indian, Arabian, Chinese and Africans have all made their homes here. Indeed the Indians own many of the shops.
With the city toured we headed off down national route 6 a total of 69kms but the road was full of potholes which made driving slower ( a UK 45 minute journey took well over 2 hours - we got to the hotel at 2ish albeit we did stop for lunch enroute. A small French owned rustic restaurant - as a vegetarian the choice was not huge - well salad and chips or chips and salad really but I did have a great mango and banana fruit salad for desert. John on the other hand had a choice of crocodile, boar, zebu, chicken, pork or bat.......he opted for the crocodile which he said was very good and tasted like pork.
The journey after lunch took us through some sapphire towns - they had grown up because of finds of sapphires - the mines are not owned by companies - it is free mining. The people however are still very poor living in wooden huts exactly as we had seen in other areas - according to Jack buyers come and because the people don't really understand sapphires buyers get the really good ones at very cheap prices.....it is a real shame that they cannot benefit more they need someone to teach them about their product and perhaps other jewellery skills.
When we arrived at the hotel we had a siesta as it was still very hot, thankfully there was a breeze albeit a warmish one blowing. At 3pm we set off for Ankarana National Park - a 2 minute drive down the road. This park besides the wildlife has the tsingy -a unique Madagascan landscape of limestone pinnacles - heat and water combine to erode the limestone into sharp pinnacles - tsingy is a malagassy word for tip toes and thats what you would need to do if you walked on it. It was amazing to see - Jack said that sometimes the lemurs climb over it looking for pools of water as in this very dry area it is often their only water source. I have never seen anything like it before - but no lemurs - then as we were leaving John spotted a crowned lemur pop his head up and then sit on the Tsingy until the rest of his family arrived....and they moved off together. It was fabulous to watch - how lucky were we - the mum who led the group also had a baby aboard.
During our walk we also saw Sandfords brown lemurs, a nocturnal northern sportive lemur dozing and several birds. - more rare white breasted mesites, hoopoe, guinea fowl, crested coua, magpie robin and sunbirds -a male and female building a nest.
As we were returning about 20 local people passed us - we had seen them at the gate on our arrival- apparently they have been searching for a missing Italian tourist for the last week - he was with a guide his wife and another couple but felt tired so stopped and told them he would stay put and they could collect him on the way back as it is one way in and one way out - but when they returned he had gone. Had he done a Reginald Perrin - or wandered off? Apparently last year they found a girl alive after 18 days with no food and water......the locals think that because some don't treat the park as a sacred place this is the spirits revenge.
Despite the darker side we had a great walk and an excellent introduction to a new park and Madagascan natural history.
Back at the lodge - we had a very clean comfortable airy room with a shower that you pushed on as you needed it - to preserve precious water no doubt - and electricity between - 6 and 10pm. We had a nice dinner at 7.30pm and were asleep by 9pm so the electricity wasn't a problem!