Madagascar · Indian Ocean coast & islands
Andasibe and the eastern rainforest.
Andasibe is the closest rainforest to the capital and the reliable place to see and hear the indri, the largest living lemur.
Photo Sandy Ravaloniaina / Unsplash
The indri's call carries for kilometres and is the sound most visitors remember above anything they see. Andasibe-Mantadia is three or four hours from Antananarivo by road, which makes it the standard first stop.
Further east and south, Ranomafana is denser, wetter and richer — golden bamboo lemur country, and a serious walking forest.
How do you get to Andasibe?
By road from Antananarivo, east along the RN2 towards the coast. There is no airstrip, so every visitor drives. Some itineraries continue east from Andasibe to the Pangalanes canal and the Indian Ocean coast rather than returning to the capital.
Where do you see the indri in Andasibe?
In the Analamazaotra section of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, where several family groups are habituated to people and can be followed on foot with a guide. They call most in the morning, and a group singing overhead is often heard before it is seen. A local guide is compulsory in Madagascar's national parks.
Can you do night walks in Andasibe?
Yes, usually in the community-run reserves beside the park or along the road that borders it, rather than inside the park itself. Night is when mouse lemurs, sleeping chameleons, leaf-tailed geckos and tree frogs are found, and it adds a different set of animals to the day's walks.
Andasibe or Ranomafana?
Andasibe is closer to the capital and is the place for the indri. Ranomafana, much further south in the highlands, is a larger, steeper rainforest known for the golden bamboo lemur, discovered there in 1986, and is part of the Rainforests of the Atsinanana World Heritage Site. Travellers on the RN7 south usually stop at Ranomafana; those with less time see Andasibe.
How long should you spend in Andasibe?
Two nights is usual, which allows a morning with the indri, a longer walk in Mantadia and a night walk.
What is there to see in Andasibe and the eastern rainforest?
What does Andasibe and the eastern rainforest pair well with?
- The Avenue of the Baobabs and the westThe Avenue of the Baobabs near Morondava is the country's defining image, and the western dry forests hold species found nowhere else.
- The south and the spiny forestIsalo is sandstone canyon country, and the spiny forest beyond it is one of the most alien landscapes in the world.
- Nosy Be and the island coastNosy Be in the north-west is the country's beach destination, and the smaller islands around it are the better part of it.
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