Ankarafantsika National Park
To start off the Easter holidays we took a short trip to Majunga, via Ankarafantsika National Park. This was our first time travelling by Cotisse. If you’re planning travels around Madagascar you have probably come across taxi brousse as an option for getting around. Cotisse is basically a glorified version of your regular taxi brousse. It’s a more professional looking cooperative of sprinter minibuses, that are more reliable, and more punctual with their departure and arrival times (they also have wifi). Although I’ve not yet travelled by taxi brousse, it looks like Cotisse buses are a lot more spacious as well. It costa 38,000 ariary (£8) per person for each leg of the journey, and it’s about 11 hours each way between Tana and Majunga, including a stop for lunch halfway. To get to the national park (about 9 hours drive from Tana) we booked seats between Tana and Majunga on two consecutive days, so that we could be dropped off to spend a night in the national park along the way, and be picked up the next day to continue to Majunga. The entrance to Ankarafantsika national park is located on the main road to Majunga so it’s an easy place to stop or be dropped off. We were a little concerned that the second Cotisse would forget to pick us up on the second day, especially since there was no mobile phone signal in the park (for Airtel at least), but we stood on the side of the road waving like lunatics and the bus stopped for us to hop on.
It was hard to find information or contact details about accommodation in the national park, so we went prepared with tent and sleeping bag. At the park entrance there is an Eco-lodge with camping shelters to pitch a tent. There are some bungalows available, but from what I can tell from reading online they are booked quickly and you should reserve (although I really don’t see how you can reserve with no contact phone number or email address for this site). We camped, which was only 6,000 ariary (just over £1) per tent per night. There are shared toilets and showers available, which are far from luxury but do the job. I really recommend bringing a torch to move around the campsite in the night and also to use on tours. There is a restaurant at the site, which is a little overpriced but nothing crazy (for example about 9,000 ariary for a simple breakfast). The nearest town is 2km down the road (you can access by taxi brousse) where there are other Malagasy restaurants, although these are generally no good for vegetarians. Also part of the campsite is the Durell conservation and research center, where they are breeding the rarest tortoise in the world to be released into the wild. These animals are under heavy security, since they are illegally traded for thousands of dollars, but you can take a look through the fence.
Price to enter the National park for one day is 55,000 ariary (about £13), and guided tours are very reasonably priced (20,000 to 40,000 ariary per group depending on which circuit you choose). You cannot go into the national park without a guide, nor can you walk along the main road at night without a guide - perhaps due to the crocodiles living in the nearby lake. We did two tours, the animal circuit where you hope to see lemurs and reptiles, and the lake circuit where you hope to see crocodiles and birds. We saw lots of amazing animals, including the Coquerel’s sifaka, Sportive Lemur, Rhinocerous chameleon, Rufous Vanga, Madagascar Fish Eagle, and a couple of crocodiles from a distance!
It’s definitely worth a visit to Ankarafantsika, and we loved our experience camping in the middle of the rainforest. I’m not sure you would need any more than one day there to do all of the tours that you wanted to, so it’s ideal for a stop along your way to Majunga or even Diego and Nosy Be in the North.
