Madagascar Tours

1000 Views of Madagascar / Dhow Camping Trip / Madagascar North
Madagascar South / Madagascar East / Island Hopping

 

Madagascar is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the eastern coast of Africa. Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. It is the home of five percent of the world's plant and animal species, 80 per cent of them unique to Madagascar. Most famous among those are the lemurs. Madagascar and Mauritania are the only countries not to use a decimal currency. Its teeming fertile forests and geographical isolation have served to preserve and propagate 'nature's design laboratory' in a mix found nowhere else on earth. Madagascar's forests are a shimmering, seething mass of a trillion stems and dripping leaves, which will make for a fascinating Madagascar tour

History & Background: The written history of Madagascar began in the seventh century A.D., when Arabs established trading posts along the northwest coast. However, the first people who came to Madagascar were from Southeast Asia, mostly from the Indonesian islands; they arrived in around the fourth century CE, probably via East Africa. This explains the Malagasy features which are a mixture of Asian (Austronesian) and African, as well as of the Arabs who came later. Because of tropical storms which commonly affect the coast, some early settlers left the coast and went to live in the centre of the island in the mountains where the weather is cooler and less windy. The people who live in the mountains today have preserved many of the Asian features.

Best Time to travel: With Monsoon time from December through to March the best time to travel for a Madagascar tour is in general February to December. Madagascar has two seasons: a hot, rainy season from November to April; and dry season with a cooler temperature from May to October. There is, however, great variation in climate owing to elevation and position relative to dominant winds. The east coast has a subequatorial climate and, being most directly exposed to the trade winds, has the heaviest rainfall, averaging as much as 3.5 meters annually. Because rain clouds discharge much of their moisture east of the highest elevations on the island, the central highlands are appreciably drier and, owing to the altitude, also cooler. The dry season in the highlands is pleasant and sunny, although somewhat chilly, especially in the mornings. During this time, the blue skies of the central highlands are considered by many to be among the clearest and most beautiful in the world. The west coast is drier than either the east coast or the central highlands because the trade winds lose their humidity by the time they reach this region. The south-west and the extreme south are semi-desert; as little as one-third of a meter of rain falls annually at Toliara (Tulear).