In the morning, our Détours Madagascar team will arrange your transfer to Ivato Airport (Antananarivo) for your flight to Diego Suarez / Antsiranana (flight not included). The meeting point is set at a hotel located in downtown Antananarivo (close to the main roads). If you are staying at a hotel outside the city center, the transfer to the meeting point will be at your expense.

A member of the Détours Madagascar team will welcome you at Diego Suarez Airport. City tour with its columned houses, its market, and its port. Lunch and a free afternoon.

Day visit to Amber Mountain National Park. It is a Quaternary volcanic massif covering an area of 300,000 ha. The richness of its wildlife and plant life makes it one of the most visited parks in the North.

Accompanied by a local guide, we discover this major site of botanical interest via the Avenue of a Thousand Trees, ranging from lichens to orchids, from various species of palms to “strangler” ficus trees, not forgetting the ramy, an endemic tree whose sap gives off a strong smell of turpentine.

Wildlife will not be left out, with the 11 lemur species living in the park, including the crowned lemur, the Sanford’s lemur, as well as Brookesia tuberculata, one of the smallest chameleons in the world (barely 3 cm long including the tail), so tiny that it takes our guide’s trained eye to spot it.

We may also come across the uroplatus, a flat gecko nicknamed the king of camouflage because it blends so perfectly with the tree bark it clings to.

Picnic lunch at the Roussettes Forest Station, return to the hotel at the end of the day.

From the small village of Sadjoavato, we will do a little detour towards the village of Irodo, to visit the Red Tsingy. Made of stoneware, limestone, marl and laterite rich in iron oxide (which gives them their red colour), the Red Tsingy are the result of the erosion of a layered ground uncovered by deforestation. This unreal place, which can be visited by foot, is pretty outlandish, and definitely worth seeing.

We then rejoin National Road 6 and head to Mahamasina, the gateway to the Tsingy of Ankarana, which we will visit the next day.

Morning discovery of the forest of Ranomafana, with its rich and varied fauna and flora. The Ranomafana National Park covers nearly 41,600 hectares of humid tropical forest. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, this forest shelters an exceptional endemic biodiversity, including many rare species unfortunately facing extinction.

You may be lucky enough to spot some of the 26 species of lemurs recorded in this area, as well as birds, butterflies, bats, chameleons, other reptiles, and amphibians. There is also a great diversity of medicinal plants, orchids, and carnivorous plants.

Keep your eyes open!

We continue our journey toward Fianarantsoa, the historical and cultural capital of the Betsileo region. It is also the Malagasy city with the largest number of cultural buildings and schools.

Like Tana, the city is divided into three parts:

• The Upper Town, once home to the Merina governor’s palace, where today you can admire Protestant temples, a Lutheran college, the brick cathedral in Tuscan style, the Jesuit school of Ambozotany, and Antsenakely Square, where a small market is held.
• The New Town, the administrative district, where the zoma (Friday market) also takes place,
• The Lower Town, Ampasambazaha, the heart of the city, where the Chinese and Indian commercial districts are located.

Fianarantsoa is also known for its tea plantations and vineyards.

We set off on a hike on foot into the heart of the spectacular Ankarana National Park, a true geological gem of northern Madagascar. This unique site, famous for its sharp karst formations known as tsingy, offers a striking landscape of canyons, caves, and suspension bridges. Along the way, we discover exceptional biodiversity: bounding lemurs, elusive mongooses, bats roosting in rocky cavities, silent owls perched in the trees… Every step brings a new surprise in a preserved ecosystem where endemic wildlife roams freely.

We continue our exploration towards the park’s most iconic areas, including the Tsingy Rary and the impressive Tsingy pinnacles, true natural sculptures shaped over time.
Picnic lunch in the great outdoors, then return to the hotel in the afternoon.

Early morning departure and drive to Ankify, a village located by the sea and our departure point for the boat to Nosy Be. The road is lined with coffee, ylang-ylang, and cocoa plantations, giving us a foretaste of Nosy Be, the island of perfumes.

Departure from Ankify by boat before noon (crossings are not possible in the afternoon), then a speedboat transfer from Ankify port to Nosy Be and Hell-Ville Port. The crossing takes about 45 minutes.

Nosy Be, or “the Big Island”, is the best-known of Madagascar’s islands. Also called the Island of Perfumes, Nosy Be is home to plantations of ylang-ylang, sugarcane, coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, pepper, and other spices.

Arrival at Hell-Ville Port, welcome at the port by your hotel, and transfer to the hotel. The rest of the day is free.