Please use the comments facility below to submit updates to chapter 14 (Toamasina to Masoala & the SAVA region) of Madagascar (13th ed).
To comment on other chapters visit the main Madagascar Updates page.
Hilary Bradt
Publisher, travel writer, lecturer and sculptor
Search
Hilary Bradt 
A species of giant millipede not seen since the 19th century has been rediscovered in Madagascar. The dark-brown millipede, last documented over 125 years ago in 1897, was discovered by researchers in Makira Natural Park.
It is one of 21 ‘lost species’ found by Re:wild during an expedition to the Indian Ocean island in September last year, the results of which have just been published. The conservation organization aims to locate species that have not been seen and recorded for over a decade.
More details at https://kahawatungu.com/giant-millipede-lost-to-science-rediscovered-in-madagascars-jungle/
A site called Bobangira Park was declared a protected private nature reserve by the national forestry department in the SAVA region in 2017. It is located on a wild and virtually uninhabited stretch of the coast, around 50km south of Vohémar and 100km north of Sambava. Although just 23 hectares in extent, it is quite intact and teeming with flora and fauna, including much that is endemic to the region. Both day and night visits are possible. Mouse lemurs, fat-tailed dwarf lemurs and white-headed brown lemur are found there, as are Brookesia and various other chameleon species. Bobangira is accessed from a point on the tarred RN5a around 40 minutes south of Vohémar. From there, one must follow 16km of dirt road, which takes around an hour but is not passable in the rainy season.
Stephen Hotel is located at 129 Bd Joffre in central Toamasina. Rooms are well appointed with sat-TV, kettle, en-suite bath and Wi-Fi, and some have a balcony. The cost is around €24 per night. Contact tel 032 83 377 01 or 038 78 834 77; email stephenhotel123@gmail.com.
Following their improvements at Marojejy between 2020 and 2022, Lemur Conservation Foundation built a second bungalow at Camp Marojejya in 2023, as well as renovating the toilets and showers at both Camp Mantella and Camp Marojejia. Much of the funding for this work was donated by Rainbow Tours in UK.
La Vanilleraie – a vanilla plantation experience – is a new tourist attraction opening in Sambava, around 10 minutes south of the town centre. Also on the site is a museum (Le Musée Edmond Albius), a gift shop selling premium vanilla products, and Le Vanilla Bar serving delicious vanilla-based cocktails. The excellent museum, named after the slave boy who was credited with the discovery of an efficient technique for pollinating vanilla orchids by hand, presents the process of vanilla production, the rich variety of types and qualities of vanilla, the ten vanilla-growing regions of Madagascar, and the history of vanilla production globally. Contact: tel 032 05 331 47; email contact@vanilleraie.com; web vanilleraie.com; open Tue–Sun 09:00–17:00.
The website marojejy.com has just been overhauled with completely updated information about Marojejy National Park. It includes contact inform for local organisations and accommodation providers (https://marojejy.com/contacts/), information on what to see and do in the SAVA region (https://marojejy.com/sava/) and various useful information resources (https://marojejy.com/library/).
In Toamasina (Tamatave), there are now huge numbers of tuctucs. They have a fixed price for any journey within town, but may pick up other passengers along the way. Cycle rickshaws, on the other hand, are always on a private-hire basis and the price varies depending on the distance travelled.
Parc Ivoloina takes its name from the nearby village. The word is thought to mean “there is a lot of bamboo”. All swimming and boating activities in the lake at Parc Ivoloina are now prohibited.
Over the past few months there has been a rapidly completed project to improve the waterfront at Toamasina (Tamatave), after President Rajaoelina promised to turn the city into “Madagascar’s Miami”. Like all of the president’s pet projects, the development is largely painted in his own trademark shade of orange lest anyone lose sight of the particular benevolent force behind its creation.
Under the title of Project MIAMI (short for Miray Hina ary Mifankatia – ‘solidarity and love for one another’), the development includes outdoor gym equipment, a skate park, a palm-shaded promenade with gardens and seating areas, toilets, food kiosks, sports facilities including a basketball court, children’s play areas, and an esplanade for hosting events and ceremonies.
The new MIAMI seafront was inaugurated in November 2023. Although the urban regeneration is generally seen as a positive move for the city, the lack of support for the hundreds of small sellers who were kicked out of the development zone at short notice has been criticised by many.
At the north of Nosy Mangabe, it has long been known that there are some centuries-old rock inscriptions made by Dutch sailors. Indeed, the main site of these carvings is still known as Plage des Hollandais, or Dutch Beach.
Nosy Mangabe has plentiful fresh water and sits in a protected bay, and for these reasons was a popular stopping point for early trading ships. Dutch ships on their way to the far east, around the Cape of Good Hope, would have stopped to replenish their supplies, carry out repairs, or recover from sickness.
In the 1920s, a French colonial adjunct-inspector of waters and forests discovered about a dozen of these engraved messages. In 2012, a team of researchers lead by maritime archaeologist Wendy van Duivenvoorde of Flinders University searched harder and found that there are around forty of them. They were carved by officers and sailors of at least 13 different Dutch East India ships that sailed between 1601 and 1657.
Some recorded the name of the ship, its captain, and their date of arrival and departure. Over time, an ingenious system of messaging began to develop. Sailors began to leave messages, sometimes including letters carefully wrapped in canvas, made watertight with tar and buried at the base of the stones – which have now come to be known as ‘postal stones’. The idea was that the next Dutch ship to anchor on the island would collect the letters or read the message and pass it on to the intended recipient.
Postal stones have also been found on St Helena Island and at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Many can be seen nowadays at museums in Cape Town, but Nosy Mangabe is the only place where postal stones can still be seen in situ.
Some of the inscriptions hinted at amazing stories. One reveals that, in 1625, the ship Middleburg lost all its masts and sails in a cyclone but somehow managed to reach Nosy Mangabe, where it anchored for a good seven months for repairs. Once complete, the ship continued its voyage back to the Netherlands, but unfortunately it never reached home; near the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, it was attacked and sunk by the Portuguese and all souls were lost. But the Middelburg had stopped briefly at Table Bay in South Africa to deliver a parcel of letters. These are the last surviving records of the crew and officers, now in the archives of the Dutch East India Company in The Hague.
By the late 1600s, the Dutch had abandoned the system of postal stones because it was notoriously unreliable. Increasingly, crews from rival companies had begun stealing letters from beneath the rocks and using the information to track the activities of their competitors. So, the Dutch ships began employing locals to hold their letters.
After almost a quarter of a century without any sightings, a rare bird has been rediscovered in Madagascar. The dusky tetraka, which had not been seen since the end of last century, has recently been found in two locations on the northeast of the island by a team led by The Peregrine Fund’s Madagascar Program. Amid fears that it could have become extinct, it had been ranked as one of the 10 most wanted species by the Search for Lost Birds collaboration. More details here: https://www.birdlife.org/news/2023/03/01/found-mysterious-songbird-rediscovered-in-madagascar-after-eluding-scientists-for-24-years
A more spacious additional bungalow has just been completed this week at Camp Marojejia (Camp 2) of Marojejy National Park. This fifth bungalow is a wooden structure with two bunk beds. Lemur Conservation Foundation has also provided new mattresses, pillows and blankets for all bungalows at both camps 1 and 2.
In Toamasina, three of us shared a chambre (& bed) at Eden for 30 000Ar – and the first hot water for a few weeks. Simple but welcome comfort for independent travellers passing through and there is an ATM only metres away for those who have run out of Ariary.
The FANAMBY camp at Daraina was damaged during the pandemic closure period and is not expected to reopen until 2024.
A cargo ship illegally carrying 130 passengers sank off Madagascar’s northeastern coast today, killing at least 17 people with 68 still missing. The ship was travelling between Antanambe (near Mananara) and Soanierana-Ivongo when a hole in its hull caused the vessel to take on water. As a registered cargo ship, it was not authorised to carry passengers.
In late 2021, Lemur Conservation Foundation completed a project to replace the kitchen and dining area at the second camp in Marojejy National Park. This now comprises three shelters accessed by a new stairway that is much safer than the previous one, which has caused a number of accidents.
In mid-2020, Lemur Conservation Foundation oversaw the construction of a new toilet/shower block at the second camp on Mount Marojejy, as the existing one had seriously degraded in the 15+ years since it was built.
Following serious damage from Cyclone Enawo in 2017, the first camp on Mount Marojejy was renovated in May 2020. Thanks to the coordination of Lemur Conservation Foundation and a grant from Seacology, four new bungalows were built, along with a new toilet/shower building.
Information from Rainer Dolch: Nosy Mangabe was a popular anchorage for Dutch sailors from 1601-1657 and is strewn with inscriptions they chiselled into rocks – most of them at a beach known as ‘Plage des Hollandais’ today. They often include names of people and ships as well as dates of arrival and departure. Sailors also also left letters sealed inside lead envelopes. The crew of the next Dutch ship would then record the message on the rock and collect the letters.
There are more than 40 inscriptions and they stem from at least 13 different ships of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) which – the Cape Colony was only founded in 1652 – then used Madagascar as a stopover when travelling to the Dutch colonies in the Moluccas (Ambon was conquered in 1605) and Java (Batavia, present-day Jakarta, was founded in 1619). Here are some of the inscriptions as transcribed by Wendy van Duivenvoorde: