When I pictured myself hiking in Madagascar I conjured up images of climbing through dense rainforest dodging stray lemurs and chameleons… Not strolling along the beach in a bikini and hiking boots… But one of the beauties of travel is the unexpected right? And how often do you get to bikini hike?

Just east of Madagascar’s beautiful Diego is a peninsula that is home to a series of three breathtaking beaches. Along this stretch of pristine coastline are many coves and inlets and the three bays: Baie de Sakalava (Sakalava Bay), the Baie des Pigeons (Pigeon Bay) and the Baie des Dunes (Dune Bay). It’s a wild, harsh and starkly beautiful environment, with not a village in sight. It is absolute heaven for the more active beach-bums.

We only had a few days to spare in the area surrounding beautiful Diego and we decided to dedicate a day to ‘hiking’ these three beautiful bays. (Hiking is a word used quite loosely in Madagascan guide books for any scenic walk… In this case a stroll along the beach) But unaware that the day would quite literally be a walk on the beach we packed our hiking boots and found a guide and were on our way.

We had hired a driver for the day to drop us off at Sakalava (the starting point) and collect us Ramena Beach (the seaside town finishing point) after our grand hike.

Soon enough the boots were off and we strolled along the immaculate coastline, accepting the fact that our attempt at a days hiking had once again backfired into some unintentionally romantic day trip (seriously, we were cursed with always ending up in perfectly romantic situations). Soon enough we were back to another sugary day of beach bliss, with our guide always silently leading the way (and playing with a stick)…

Other than our guide our ‘hike’ along the three bays was in complete and utter solitude. It was ominously quiet.

As the day went on the tranquility of the day turned eerie as the landscape transformed from the flawless coast to an old french military base. The rundown buildings stand tall and deserted casting sinister shadows over the military-guarded area.

The only other souls in sight were a lone man carrying a machete and a military guard feeding the chickens.

Our guide led us to the checkpoint still silently playing with his stick. We paid the fee to continue and I kept lookout for the machete man.

As you may be able to tell the only purpose of guides along this hike is solely for the purpose security…

Eventually we arrived in Ramena, the small fisherman’s village where the ‘hike’ ends. We paid our guide who we watched immediately stroll towards a bar and made our way through the village. Even the locals in the village seemed much more reserved than the usual Malagasy crowds. Old women sat and watched us in silence and stray dogs shadowed us far too closely for comfort.

With the three bays, the machete man and the stray dogs behind me I was left with a strange feeling about the day. But just like beautiful people a bit of strangeness only ever adds to the allure of a person or place… (Well, maybe not when a machete is involved. Definitely avoid beautiful people with machetes…)