Even for the seasoned traveller Madagascar is daunting. It’s huge, busy, crazy, the roads are appealing and it hasn’t taken me long to discover that travelling this island solo requires both courage and guile. I decided to start my exploration of the country simply with one of the only reasonable day-trips from the countries capital. A day strictly dedicated to finally admiring some lemurs.

I had been in the country for about a month and was yet to see any of the notorious dancing locals. But I had been volunteering in the highlands… And what lemur in their right mind would hang out in the dusty high country when they could be relaxing in the country’s magnificent rainforest region.

Andasibe is lemur paradise and if you are ever stuck in Antananarivo you must visit Andasibe… (Trust me, there is nothing worse than being stuck in Tana…)

This area and national park is relatively accessible from Tana, only a few hours (150km) northeast on a surprisingly well-maintained, paved road.

You have two options:

1. You toughen up and get your but on a taxi-brousse like a local and put up with a lack of personal space and any form of comfort for 3-6 hours…
2. . ..Or you take the wossy option and hire a driver for the day or two and sit back and enjoy the scenic drive through the hilly roads, winding through undulating farmland and miniature villages.

After a month in Madagascar and witnessing a few too many taxi-brousse accidents I decided to be a woss. Being a boss can be extremely expensive in Madagascar so it is a best to hang out at Madagascar Underground Hostel (the one-year old first, and best, hostel in Tana) and rope some fellow wosses into coming along and splitting costs.

If you find two lovely British girls you will end up having a full car and a fun day (minus the castle of digging too deeply into your wallet…)

We set off… Early… I’m talking 6am early. The kind of early that can make you crazy if you don’t have access to caffeine within the first hour.

I think my caffeine hit came at around 8am. It was too late… I had already lost my mind…

Our driver, Lu, was great. He sped through the country with ease and for 120 euro’s between the three of us I think it was worth every cent. (That included the car, the driver and fuel – you pay by the car so travelling in Madagascar is best done in packs)

We stopped for breakfast on the way and I managed to consume some more street food that had made up 79% of my diet for the past month… (unfortunately Madagascan street food lacks in flavour and variety…)

Throughout the day we passed other vehicles that had either rolled off the road or had an engine fall off… I was starting to feel glad that I had skipped the taxi-brousse option on this trip.

After about 3 hours we finally arrived in Andasibe, the small town that is surrounded by several parks and reserves packed with unique wildlife, including the well-known giant of the lemur world – The Indri.

We started our lemur day with a visit to Parc National De Mantadia – a park created primarily to protect the Indri. The quiet, beautiful park is an absolute treat to stroll through. The walks are not overly challenging and it didn’t take long for us to be rewarded with an incredible amount of lemur sightings…

If you are visiting on a wet day (which I experienced first-hand), watch out for leeches… My friend Caroline almost made a long-term friend with one of the clingy little parasites…

You must take a local guide through the park and their knowledge and ability to stalk the lemurs through the forest definitely enhances the experience.

Parc National De Mantadia is now one of the most popular reserves and receives up to 300 visitors per day (which doesn’t sound like a lot but is huge for Madagascan attractions).

After a 3 hour hike through the national park we made our way to Vakona Forest Lodge, the only luxury hotel in the area that is home to its very own ‘reserve’, AKA Lemur Island, where former pet lemurs live in relative freedom. Here is where you can get up close and personal with the country’s favourite critters. I don’t know how many tourists feed these lemurs each day but we arrived in the late afternoon and the tame lemurs were still greedily jumping over our shoulders and heads to get another slice of carrot and banana… This is definitely one of the best photo-ops in the country.

After a day in Andasibe I was (almost) all lemur-ed out. This is a Madagascan day trip you cannot miss.

If you aren’t as time-poor as me I would highly recommend spending more time in the area so you can visit some of the other parks in the area. If you are up for a splurge spending a night in the Vakona Forest Lodge looks absolutely incredible.

Although we visited on a rainy day it wasn’t cold – I have heard that it gets incredible chilly in winter though so make sure you dress warmly if visiting between May and August.