Cycle Madagascar from the Highlands to the Coast

Once out of the rackety colonial city of Antsirabe, unfrequented roads and rough dirt tracks take you through a succession of spectacular filmsets: Middle Earth with rice paddies, a rainforest teeming with lemurs and chameleons, the American West (with sapphire prospectors and mountains like a mini-Yosemite) and an Indian Ocean beach featuring sail-powered fishing canoes by day and myriad stars by night. You will be welcomed by people who know the uses of standing stones, who steal and sacrifice oxen, who have never seen a movie screen (for there are none in Madagascar) and who take direction from ancestors in their dreams. Local manufactures are demonstrated. Poverty is everywhere, but so too is human dignity and the enjoyment of life. This professionally-run trip, developed over several years by a German settled in Madagascar, offers competent mountain-bikers the opportunity to experience a unique biosphere and culture before large-scale tourism begins. The mountain bikes are of good quality, and excellently maintained. The schedule is flexible, allowing for extra kilometres on the bike or extra time in the support bus. Food and accommodation are at least serviceable, often better. The beach hotel at the end is quite special, and more than makes up for any hardship along the way. I went in March/April and didn’t regret it my early-season choice: there were occasional thundershowers, but the flowers were out and we had most of the sites (and some of the hotels) to ourselves. Madagascar, like its people, is in some respects a blend of Africa and Asia. If you are contemplating a bike tour in either continent, you’d be hard pressed to beat this one.