Madagascar, not just lemurs and chameleons

Road craters

In the two years since my last visit, only one thing has changed. The roads north and south of the airport are even worse. Even more of the asphalt has crumbled away along the edges, and where it still holds, the potholes in the middle of the road make up for it. They can’t be avoided and are deeper than last time. You have to crawl through them at walking pace. Those 150 km then turn into an all-day journey, from morning until evening.

On top of that, there are now even more trucks heading north towards Toamasina, carrying containers to and from the port. On that hilly terrain and narrow road, they are a real pain — overtaking is simply impossible!

The only section that has become somewhat easier to drive is now the turn-off from the N2 towards Manambata. The road is still nothing more than a dirt-and-sand track, but it is perfectly smooth and flat. Even the brief delays while navigating around the bridges under construction were hardly an issue.

Looking back on it now, though, I’m actually glad those asphalt roads are disappearing and the route is becoming increasingly difficult to drive. It means there’s a better chance Madagascar won’t be exploited quite so quickly. If there were comfortable highways everywhere, the remaining forests would be cleared and logged in no time.

Girls in the rainforest

The core of our photography group was made up of women who had already travelled with me in Costa Rica. Somehow, it turned out that if Petr hadn’t been quick enough to sign up, I wouldn’t have had a single man in the group.

But having six women in the group was absolutely no problem.

Unlike male photographers, the girls don’t grumble. And when it comes to photographic opportunities, they are always positive and, most importantly, they enjoy themselves and make the most of whatever comes their way. In fact, they seem to be happy all the time.

Sure, every now and then there would be a mention of a cockroach by the bed, cold water, no running water at all, or a yard full of screaming chickens right below the balcony… But I never got the feeling that any of it really bothered them.

And you wouldn’t believe some of the new things I learned, things I would never have even thought about, simply by being an uninvolved listener during those long drives in our little bus!

Early starts weren’t a problem either, usually around five in the morning, though we managed 4:00 a.m. too. That was when I decided that Ranomafana National Park would be at its best between 5 and 7 a.m., before the other tourists arrived.

The weather didn’t cooperate—it rained—but that’s nature. You always have to go out and meet the opportunities for good photographs and great experiences halfway!

The best opportunities

For the first time, we photographed the Baron's mantella, red-bellied lemurs in Mantadia National Park, a fight and an act of cannibalism among blue vangas, Coquerel’s sifakas in the wild, brown lemur babies tucked into their mothers’ fur, a tough female Madagascar scops owl with a chick just one metre away, beautiful orchids and indri singing in the forest of Andasibe National Park, a night expedition in search of the aye-aye, a hook-billed vanga nesting on a lamp, Madagascar white-eyes feeding their chicks, and a Madagascar reed frog on the coast in the mangroves. We also found a new species of tiny ground chameleon, a Malagasy kingfisher posing beside our boat, climbed among the rocks with ring-tailed lemurs, photographed six species of lemurs in Ranomafana National Park, a white morph of the Madagascar paradise flycatcher on its nest, and discovered a fantastic new location for wildlife photography at the Arboretum in Ranomafana.

For next year, I’ve fine-tuned the itinerary of my “Madagascar for Photographers – A Few Days” trip even further. I’ve added four more carefully chosen photography stops while keeping the overall length of the trip unchanged. It will be even more hectic, with some earlier starts and some late arrivals at the hotel, but you can rest when you get back home to the Czech Republic and return to work…

The next Madagascar photography trip will take place in October 2026.

Related links
Madagascar for Photographers
Madagascar photographs on Shutterstock
Photography trips and tours