East Africa 14-Day Tours and Itineraries

“It was with some trepidation that I booked to go on the inaugural Madagascar cycle tour, but with only a couple of hiccups, I can quite honestly say this has been the best cycle tour I have been on with this tour operator. (My 4th). Madagascar is a country of such stunning natural beauty it will surely take your breath away. The trip had plenty of variety with 8 days of cycling & 2 superb days of trekking in 2 totally different National parks - the first Ranomafana - a lush jungle rainforest where everything smells damp & earthy & then Isalo Nat park which was in complete contrast with it's stunning rock formations & canyons & beautiful rich red hues of colour. Both were home to wild lemurs & having them join us for lunch at Isalo was the icing on the cake. They are cheeky & naughty & won't miss an opportunity to steal food. No two days of cycling were ever the same - the landscape constantly changes from beautiful valleys with terraced rice paddies & fields of assorted crops, colourful, noisy villages where the children fall about laughing hysterically at these white people riding bikes! Some real "off road" riding on dirt roads/tracks. Long stretches of road disappearing for miles in front of you, magestic rock formations & the hills! Madagascar is not flat & some days I'm sure we spent as much time going up as we did coming down! The gradients are not too bad though and on our lovely new bikes were easily manageable.”

“I really enjoyed this tour, it gives a very good overview of the country, culture, National Parks, everyday life, etc. We used a minibus all the way through and it worked very well. The local tour leader was outstanding.”

“A very busy but well paced trip that I thoroughly enjoyed. The trekking is tougher than I'd expected, due to the heat, and there were some stiff climbing and descents, but the paths were very good and the views en route were stunning. Both Isalo and Andringitra, where the majority of the trekking takes place, are very different and offer very different experiences. Madagascar is an interesting country, quite different to other places in Africa that I've been too, but sadly, almost totally deforested nowadays, so the distances between the various national parks are several hours drive apart, meaning some long sessions on the bus. However, the scenery is very interesting nevertheless - Madagascar is not a flat country so there is plenty to look at while you drive. A nice touch was that the bus would stop one side of a village, you'd all get out and the bus would drive a couple of miles up the road allowing you to amble through the village to break up the journey - we did this several times and they were very welcome breaks. This did mean, however, that there was very little wildlife to see outside of the parks, and indeed, within them sometimes. I had expected more if I'm honest, however, our tick list of Lemur spieces was still good - around 6-8 I think. In Ranomafana, the rainforest, we saw quite a few, although they tended to be high up in the canopy. The night walk we did here was excellent though - our guide managed to find 2 mouse lemurs in the dark, and there were lots of Chameleons, and this was definitely worth doing. The beach resort at the end was paradise. You have a free day and although the whales had gone, so that trip was out, some of us elected to visit the fishing village just up the coast, which I loved. You can easily walk to the village, by turning left out of the lodge, but the paid for visit allows you to wander around the village itself, rather than just watching all the boats on the beach. In the afternoon, we visited the "Spiny Forest", which was actually more of a botanical garden, but still interesting. On the camping portions on the trip, the first two nights (in Andringitra) were very basic, and it got quite cold at night, but the 3rd night was at a lodge, which was lovely - and they sold beer there - so was a very welcome place to end the time in the national park. In Isalo, the camp site is in a lovely location, and the porters had kindly brought a couple of crates of beer with them, so we had beer that night too, so it was only the first two camping nights were we had no beer and very basic facilities. The hotels were all excellent and tourist standard for Madagascar. They all had patchy Wi-Fi and the restaurants and bars were good and all sold beer, so we didn't need to leave the hotels in the evening to eat or drink. However, there is only 2 places where you stay for 2 nights, and we tended not to arrive until tea-time, so there was very little unpacking. I think I only had one cold shower during the two weeks.”