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Marojejy rainforest, from Sambava — day trip

Marojejy is SAVA's rainforest giant — a UNESCO World Heritage park of mist, ridgelines and the ghost-white silky sifaka. This day takes you up the Lokoho valley to the park entrance at Manantenina village, about an hour from Sambava, for a guided lowland forest walk among vanilla plantations. Real treks into the park take 2–5 days — we arrange all the transport legs, just ask.

Price per person

* Travelling alone? The whole car is yours — a private trip costs the same in total. Bring a travel companion and the price per person halves.

Highlights

• Rainforest walk to Camp Mantella
• Lokoho valley + vanilla plantations
• UNESCO World Heritage rainforest

The price covers the car, the fuel and your driver for the whole day. Entrance fees to parks and reserves, and a local guide where one is required, are paid by you on the spot — that is how it works everywhere in Madagascar, and the money goes to the park, not to us. Ask us before you book and we will tell you what to expect.

Zebu on the road are part of driving here. Herds cross the national roads and rest on the warm tarmac, and after dark they are genuinely hard to see even on full beam — which is one reason we do not drive between towns at night. A zebu is worth around 400,000 to 500,000 Ariary, more than a month's wages for most people in this region, so an animal on the road is somebody's livelihood rather than an obstacle. Knowing which stretches carry herds, and at what hour, is exactly the kind of thing a driver who runs these roads every month knows and a rented car does not come with.

Chameleons cross these roads, slowly and without looking, and your driver will stop for them. In much of northern Madagascar it is fady — taboo — to kill or even touch one, and that belief is the reason the big Oustalet's chameleon is still common here when it has thinned out elsewhere. In many villages they are held to carry the spirits of the ancestors, so harming one, even accidentally at the wheel, is not a small thing. One piece of advice a visitor would never guess: in traditional belief even pointing at a chameleon is a bad omen, and the misfortune is held to fall on the person and their family rather than on the animal. Admire it, keep your hand down, and let your driver decide what happens next. Fady varies from region to region and sometimes from village to village, which is another reason to travel with somebody who knows which one he is in.

Prices are per person. Full car = cheapest per seat. Children under 3 travel free on a lap. The price covers the booked travellers only — every traveller in the car pays.

Read first: driving in northern Madagascar — night, zebu, fuel and the rains →

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