Before I start with my recap of our fourth and fifth day in Madagascar, I just want to say that I know my writing formatting is way off on these posts. I never write this long of titles or sentences (at least try not to), so apologies if the content has been somewhat hard to read! 

Madagascar Day 4: Finally Arrive in Mikea!

This entire itinerary is built around the main climax of reaching the Mikea Forest area! It’s an extremely remote part of Madagascar that requires a lot of driving, off-roading, and even a boat along the coast to get there! The reason why it is not directly accessible by road is because the actual roads are so bad that you can’t drive them.

But more importantly, the reason why the Mikea area is so special, is not only because of the stunning scenery you’ll see, but also the nature is still relatively un-touched and intact.

Baobabs in abundance for example are rare now due to deforestation. As I’ve mentioned, many tourists just go to Baobab Alley to see them because it’s easiest, but in Mikea, they are in some of the last natural land areas. Then there’s also the Mikea tribe, which I’ll get to in a bit.

The Adventurous Route to Mikea Lodge

I’m giving this it’s own section because the way we got to Mikea Lodge deserves some attention. We basically had to go off-roading in four wheel drive on a sand and dirt road for two hours to start with. It was so bumpy and swervey that we were all literally holding on to the car at all times.

While continuously thinking “When will this end?!” my brain somehow also half thought of how interesting it was to see the villages that are built closer to the ocean. Every little town we had passed through in the past couple of days was built differently, but these ones were now my favorite.

They built tall fences made of perfectly placed wood branches around their villages, likely for privacy but also to keep the sands from blowing into their homes. Their homes were made of the same wood branches, and reminiscent of beach tiki huts.

You can catch glimpses of the kool-aid blue ocean on the shore in the distance, as well as the many wooden boats they use for fishing every day.

When we finally got to a town called Ankasy after that off-roading adventure, we boarded a rather nice speedboat for a one hour ride along the coast to Mikea.

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