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AfricIan

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Thanks @@Atravelynn, I know it might seem overly pessimistic but I'm not at all hopeful they will keep all the remaining forests intact. I know it's too easy to look at things with "Western eyes" but if you look at the 2 photos at the Andisabe Hotel in post 13, "you would think" that it would have been much so better to leave the forest on the other side of the river intact as it would have bought the wildlife so much closer. Conversely, when you & your family can only survive by growing & selling crops you've grown on a miserable bit of land you've hacked from the forest you've almost certainly got a different viewpoint.

 

It was interesting to hear/read on the BBC this morning that Liberia have done a Cash for Trees deal in which they get paid to completely stop cutting down its trees in return for development aid. Now if they could cut a similar deal in Madagascar.....

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Looking at #13 again, I see the origin of your avatar. You're right about the hotel and forest I wish I weren't as pessimistic either.

 

Thanks for this informative report.

Edited by Atravelynn
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  • 10 months later...

Hello, We are in the midst of planning our trip to South Africa and had to add Madagascar. Loved reading your post! We are from the states and we do not speak french. In reference to our visit in Andesibe Reserve, we were asked " Do your clients want a guide that speaks good English, or the regular guides that speak French fluently, and their native language. Those are the major guides, and we are told they are hard to understand in English." What has your experience been or perhaps heard from talking with other travelers? We are traveling up to Montagne d'Ambre Park , , Ankarana nature reserve, and Nosy Be. Any info is appreciated!

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Hi @@Travelma & welcome to SafariTalk. It's great you're looking to include Madagascar in your trip, it is the most fascinating & different place we've been to and I'm glad you enjoyed reading my TR.

 

For our trip, our "travel guide" spoke good English but he wasn't a naturalist & didn't accompany us in the National Parks/Reserves, instead he handed us over to a local "specialist guide" for each of the parks. In general, these specialist guides English was OK for explaining things in the parks but it certainly wasn't up to conversational level and it did tend to be with quite a strong French accent. Although my French is pretty basic(it's been a long time since school), I'm reasonably used to "Franglaise" so we didn't have any big problems understanding them however if you don't speak French at all then you might have more difficulties. There is no getting away from the fact that Madagascar is 1) very poor so educational standards are not high & 2) a former French colony, so English comes a very poor third in their list of languages.

 

Your trip looks very much like the "standard Northern itinerary" - we also looked at some of the places you've listed but Madagascar is a very big place and the infrastructure is pretty poor so it's not practical to fit everything in and, as we found, its not wise to attempt to pack too much in - as attractive as Montagne d'Ambre, Ankarana and Nosy Be sounded we didn't feel we could include them without dropping some of the places that were higher on our list.

Given that you say "we were asked " Do your clients want a guide that speaks good English.....", I'm assuming that you are booking through a US agent who is leaving the Madagascar leg to a local operator. If that is the case then it might be worth you finding out who the local operator is and looking at their other itineraries to see what's available - you then have to decide what you really want to see, what would be nice and then see if its possible within your time-frame & budget.

 

I hope this helps a little & please don't hesitate to ask if you think I can add any more

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Hi Ian, We have been doing alot of reading about Madagascar...poor infrastructure, flights may take off that day or not, etc. We are 2 couples, I guess we are considered "older," lol....in our early to mid 60's. And we have alot of travel experience. We are working with a US agent and he is booking this part of our trip with a local agent. The question that was possed for us involves 2 days in Andesibe reserve only...so that would be 2 days for us and the price for the "good English speaking guide" was $223/us dollars. This seems a bit steep.... That prompted me to post my question.

 

We are happy with the itinerary, just didn't know if we should pay extra for "english." As we have "no french" in schooling history. My spanish has helped us numerous times but sorry...no french?!

 

Thanks again!

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