A visit to Madagascar with stopovers in the Comoro Islands, Cape Town and Victoria Falls November-December 2023 Week 1 – Comoro Islands Moroni, Grande Comore Sat 11 Nov and Sun 12th. We flew to Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines. Addis Ababa airport terminal is huge, totally different to the small outfit we visited back in 1979. We flew on to Dar es Salaam where it was raining and on to Moroni where it was hot and sunny. Because Sheila managed to damage her knee a week ago and could only hobble about, she was offered ‘wheelchair assistance’ straight to the front of the visa queue and everyone was very helpful. They put a 'disabled' label on our luggage which helped her to get the same wheelchair assistance at each airport on the holiday and she got quite used to being wheeled about. A nice taxi driver called Mohamed took us for the half-hour drive down the coast from the airport (a long way out) to the town and the Hotel Jardin de la Paix. Along the way we stopped to buy mangoes from some ladies sitting under a mango tree, and a bottle shop to buy a couple of bottles of wine. At the hotel we had a nice room with a lounge, bedroom, and our own private balcony. In the evening the nice lady in reception helped us flag down a taxi to take us to Le Caraya restaurant beside the sea, where Sheila had her lobster and I had huge prawns in an Indian-style sauce, very nice. The really nice young waiter, who was a student at university studying English literature, helped us get a taxi back. His spoken English was very good, but almost everyone else here only spoke French because the Comoros were a French colony until 1975. Mon 13th. After a long lie-in to make up for lost sleep yesterday we had a very nice brunch in the balcony/garden restaurant at Jardin de la Paix. Then a quiet day for Sheila’s knee to recover from the stresses and strains of travel while I had a short walk down the road to take a couple of photos of the old town across the harbour. That evening in our room we had an aperitif of white wine from the bottle shop and cashew nuts from the shop across the road. We had our evening meal at Jardin de la Paix and it was very good – tuna tartare for starter followed by lobster for Sheila (better than yesterday’s) and filet of Dorado fish for me. Tues 14th. All day it looked like rain (which we expected because it was the rainy season) but it didn’t, so we hung around until at 3pm it did rain, hard. At 4pm it stopped so we got the hotel’s taxi (£6) for a quick drive down to the old town with its historic mosque, old town hall and the old harbour with its wooden boats where we took some photos before driving back. That evening we had almost exactly the same meal as yesterday, except for a cucumber and smoked fish ‘mille feuille’ starter, also delicious. Weds 15th. Mohamed the nice taxi driver turned up right on time while we were still in the middle of breakfast. I had previously checked that the hotel took credit cards, but when we went to check out we found to our dismay that they only took Visa cards, not Mastercard which all of ours were. It looked like a real problem until Sheila magically produced a fistfull of 50-euro notes from her bumbag and saved the day! We were soon on our way and once again Sheila got the VIP wheelchair treatment because of her knee. Mayotte, France We flew to Mayotte on a nice modern turbo-prop plane operated by Ewa Air who appear to be a Mayotte-based airline, sporting the European Union symbol because Mayotte is still a department of France while the other three Comoro islands chose to become independent. The airport is on a small island separate from the main island where Mamoudzu, the main town is, so we had to get a taxi to the ferry port which should have cost €3 per person but he charged us €10. The ferry, called La Barge, was free in this direction but we had to pay €0.75 cents when we came back. The trouble was, everyone else was on board and the captain was itching to go while Sheila was still hobbling down to the boat’s boarding platform which was impatiently edging out to sea, and as soon as she was on it the ferry moved off, almost leaving her in the water. A really nice fellow passenger (who turned out to be an anaesthetist at a local hospital) helped us get our bags on to the ferry and persuaded another passenger to give up their seat for Sheila. We hoped he would negotiate with a taxi driver for us when we arrived at the main island, but he did much better and drove us to our apartment which was really kind of him. The apartment, which was called Cocoon Perche, was in a suburb of Mamoudzu town and it was spacious and light with views across the surrounding hills. The only downside was there was no running water for the whole three days we were there and we had to use jerrycans for washing and flushing the loo (Sheila admits this wasn't one of her best choices). I went in search of a shop to buy bottles of water and a French couple who appeared to be staying in the same apartment block directed me a short way down the hill to a square where there was an assortment of shops including a café/bakery and a small supermarket. We had a quiet afternoon unpacking then amazingly, we saw a group of lemurs from our balcony, progressing through the nearby trees and picking the fruit, to the annoyance of some local birds who squawked and dive-bombed them. We learned that they were ‘common brown’ lemurs introduced to the island from Madagascar some time ago, but they were fascinating to us because they were our first - much better was to come in Madagascar. We went down to the square in the evening and to the nearby Maharajah hotel and garden restaurant, where I had a tasty Indian buffet with a nice glass of wine while Sheila watched (she wasn’t feeling too well). Thurs 16th and Fri 17th. Lazy days, we weren’t feeling well and there wasn’t much to do anyway. We had a picnic in our room for lunch and I had a walk down to the square for a coffee and pain au chocolat at the café on the corner. At 5pm the lemurs came back to our balcony and looked at us as if they were expecting to be fed. We gave them some cake but they weren’t impressed. We went to Le Quartier Gourmand and I had a big, tasty Moroccan style lamb and chicken tajine and we went back to the Maharajah and had a couple of Leffe beers with nibbles at the bar (when Sheila's not well she can always manage the beer and eat Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate). This was the only time she needed to resort to the chocolate, all the rest of the two big 300 gram bars she consumed (without my help) were pure indulgence. Week 2 (well, 10 days) – Madagascar Sat 18th. Up early and got a taxi to the ferry to the airport and flew to Reunion Island and then on to Antananarivo (Tana). We are now on a prepaid escorted tour with everything superbly arranged for us by Rainbow Tours, a big departure for us. Our guide for the whole tour named Ntsoa (pronounced Tua) met us at the airport and when Sheila turned up in a wheelchair he must have wondered what he’d let himself in for! The driver called Deera took us to the lovely La Varangue hotel in the town centre where we had a really nice old-fashioned room with wooden furniture, a four-poster bed with a mosquito net and to Sheila's delight, a bathtub. The hotel was full of the owner’s collections of everything from antique telephones to antique cars and old books, you name it he had it. There was a modern wing to the hotel but we much preferred the characterful old section. We had a very nice dinner in the restaurant but were too tired to fully appreciate it. Fort Dauphin and Berenty Reserve Sun 19th. We were up ridiculously early and went with Ntsoa to the old, small, dingy domestic airport (rather than the bright, new international one we arrived at yesterday) and caught the 6am flight to Tolanaro, formerly Fort Dauphin. Lambert the local guide and Jean the driver met us there and we had a sightseeing tour of the town – beaches, fishermen on the rocks .... .... the fishing harbour .... .... and the market. Apparently cruise ships dock here briefly but their Madagascar experience must be very limited. Then we drove to Berenty nature reserve near Amboasary. We stopped on the way for a walkabout at a village market (we like to get amongst it all but Ntsoa kept a close eye on us, watching out for cheats and pickpockets) .... .... and photos from a bridge over a river, newly-filled with water from the recent rains, where people had stopped what they were doing to enjoy the water, do the washing, replenish their water supplies and fill tankers. We arrived in time for a nice lunch in the outside covered restaurant at the lodge. From our room we saw a ring-tailed lemur with a baby come down from a tree but she was too quick to be caught on a photo. At 4pm we went for an afternoon walk in the spiny forest with Ntsoa helping Sheila along the paths with her bad leg, and saw Guinea fowl, ring-tailed lemurs, Verraux’s Sifakas, red fronted brown lemurs, a giant Coua, a Madagascan coucal, a pied crow and a warty chameleon. At 6pm we went on the evening walk in the spiny forest and saw a Dumerill’s ground boa, a mad black scorpion, white footed sportif lemurs, a grey-brown mouse lemur and a grey mouse lemur (different species apparently), flatted leaf bugs (which change into butterflies), a hissing cockroach, a yellow billed kite and a crested drongo bird. Back at the hotel Francis the lovely waiter gave us a nice dinner with a few cold beers (it’s hot and dry here!). Mon 20th. We had a morning walk and saw some Sifaka lemurs doing their famous sideways ‘dance’ across the pathway, and some ring-tails quietly munching fruits in the trees. There wasn’t much wildlife about because we’d insisted on a lie-in and started out at 8am when it was warming up and most of the animals were getting ready for their midday doze but we did also see a Madagascar kestrel, a nightjar, a yellow-billed kite, a mahafaly sand snake and a ‘three-eyed’ lizard. We also looked round the interesting museum at the entrance to the park. We were relaxing after lunch in our living room when a troop of ring-tails wandered past, tried to peer into our window, relaxed in the shade of our balcony and wandered on. The afternoon walk was near the lodge for more Sifakas then down to the spiny forest for another walk past a spider tortoise, a baby wildcat .... ... and big Baobab trees, until the sun set. Tues 21st. The Sifakas came to say goodbye and danced across the car park for us as we prepared to board the car for the drive back to Fort Dauphin, and we saw a paradise fly-catcher. We struggled through extensive road improvement works along the way and saw a lively zebu (cattle) market at Manambaro village. Antananarivo We flew back to Tana and settled back into our nice room 2 at La Varangue hotel. That evening we started on bottles of Pinotage (me) and Chenin Blanc (Sheila) in the bar then had a delicious meal of fois gras, zebu filet and huge prawns in the elaborately furnished restaurant. Weds 22nd. We went on the Tana city tour. We stopped at the St Lawrence Anglican church on White Hill and Jackie the guide took us round the Queen’s palace (La Rova) on the highest point of the city. Sheila was still struggling to get up steps and at one point her knee cracked like a gunshot which startled everyone and sent birds flying, and made it hurt even more so Ntsoa was almost carrying her. Then on to the photographic museum (where Sheila didn’t even try to get up the steps because of her bad knee) and had lunch at La Toque Enchanté. We only wanted a light lunch so I ordered a soup and it was huge, a massive bowl full of pasta, vegetables, egg and meat, and with a side plate of battered prawns and meats. Delicious! We went to a craft market and T-shirt shop, had a look round the almost deserted railway station and stopped at the historic Hotel Colbert to look at their menu, but there was nothing there that would have changed our minds from La Varangue. And indeed our dinner there was just as good as yesterday’s, with the second halves of our bottles of wine, plus Sheila's desert of passion fruit soufflé (yes, it would be too greedy to have two of them, Sheila!) Andasibe wildlife reserve Thurs 23rd. We drove east on RN2 to Mantadia Lodge in the reserve and had a very nice lunch when we got there. Our room was light and airy, as was the restaurant and bar, and we had a great view over rolling green hills. Ntsoa had found a pair of walker’s sticks which helped Sheila negotiate the rough paths through the rainforest and we went for a walk to see Indri lemurs, a Bamboo lemur, a Parson’s chameleon and a streaked Tenrec (like a little hedgehog). The sun shone through the trees until right at the end when the rain came on. We had a very nice dinner of smoked fish, pasta arabiata and toffee bananas with a pleasant South African wine. Fri 24th. In the morning we could hear the Indri lemurs calling each other from the forest some way away, they have one of the loudest calls of any animal (we considered using it for our phone ring tone but it would frighten bystanders). We went for the morning walk in the rain forest where the Indri were deafening up close and we also saw more Parson’s chameleons, a giraffe-necked weevil, a kingfisher and several other types of birds and a huge snail, bigger than a fist (a bit of garlic and the French would have feasted on it). After a nice lunch JC, our local guide, took us to his frog research and breeding centre and laboratory where he showed us some of his unusual frogs and explained about the Chitrydiomycosis fungal disease which is wiping out frogs all over the world but luckily has not reached Madagascar yet. We did a night walk along the road and found a baby Tree Boa and a leaf-tail gecko. Sat 25th. Everyone at the lodge was so nice, every day they rushed over to help Sheila negotiate the steps to and from the room and the restaurant (putting me and Ntsoa out of a job), and they all lined up to wave us off as we departed. Ntsoa arranged a special trip to Lemur island, a reserve with a fascinating variety of lemurs all in the same area. We saw Sheila’s absolute favourite the red-ruffed lemur, several black-and white ruffed, more dancing Sifakas, a cute little Bamboo lemur and lots of common brown lemurs, which we don’t get excited about any more because there are lots of them around and they are the thugs of the lemur world. Antananarivo again We drove back to Tana and went to the Africa House, an historic building that was once the British embassy and now houses a woodwork artist’s gallery. In the evening we had another wonderful dinner at La Varangue .... Sun 26th. .... and an excellent breakfast the following morning. Sheila had asked for mangoes and they did them specially for her every day and they were ripe and tasty, unlike the ones you get in supermarkets at home. That plus a selection of meats and cheeses and a full english breakfast cooked fresh by the chef ... some might say excessive, some might wonder why she has put so much weight on, but who am I to criticise? We went for a day trip to Ambohimanga, the sacred royal hill 20km out of town. There was a gateway to the hill with a huge circular stone gate which was rolled across to close it, and steep uneven steps up the hill which Sheila had to concentrate so hard on because of her knee. When she got to the top and looked back she was amazed to see that she hadn't even noticed that she'd walked past several souvenir shops she should have investigated. Sebastian the guide showed us round the royal enclosure which had a group of fascinating historic wooden palaces at the top – the Queen’s palace was large, bright and elaborate, the King’s simple, dark and traditional. The brilliant white enclosure walls were apparently coated in a mixture made from 16 million eggs, chalk and zebu dung. In the afternoon I walked up to the posh, very French Hotel Colbert and had a coffee and croissant in their coffee shop, sitting in the window watching the world go by. Mon 27th. Ntsoa and Fidel our driver came to collect us at 11am and took us to the airport. Ntsoa had been a wonderful guide and looked after Sheila marvelously through all the difficult paths and uneven walkways she had to negotiate, the holiday would not have been the same without him and all his help, kindness and patience (she was very slow!). Week 3 (well, 5 days) – Cape Town We had a long day flying via Johannesburg to Cape Town. Sheila was glad of her 'wheelchair assistance' because the distances in these airports were significant, especially from terminal A to B in Johannesburg. Our taxi was waiting and we finally arrived at the Mojo hotel in Seapoint about midnight. Our room had a view of the sea but it was too dark to see it. Tues 28th. Our first room at the Mojo wasn’t very good and the neighbours were noisy so they kindly moved us to room 147 (which Sheila chose after cheekily inspecting all the other rooms). The new room was bright, spacious and much better – it was on two levels and we never even went up to the mezzanine floor where there were two more beds. We strolled up and down Regent Street, the main street of Seapoint district, looking at the shops and restaurants. We had a big, delicious lamb shawarma for lunch from one of the many food outlets in the Mojo Market underneath the hotel, with a couple of glasses of white wine from one of the several bars. That evening we went to the nearby Brad’s Grill and had a superb and good value meal with an avocado and prawn starter, their huge award-winning pepper steak for Sheila and the line-caught fish of the day for me, with local beer and house wine. All delicious. Weds 29th. We got a day ticket on the hop-on hop-off Red Line city tour bus and went sightseeing. We bought a one-day ticket on board the bus, although a two-day ticket would have been better value. First we did the complete 1½ hour circuit of the city to see what’s what. We considered going on the Table Mountain cable car but the queue for tickets was 45 minutes long (people in the know book online) so we stayed on the bus. On our second circuit we got off at the Victoria and Alfred (not Albert, because it was Victoria’s son Alfred who laid the foundation stone of the harbour buildings) waterfront, the regenerated harbour area full of shops, restaurants, aquarium, etc. There is a rotating bridge to let boats in and out of the inner harbour and they opened it up while we were watching. We returned to the first restaurant we had looked at in the ‘Water Shed’, a regenerated dockside warehouse, and had a very tasty bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and salad. We resumed the bus tour and this time when we got to Table Mountain there was no queue at all for the cable car so up we went. To our surprise the floor rotated on the way up, and having bagged the window with the best view we were rotated to the other side! It was very windy at the top but there were super views of the city, the seaside suburbs and the mountains towering over them. We couldn’t resist going back to Brad’s for a wonderful, huge Roquefort salad starter and Wagyu steak and three-mustard sirloin steak. Thurs 30th. We went on the all-day wine explorer tour. While we waited at our local bus stop on Beach road, suddenly lots of different buses turned up going on different tours, including whale watching and a different wine tour. We drove out of town to the Winelands region and our first stop at the Simonsig estate at Stellenbosch. There were 50-odd of us on the tour (it was a big bus) and after a quick look round the bottling plant we went to a large room with tables set out with four quite generous glasses of wine each, one white, one sparkling and two red, with plates of bread, cheeses and olives. A lady talked us through the wine tasting and because the glasses were so well-filled we were getting tipsy by the time we left the building (lightweights!) We went for a walk around Stellenbosch town centre, the second-oldest town in South Africa, founded by the Dutch in the mid-1600s, which was interesting and picturesque but extremely hot as the sun beat down on us and compounded the effects of the wine. We went on to Franschhoek for another similar wine-tasting with five large glasses each, followed by a stroll through the old centre of Franschhoek town. We went on to our third and final tasting with a chocolate pairing at an estate in Paarl but by now everything was a bit of a blur and the chocolate pairing didn’t seem right at all to us. Also Sheila had scoffed all the chocolates before the lady was half-way through the long-winded tasting chat, she needs instant gratification! The bus took us back to the waterfront in Cape Town where another bus took us back to our original bus stop, where we arrived exhausted about 5:30. We just had a cup-a-soup for dinner, how the mighty are fallen after wagyu beef last night. Fri 1st Dec. We got the bus into the centre of town (Long Street) and went on our own walking tour down Short Market to City Hall, where we were greeted by Nelson Mandela in person ... ... and on to the Parade and to the Castle of Good Hope (the original Dutch fort) which was very interesting, especially the Deputy Governor’s residence which was furnished with 18th and 19th century furniture and artifacts (unfortunately no pictures allowed inside). We walked back via a very colourful flower market, up to the Green Market and had a nice lunch of moussaka and pasta arabiata at Café Santé on the corner, sitting outside until a shower of rain drove us indoors. Back up at Long Street we got the Blue Line hop-on hop-off bus and went round the suburbs on the other side of Table Mountain (which was covered in mist today) and back along the Beach Road. Sheila went to have her nails done at a small salon, which turned into a social event chatting with the ladies and having a glass of wine. For dinner we had another round of all the best dishes at Brad’s. Sat 2nd. We went for another ride round the Red route then on to the V and A waterfront for another brunch of the salmon and cream cheese bagels. We walked around the waterfront a bit, where there were crowds of people enjoying the sunshine, street performers and a live band playing, then a taxi back to Regent Street by our hotel where the road was closed for the day, all the cafés had tables in the street and more music was playing. In the evening there was a DJ and a live band in the Mojo market, the place was busy with people of all ages, colours and sizes and we sat at a table and had biltong sausage snacks (dried South African beef and venison) and another excellent shawarma. Week 4 – Livingstone, Zambia, with excursions into Botswana and Zimbabwe Sun 3rd. After a walk down to the beach we went to the airport, had a good lunch in the lounge and flew on Kenya airlines to Livingstone. Only seven of us got off the plane, the rest were continuing to Nairobi, and there was only one taxi waiting outside which, luckily, was the one we’d booked to go to Ngoma Zanga Lodge. The lodge was lovely, with a big thatched roof over the reception area, rooms and restaurant, which were arranged around the swimming pool. Our room was lovely with African decorations, a huge picture of an elephant, and towels arranged like an elephant’s head. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant and a couple of beers. Mon 4th. After a nice breakfast at the lodge we got a taxi to the ‘curio market’ at the top of town. A couple of fridge magnets later we walked down the main street through the town, looking in shops and stopping for a haircut on the way (she forced me in), to the main cathedral (closed) and Mosi-oa-Tunya (smoke that thunders) Square with a collection of shops and a supermarket where we stocked up on bottled water (which was unnecessary because the lodge gave us two big bottles each day). It was incredibly hot and we thought that was just ‘Africa’ but later found out that there was an exceptional heatwave up to 40 degrees in progress which even the local people were finding very difficult. We tried to sit out by the pool at the lodge but it was way too hot and we retired indoors to a/c comfort. We had delicious (Zambezi river) bream and chips with some nice, good value, South African wine (£2 for a big, overflowing glass, thank you Kennedy our waiter). The Safari Tues 5th. We left the hotel at 7:30am to go on safari. Cliff the driver took us an hour’s drive to the nice new Zambezi Bridge (thanks to the Koreans) at the ‘four corners’ where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia meet. The border formalities into Botswana were straightforward and we and three others set off for the ‘drive’ safari in an open-sided safari jeep through Chobe national park. It was wonderful and we saw giraffes, impalas with a nursery of youngsters, literally hundreds of elephants, two lions, zebra (some of which looked brown and white rather than black and white), warthogs, baboons and various birds including vultures, roaming in the bush and coming down to the Chobe/Zambeze river to bathe and drink. After two or three hours we’d just about seen them all and we went to a very crowded high-end hotel and conference centre for a nice buffet lunch. Then we boarded a boat for the ‘river’ half of the safari and saw water buffalos, hippos and crocodiles’ eyes peeping above the water as we cruised up and down the river. And many more elephants of course. Exhausted and happy we returned through the border and returned to the lodge for a bath and a nice meal in the restaurant. Victoria Falls Weds 6th. We went to Zimbabwe to see the Victoria Falls. We got out of the car and walked across the historic road/rail bridge built in 1905 (made in Britain and shipped out to be assembled over the gorge) and went through Zimbabwe immigration which was more long-winded than Botswana’s, with form-filling and visiting several immigration windows, but very friendly and cheerful officers. The first thing we saw in Zimbabwe was a family of warthogs by the side of the road. We met Oliver the Zim-side guide and he took us to the falls national park and we walked to all the observation points just as we did when we came here 43 years ago. The falls were still amazing, even now in the low-water season, with hidden rainbows at the bottom of the gorge and clouds of spray that drenched us as we walked through the rain forest areas. In the centre-right below you can see some people in the Devil's Pool right on the edge of the falls. Yes, we are going there tomorrow! At about 2:30 we went from the park to the lovely historic old colonial-style Victoria Falls Hotel and had a walk round the beautifully-kept gardens followed by high tea (finger sandwiches, scones, jam and cream and several little cakes) on the terrace with a view down the gorge to the historic bridge. We crossed the bridge back into Zambia and got back to Ngoma Zanga lodge after another good day. Thurs 7th. We went to the Devil’s Pool and hung over the edge of the great Victoria Falls – or at least Sheila did. After signing away any claim for anything that went wrong, we got a speedboat to Livingstone island, changed into swimming gear and swam, waded and floated across the rushing Zambezi river, just 20 yards or so above where it plunged into the abyss below. Luckily there were ropes to hang onto and big, muscular men to help us across. Then we were on a small, rocky island right beside Devil’s Pool, where each member of the party (except me) was escorted to the brim and hung over the edge of the falls, held by the ankles while fish nibbled their legs and the team photographer took lots of photos. Health and safety procedures were noticeably absent. After everyone had had their adrenaline rush we waded back to the main island and had ‘breakfast’ (a nice BLT wrap and salad) and the speedboat ride back to base where Cliff our driver was waiting. The whole thing only took two hours or so and cost £98 each but it was amazing. After all that excitement we had a quiet afternoon and our usual tasty dinner in the restaurant. Fri 8th to Sun 10th. We had a quiet day of packing and admin and when we left the lovely Ngoma Zanga lodge Caroline, Kennedy and the nice ladies all came to wave us off, we enjoyed our stay enormously. We flew home via a very good lounge in Johannesburg airport and a very good flight on Virgin Atlantic. If you would like to see more of our travels just click the map.