Madagascar plans stymied

Based upon another ITN subscriber’s recommendation (Sept. ’14, pg. 46), in January 2015 I arranged for a private tour in Madagascar through Mr. Jenita Jaozandry, owner of Madagascar Natural Tours (Antananarivo, Madagascar; madagascar-natural-tours.com).

I planned to arrive in Madagascar on June 27, 2015, and fly out on July 17. Mr. Jaozandry arranged my ground itinerary and transportation and booked the best-available 3- or 4-star accommodations, all for $5,347. 

I wanted to include visits to the southern (Fort Dauphin) and northern (Diego Suarez) areas, best reachable by air, and he had me reserve my own flights with Air Madagascar, the country’s only airline with scheduled service. The cost of these flights (Antananarivo-Fort Dauphin and Antananarivo-Diego Suarez, both round-trip) was an additional $1,332.

Mr. Jaozandry was my guide during some portions of the trip, though he arranged for a separate driver. 

First, the good…

The food was uniformly delicious. You could taste that the fruits, vegetables and meats were just off the farm, with little or no processing, and the servings were well portioned and quite adequate. The vegetables actually tasted sweet, they were so fresh! 

Food also was uniformly cheap, with an entrée and beverage in the $3 range at some restaurants. At the hotels, a lunch was pushing the high end at $6, and the best wines cost $3 a glass — hardly budget busters. 

Almost all of the hotels that I stayed at topped out at $50 a night; the one in Antananarivo was in the $70-a-night range. Best-available hotels are a must, unless you enjoy the prospect of intermittent water and electricity, cold-water showers, broken electrical and plumbing fixtures, etc. Almost all accommodations are booked at half-board, as there are few other dining options for travelers.

I found the Bradt guide “Madagascar,” by Hilary Bradt and Daniel Austin, to be an excellent resource.

There are several places that have “lemur parks,” where the lemurs are former pets and were raised so close to benevolent humans that they come right up to you and jump on your head and sit and look around. These visits were among the highlights of the trip. 

Now the bad…

Air Madagascar had been experiencing a system-wide strike since June 15, 12 days before my arrival. However, Mr. Jaozandry did not provide me a heads-up so that I could consider an alternate itinerary to avoid the flights. 

Consequently, on day four, June 30, I flew into Fort Dauphin for touring (without Mr. Jaozandry, as planned) but could not fly out as scheduled on day seven. I ended up stranded there for an additional four days. (For the additional three nights in Ft. Dauphin, Mr. Jaozandry paid for the first night and I paid about $140, total, for the other two nights.)

As an alternative, I asked Mr. Jaozandry to arrange for a 4x4 vehicle and driver to take me to Ranomafana National Park, where I could reunite with him and get back onto my original itinerary. While this was admittedly a bad alternative, as days went by it became increasingly better than his preferred option of continuing to wait for Air Madagascar to fly again.

During a self-guided tour of Fort Dauphin that I took while stranded there, I crossed paths with the man who had been my local guide in the Berenty Reserve, and he made me aware of other travel options. 

I discussed these with another traveler, coincidentally also from the US, who was stuck like I was. While he ended up getting the last seat on a private plane, that plane would not return for two days, so he suggested that I use his guide, Dodi, from Dodi’s Lemur Tours (Fort Dauphin; www.dodislemurtours.com).

I called Mr. Jaozandry and provided him the numbers of the two contacts I had found in Fort Dauphin: Dodi and the manager of Hotel Talinjoo. I asked him to coordinate with them and let me know what he could set up for me to reach the national park.

The next morning, when I called Mr. Jaozandry to ask what he had arranged, he said that the hotel manager had not called him back and he had not contacted Dodi. Irate, I asked why he had not called them. He suggested that the better option might be to wait because Air Madagascar might reinstate my flight.  

I then took matters into my own hands and, through Dodi, arranged a 4x4 vehicle and driver for $580. 

This option, via the severely degraded national highway RN12, turned out to be an ordeal. Think of the worst road you’ve driven on, double that, then double that again and you’ll have an idea of the potholes and quarter miles of mud up to the doors that my skillful driver was able to negotiate in over 26 hours of driving in 2½ days to go 446 kilometers. In the worst stretch, covering 11 straight hours of driving, we encountered only 14 other 4x4s. 

Before the road trip, I called Mr. Jaozandry and arranged to meet him at a hotel near Ranomafana. We did meet up and resumed my itinerary. I had missed five nights in originally scheduled hotels plus the planned sightseeing along my original route.

On day 15, July 11, when I was scheduled to fly from Antananarivo to Diego Suarez, the airline strike was still on and the flight was canceled. To visit sites in and around Antananarivo, the city from which Mr. Jaozandry’s business operates, I asked him to devise an alternate 4-day itinerary for me which used his vehicle and driver. 

He proposed one half-day trip to a game park that was of no interest to me at that point, so I picked some city museums out of the Bradt guide and asked him to drive me to those. However, due to renovations or its being a Sunday, they were closed, something he was unaware of. 

With options exhausted for local touring, I determined that the best way to mitigate further losses and time was to move up my departure four days, which added $460 to the cost of my return ticket. I also asked Mr. Jaozandry to call the Lokanga Boutique Hotel and change my 2-night reservation to four days earlier. Luckily, I was allowed to do this at no extra cost. I flew home on July 13.

Without counting the first and last international air travel days, I ended up having just five days of meaningful touring in 15 days (out of an originally scheduled 19 days with touring).

I lost about $1,250 due to nonrefundable hotel payments. In addition, I ended up expending $1,465 in extra funds, including the two nights’ lodging in Ft. Dauphin ($140), a day trip to Mandena Conservation Zone near Ft. Dauphin ($85), the 4x4 vehicle arranged by Dodi ($580), the tip/fee to Dodi ($40), two nights’ lodging during the 2½-day 4x4 drive ($50), meals previously included at hotels that I now had to purchase ($80), debit and credit card foreign-transaction fees at ATMs ($30) and the air ticket change fee ($460).

Mr. Jaozandry was able to recoup for me $353 in fees from missed visits to national parks plus the cost of fuel for road trips not taken. I received a small amount for the missed night at the hotel near Ranomafana, but he had me negotiate for that directly with the management rather than doing that for me. 

He told me that that was all I could expect to get back for land portions of my trip because hotels had not provided refunds for the dates that, due to the airline strike, I was a no-show.*

I did eventually also receive $116 from him for the one flight that he was scheduled to take with me, a one-way flight from Diego Suarez to Antananarivo, which was canceled.

Despite how short my actual touring time was in Madagascar, that time was interesting and enjoyable, with good food, decent hotels and friendly people.

TOM JOHANNECK

McLean, VA

ITN emailed a copy of Mr. Johanneck’s letter to Madagascar Natural Tours (info@madagascar-natural-tours.com) and received the following in a reply.

Thank you for letting me know what Mr. Johannneck wrote to you. I do appreciate that because it will certainly help us to improve our services.

I am very proud to let you know Madagascar Natural Tours is among the very few local English-speaking tour companies in Madagascar, and I always try to provide the best services and expertise possible to our clients, as I did for Tom Johanneck, but Air Madagascar’s strike disrupted many things.

The strike started just a couple of weeks before his arrival. Every time I asked the airline, they always reassured me, and even though some flights were canceled, there were always flights operating. This is why Mr. Johanneck could fly to Fort Dauphin, though, once he arrived, his flight back was canceled and he got stuck there for four days. This was an extra expense for Madagascar Natural Tours, as I helped pay for his hotel there. 

I also paid him back some money for the hotels that we couldn’t use, even though none of these hotels paid me back because the cancellations were less than five days [from the booked dates].*

When Mr. Johanneck was stranded in Fort Dauphin, the reason I didn’t look for a 4x4 car for him to reach Ranomafana or other next destinations was that Air Madagascar always kept me waiting for the next flight. Every evening, they told me that there would be a flight the following day, but every day it was canceled. 

I have lots of contacts for car owners and tour operators in Fort Dauphin, but, to avoid having extra expenses for him and for me, I preferred to wait for the Air Madagascar flight. 

Flight cancellations because of strikes do not happen often here. I went to the Air Madagascar office for more information. The last time there was an Air Madagascar strike was 16 years ago and only for three days. (However, cancellations or delays because of technical problems or a lack of planes happen often.) I could have planned another itinerary using no flights if I knew ahead of time that the airline’s employees were going to be on strike.

I would like to mention that the price that I gave Mr. Johanneck for this tour included all accommodation with half board, a car with a driver and fuel, all park entrance fees, all local guide fees and my service fees.

The price Mr. Johanneck paid did not include my Diego Suarez-Antananarivo flight ticket. I had paid for my ticket out of my profit. But, as he thought that I owed him money, I decided to pay him back the ticket price, which was $116 (I got the airline’s “resident” rate).

I am running my tour company in order to help tourists discover Madagascar. Madagascar is a fabulous country for those who like nature and wildlife.

JENITA JAOZANDRY, Madagascar Natural Tours

*Mr. Jaozandry provided ITN with the text (in French) of the cancellation policy of the hotels Mr. Johanneck used in Madagascar. The following, reflecting percentages of prepaid room rates not to be refunded, is the English translation:

“In case of cancellation of a confirmed reservation, we reserve the right to apply the loads below. For cancellations reaching us between 30 and 15 days before the date of service, 24% on lodging; 14 to 5 days before the date of service, 50% on lodging, and less than 5 days before the date of service, 100% on accommodation.”

According to a Reuters news item, the above-mentioned airline strike ended on July 17.