Amber Mountain National Park, Joffreville, Madagascar

Our adventure to Amber Mountain and Joffreville started when we informed our hotel hostess of our plans, and her reaction was, "Joffreville?  Why do you want to go to Joffreville?  It is cold there!  Lots of rain!"  With this farewell, we pressed on.  We got to the taxi bus stand, and waited for a while for it to fill up, see picture of Caryl next to a converted pick up truck.  At peak capacity, there were 25 people inside, which I state loosely, since about four of them were hanging off the back.  The road to Joffreville, the closest town to Amber Mountain National Park, was actually pretty good; it took us about an hour or so to get there (about 30km).  We arrived, as usual, without a place to stay for the night.  So, Caryl left me with our bags at an abandoned French building to look for a hotel (see picture).  We finally settled on Relais de Amber Mountain Bunalows (at least that's what we think the name is, no signs).  The rooms were pretty nice and the garden in the back was amazing, though the water situation was unacceptable.  While they say there was " running water," when we turned it on, decaying plant matter and mosquito larva came out of the shower head.  We only spent one night there. 

After getting settled in, we went to the hotel restaurant for lunch. Caryl quickly made a friend; there was a roaming tortoise in the restaurant. Caryl decided to name her Shelly. As you can see in the pictures there is rice around the turtle's mouth, which Caryl had fed her.  He still talks about Shelly to this day (four days later). 

We then decided to walk the 3 kilometers to the park entrance to figure out what hikes we could do in the coming days. Unfortunately, we did not realize the path was up hill and in the sun the whole way, which was mildly uncomfortable. After getting to the park office we learned that most of the hiking trails were closed due to the activity of bands of thieves and robbers who had robbed a couple of tourists at gun point last year.  So now most of the hikes and all the ones to Amber Mountain are closed. There were only 2 hikes remaining, a short one lasting about 3 hours and a longer one about 4 hours. We decided to do the shorter hike the same day since it was still pretty early in the day.  So we hired a guide, Garry, and started the journey.

Amber Mountain park is much different than Ankarana, mainly because of the climate. Amber Mountain is much colder and rainier, and the forest is full of rivers. We saw lots of interesting wildlife such as the second smallest color changing chameleon in the world and more leaf-tailed geckos.

Since we were unable to do any more of the hikes we wanted to do without hiring armed guards, we decided to pack up and come back to Ansiranana the following morning.