Madagascar Travel Review: Luxury Solo Trip, Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve, Tana

Traveling to Madagascar isn't easy but it is well worth the effort. Most go for the fauna and flora but the Malagasy are also a lovely and unique people. I should emphasize that, as I was rightly warned by my travel agent, Madagascar is not for faint of heart. Many of the roads are truly miserable, the airline is nicknamed Air Mad for a reason, and it really helps to speak French. For virtually all of the English-speakers, English is at least their third language after Malagasy and French.
I wanted to have time to reflect on my trip before reviewing, so this is written some time after the trip.
The tour was highly memorable and a really one-of-a-kind experience. The lemurs are lots of fun. I also enjoyed seeing the chameleons and birds -- no shortage of really interesting animal life on this trip. The scenery in the tsingy on the West Coast was really worth visiting as well. Even Tana (Antananarivo), the unpopular capital, proved interesting as did seeing smaller places elsewhere.
On the plus side, my agent picked all of the right hotels to stay at in each place. You can point to various flaws in this or that one but they were all clearly the best Madagascar had to offer and suited me well. I don't the agent oversold any of the hotels and several of them proved great and exceeded my expectations in one way or another.
There were, however, a couple of minuses that an honest review should also mention. The agent in the U.S. works with another company in Madagascar who is also working with other companies in places around this extremely large island. This means that you are hiring someone who is hiring someone who is hiring someone. This isn't uncommon in these sorts of trips but it depends heavily on all parts of the chain keeping up their bit.
The quality broke down twice. In one place, I had a guide who didn't understand my English or French and a car that was really in substandard condition. The window wouldn't close, a real problem for the A/C and keeping Madagascar's copious dust out while driving. I debated about saying anything but ultimately did. The local company was very nice about it and contacted my hotel to replace them. The new guide was terrific, a real expert that I felt lucky to meet, and car was good too.
The second problem ended my trip on a bit of a sour note. My agent had urged me to join a ceremony known as the turning of the bones, an important Malagasy tradition. I hadn't known it would be 3-4 hours away from Tana and that we would have to go hunting for one--I had been told it would be arranged. Only when we got to there did we learn that turning of the bones is never done in that area on that day of the week. After a bumpy and exhausting 7-8 hour drive, I didn't see much. Part of me says things like this happen in more intrepid travel but, ultimately, I was given incorrect information by my own agent and the lack of local knowledge by the local agent.
In short, overall, Madagascar was amazing, I thought many of the guides were top notch. The gentlemen in the tsingy did an excellent job of keeping me safe while showing me the amazing sites. Many guides had an uncanny ability to pick out animals that I simply never would've seen without them. I really liked some of the drivers too--being able to speak French opened a lot of doors--and appreciated their kindness.
I certainly wouldn't let the problems I mentioned deter you from visiting Madagascar or using this agent even if I cannot give the travel agent quite as high a rating as I would like for this particularly trip.