Big – Big logistical problems

When I planned this trip, my aim was to travel up the centre of the island, but heading a little east and then follow the western side of the mountains from Antananarivo move east 150 km and then straight up to Ambatondrazaka up on to Andilamena, then there would be a very difficult bit of basically no tracks up to Mandrisara. From here I would cut west to Antsohihy then no problems as far as Diego Suarez (Antsirana) and finally Cap d’Ambre.

All has been going well but now comes a serious problem. The roads past Ambatondrazaka are in bad shape and no one has got through this rainy season, which means I have to cut east at Vohidia and up to Andriamena. But from here on North– West there are no roads they have been destroyed by the monsoon rain, this means that the crew have to turn back, there is no way past this point, as there are damaged bridges, they will have to drive all the way back 460 km to Antananarivo the capital and then take the western road up north 580km to meet up with me. This is a 1000km detour. The worst is that it leaves me alone for 2 weeks, I will have to get over the plateau and up the mountains to the west to meet up with them, hardly a road or village, huge rivers and the unknown. If this is going to be anything like the weeks in the forest I am really in for a heck of a few weeks. The one advantage, in about 4 days I will be out of this very wet swampland.