Villa and peninsula, or canvas and rainforest: choose Anjajavy if you want a sea in front, a reserve behind and a villa to come back to; choose Masoala if you want to sleep under canvas with the forest at one door and the reef at the other. Both are sea-and-reserve lodges. They sit on opposite coasts of Madagascar and feel like different countries, which on this island is normal.
Updated 27-Nov-2022
First, the honest bit, which the Anjajavy le Lodge page says outright: Madagascar is not the Africa most safari-goers picture. There is no Big 5 here, and neither lodge pretends otherwise. What there is instead is lemurs, baobabs, tsingy, coral and forest that has been doing its own thing for a very long time. If that sounds like a consolation prize, neither lodge is for you. If it sounds like the point, read on.
Where are they, and what is on either side?
Anjajavy sits at the tip of what the lodge calls a wild peninsula, on the northwest coast. One side, a sea the colour of turquoise. The other, a natural reserve very much alive with its own business. Between them, fine sandy beaches of the kind that make people postpone whatever they were about to do. The lodge’s own site fills in the reserve: tsingy, giant baobabs, mangroves, lagoons, a place they call the red cirque, and curious lemurs.
Masoala Forest Lodge is on the northeast coast, in a sheltered cove with Masoala National Park around it and Antongil Bay in front. The page describes a floor plan rather than a slogan: tented rooms pitched between a warm, coral-rich ocean on one side and primary rainforest on the other. Primary means never cleared. The walk from your bed takes you into the trees or into the water, depending on your mood.
What do you sleep in?
This is the real fork in the road.
At Anjajavy, villas. The page’s captions show a villa under stars, a dining pavilion at dusk, sunset over the lawn and two chairs facing one sea. It is a Relais & Châteaux property and carries itself like one: lawns, a pavilion, dinner that arrives on a plate rather than a tray.
At Masoala, canvas. The lodge’s own site describes seven palm-thatched tree-houses on stilted wooden platforms, built from ravenala and raffia palm, bamboo and local timber, with a canvas and mesh inner tent in place of walls and a private en-suite bathroom with hot water. Fourteen guests at most. The communal rooms are a Beach House for dinner and a Sea Deck for breakfast and sundowners. The page’s captions are “Under canvas”, “Dinner by lantern” and “Fireside on the sand”, which tells you how the evenings go.
What do you do all day?
| Anjajavy le Lodge | Masoala Forest Lodge | |
|---|---|---|
| Coast | Northwest, a peninsula | Northeast, a cove on Antongil Bay |
| Landward | A natural reserve: tsingy, baobabs, mangroves, lemurs | Primary rainforest, Masoala National Park; the red ruffed lemur |
| Seaward | Turquoise sea, beaches, lagoons | Coral-rich ocean, private beaches |
| On foot | Guided treks by day and night, caves and creeks | Guided forest walks by day and night, seven marked trails, clear forest streams to swim in |
| On water | Sea kayaking, mangrove sunset boat trips, private fishing | Snorkelling off the beach in the Tampolo Marine Reserve, sea kayaking, fishing, whale-watching when the whales oblige |
| People | Village visits, local song and dance | The village of Ambodiforaha a short walk away; a women’s dance and song group performs at the lodge |
| Bed | Villa | Tented tree-house, seven of them |
Read across the rows and the two lodges look alike: forest one way, water the other, a village nearby. Read down the columns and the texture changes. Anjajavy’s forest has tsingy and baobabs in it; Masoala’s is dense, old and wet, with eleven kinds of lemur in the area and the red ruffed lemur found nowhere else. Anjajavy’s water is lagoon and mangrove; Masoala’s is reef and bay, with humpback whales using Antongil Bay as a breeding ground.
So which one?
- Anjajavy if you have done the mainland and want a different ending to the story, in the page’s words. A villa, a lawn, a peninsula with nothing else on it, and a reserve you walk into after breakfast and leave before dinner.
- Masoala if the forest is the reason you came, and you are happy for the bathroom to be the most solid thing in the room. The lodge keeps 85 hectares of rainforest as a buffer between itself and the park, and runs guided night walks, which is when much of the forest is actually awake.
- Both, in principle, since they sit on opposite coasts and complement each other exactly. Neither page gives transfer details between them, so we will not pretend to. Ask, and we will find out properly.
Either way you will be leaving the Madagascar that safari-goers picture and arriving in the one that exists. The lodges simply differ on whether you should meet it from a verandah or from a tent flap.
