Madagascar is the fourth largest island in world and is located in the Indian Ocean 250 miles off the eastern coast of Africa across the Mozambique Channel AND just south of the equator. The island itself is approximately 1580 km long and 570 km wide and boasts tropical forests, beautifully sandy beaches, rivers, lakes and its most prominent feature would have to be the steep mountain range paralleling the entire eastern coast.

The Capital of Madagascar and a city of 2,000,000 located in the High Plateau, "Tana" is a harmonious tumble of earth-red brick houses from grandiose to battered and dilapidated, lush gardens and unkept chaos, flowers and bustling market places, ante-deluvian automobiles, grid-lock traffic jams, elegant business people and street dwellers. Most people stay in Tana for a couple of days, however a week would certainly not be too much as there is a great deal to see both in the city and the Hauts Plateaux.

Calling Madagascar an island almost seems unfair. Deciduous forests, crystalline lakes, massive caverns, and savanna grassland dot the broad western plains, and the southern tip of the island is covered with a magnificent desert. This Eden-like garden of riches is filled with so much diversity in life and in geography that it is like no other island anywhere on Earth. Indeed, every expedition into her mountains, her rain forests, her river valleys, her coastal plains, her grasslands, her caverns, and her deserts lead to the discovery of some new plant or animal species. It is no exaggeration to claim that this micro-continent, as some have called it, offers limitless opportunities for exploration

Far in her north-western corner, 90 minutes boat ride from Nosy-Be in the Mitsio Archipelago lies a tropical private paradise called Tsarabanjina. This is a sacred islet. On the small peninsula of the eastern beach is the tomb of the Sakalava kings of the Mitsio islands – a tomb still worshipped by locals toady. This is where you will find Tsarabanjina Island Lodge – barefoot luxury, tranquility and privacy!