After spending most of yesterday acclimatising to the environment (i.e. relaxing on the beach), we finally made it out of the hotel, booking a small tour around Nosy Be and the nearby town of Hell Ville.

We employed the services of a local guide by the name of Phillipe, who met us with a 4x4 and driver at the hotel reception. We weren’t entirely sure of where we were going, but it was soon very obvious why we needed those off-road capabilities; the well worn dirt tracks that make up a good proportion of Nosy Be’s roads had turned to the slipperiest of red mud in last night’s heavy rain.

Before visiting the town, we took a sojourn up to a local distillery and factory. Here, they manufacture perfume oil base from the Ylang Ylang flower, which despite being the “body” of most perfumes had a pungent smell all of its own. Apparently, the oil is Madagascar’s second most important export product apart from vanilla, and finds it’s way into all manner of Western cosmetics, including aromatherapy oils. Additionally, there were huge racks full of pepper seeds sitting out in the sun all bearing today’s date; from what I could understand, this isn’t part of a manufacturing process but were “there to look pretty for the tourists”.

Just around the corner from the factory, we got the opportunity to view the town of Hell Ville from high up, getting a good view of the town, markets and nearby port. We soon found ourselves off the mud trail and back onto the tarmac, finally making it into the heart of the town, where after a quick bout of shopping at the boutiques we managed to get another view of the port, this time from a nearby embankment. We’ll be back here tomorrow to catch a speedboat to Ankify, on our way to our next stop in L’Ankàrana.

After a brief saunter around the local market, we headed off to the beach where we had a little time to relax and have lunch.

We got our first taste of Malagasy wildlife today (other than the ubiquitous Zebu); a bright green chameleon sitting on a fence on the side of the road.