The local buses from Antananarivo to Andisabe National Park leave from Ampasampito Bus Station (Gare Routiére Ampasampito). This is located in the northeastern suburbs of the city, 5 km from the city center, along the N2 main road connecting the capital to Toamasina. The station’s exact coordinates are 18.8938, 47.5488 and here it is on Google Maps.
There surely must be shared taxi vans going there from the center of Antananarivo. But I’m unfortunately not aware of more details because we got there by private taxi. Since we did the trip to Antisabe in one day from Ampefy, a mountain village west of Antananarivo where we stayed for 11 days around Christmas, we didn’t have enough time to figure out a cheaper way to reach the station. A private taxi from Anosizato Andrefana Station, at the exact antipodal point of the city where the bus from Ampefy dropped us off, cost us 35,000 ariary (bargained down from 60,000). I assume that a private taxi from the center of Antananarivo to Ampasampito should analogously cost about half that.
Ampasampito was a rather small terminal and finding the right bus was straightforward. It would also be possible to catch a bus to Toamasina and get off at the junction to Andisabe, from where you could take a tuk tuk to cover the 4 remaining km to the village. But in our case, we took a bus to Moramanga, the principal town in the region, and then changed to a second bus directly to Andasibe.
The bus to Moramanga cost 10,000 ariary per person. The trip lasted somewhere between 3 and 4 hours and was relatively comfortable (there was enough space to move our legs around in new positions and partly stretch them out into the aisle).
It dropped us off at a point along the main road in Moramanga downtown where a maze of a bus station stretched across multiple backstreets. We asked our way through it, amid a throng of accosting vendors and beggars, until we located the bus to Andasibe.
The ticket cost 4,000 ariary per person. This ride was extremely uncomfortable. We were packed in like ware, to the point that even our arms were mostly immobilized. On the positive side, the trip lasted for only about an hour and they dropped us off right at our hotel’s entrance, which was especially helpful since it had begun raining.
So we settled in Hotel Vohitsara, an economical and homely place whose owner spoke good English, and spent there the next four days visiting the national park and exploring the area.
If you’re looking for a more comfortable and fairly inexpensive trip, you may arrange a private transfer here:
Accommodation and Activities in Madagascar
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