Mahamo is a little beach village on Madagascar’s northeastern coast. It’s a good destination for travelers wanting to experience some quiet, relaxing time by the sea and, owing to its consistent swells, surfers in particular. We visited Mahambo in January 2024. Originally, we intended to stay for a few days before moving onward to Sainte-Marie Island. But since we really liked it there, we ended up extending our stay to a full seventeen days. In this post, I will recount my impressions from this time and share some tips about the area.
How to get to Mahambo
Taxi brousses to Mahambo depart from Toamasina’s main bus station. We paid 15,000 ariary per person, and the trip lasted 4 hours. The bus dropped us off along the main road, whence we had to walk for some 20 minutes to the beach. You can read more details about the trip here. For a more comfortable ride, you may also arrange a private transfer here.
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Where to stay in Mahambo
Though tiny it is, the village of Mahambo offers quite a range of accommodation options for different budgets. Walking toward the beach, we checked out a few of the more basic places. The prices started from 40,000 per night, but they weren’t quite suitable for a longer stay. Although the owners would insist that water doesn’t leak when it rains, we could see sizable patches of sky through the thatched roofs. The bed nets had so many and big holes that they would only make the mosquitos hungrier in their effort to find the way in. The rooms had one plug at best and one lamp with enough power to illuminate itself.
The upper-end places are located on the beach. A lovely one we went to for food and drinks a couple of times, but we wouldn’t afford the accommodation cost, was the Hotel La Pirogue.
Our ideal, mid-range solution was the Onja Surf Camp. They have two neat, practical bungalows and a communal area in an adorable space a 5-minute walk from the beach. The French guy and his Malagasy wife who run it were very friendly and accommodating, spoke good English, and cooked some of the most delicious and generous dishes that we tried around Madagascar. I can’t recommend the place enough.
Do and eat in Mahambo
Honestly, there isn’t much to do in Mahambo other than indulging in the “doing little”, peaceful lifestyle of the tropical beach village. For our entire stay, I didn’t once use footwear, but walked (or waded, when storms turned the paths into streams) barefoot everywhere. Neither did I use any underwear—until the penultimate day of our stay, when whatever bugs feasted in my private area forced me to. I wouldn’t have ever worn a top, either, but that proved essential to at least spare my inaccessible-for-scratching back from the perpetual mosquito raids. Do not be daunted by such petty troubles. These are ordinary inconveniences of tropical life. You get used.
As for the rest, we spent our days working in the serene, inspiring environs (internet signal was overall decent); having dips in the crystal-clear and fairly deep sea; going for long, barefoot runs along the immense beach; strolling around the village’s trails and interacting with its genial people; and drinking and eating.
It’s mostly only the lodges that maintain restaurants in Mahambo. Some people also cook and serve at beach tables at the end of the main road. Food is a bit more expensive than the average of Madagascar but portions are respectively larger. There are also a few street-fool joints along the main road, but they have only pasta and eggs at best and are usually closed by noon. The handful of local shops sell water and beer cheaper than the restaurants, as well as some other very basic provisions. Have enough cash with you because the nearest ATM is a day’s journey away.
As for more exceptional activities, one of our plans was to go on a motorbike trip to explore the hinterland settlements, but we didn’t find any enduro bike (imperative for tackling the rough tracks) available for rental. There was a hotel on the beach that rented quad bikes, but they asked for something ridiculous like 50 euros for three hours. We only found a scooter at a decent price. But because it wasn’t insured, we couldn’t use it to even drive far along the paved road. So there wasn’t any point in getting it all, and we skipped the idea altogether. To be frank, though, we didn’t look that thoroughly. I’m quite positive that you’ll find a proper bike given enough research.
So our only out-of-the-customary activities were surfing and kayaking.
Surfing
There is a clean, barreling break over the riff at the eastern edge of Mahambo’s bay. I often saw surfers there having some crazy rides. But since we ain’t advanced enough and value the integrity of our bones, we went to the beach break in the next bay to the south. It takes about half an hour to get there on foot around the beach. The distance is cut in half if someone shows you the tricky, more direct route through the fields from the village. We weren’t very lucky with the conditions, the waves being choppy and inconsistent, but it was good fun nevertheless.
We rented our surfboards from our place at Onja Surf Camp for 30,000 ariary for the whole day. A few more places rent surfboards around the village. We didn’t ask about their rates, but I assume these should be quite standard.
Kayaking
On the fairest day of our stay—hardly a cloud in the sky—which also happened to be Sophie’s birthday, we went on a boat ride. We rented two single kayaks from our place again for 50,000 ariary apiece, plus 40,000 to hire a pickup truck to transport us upriver.
We started from a bridge a half hour’s bumpy and muddy drive from Mahambo (coordinates: -17.4888, 49.4436). We first paddled someway upstream until the river became too narrow, overgrown, and cluttered with logs to continue. We then turned around and headed downriver toward the ocean. The first part of the route was the most pleasant. The river was narrow enough to be fully shaded amid the enveloping glut of vegetation, but still sufficiently broad to proceed unhindered. The only minor obstacles were the occasional low overhanging plants we had to either squeeze through or stoop under and some V-shaped fish traps we had to circumvent. We saw many kingfishers and some creatures of unknown identity dashing over the surface away from our passage. The crocodiles, although nonexistent in Madagascar, served well as an idea to tease-frighten Sophie.
The river then widened, and the sun hammered us without mercy. Shortly before the mouth, we had a break at a shady bank. Just as we were leaving, I realized I had dropped my GoPro in the river while pulling ashore perhaps an hour earlier. I spent the next hour lip-deep inside the scummy, frothy water, fumbling the mucky bottom with my toes. I was about to give up when I felt something promisingly solid and geometrical. And this time, after many disappointing wood pieces, my feet tweezed out the camera and carried it ashore. It worked just fine.
After a stop for a rest and a good wash in the sea by the river mouth, we carried on around the riff and behind the breaking waves. Early afternoon, we beached back in Mahambo.
Mahambo Photo Gallery
View (and if you want use) all my photographs from Mahambo.
Accommodation and Activities in Madagascar
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