Fetraomby: Haven for the Indri-Indri

Here, the forest is a protected area, part of the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, the habitat of Indri-Indri. This lemur, the largest in Madagascar, cannot survive in captivity because of its nutritional supply demand, each family requiring several hectares of forest to feed on. As a result, Indri-Indri is an endangered species due to increasing habitat destruction. Some residents of Fetraomby have organized and founded an association to develop eco-tourism in their area - a way to conserve their forest while creating a different source of income.

 

During your visit, you will be plunged into the rural life. If the welcoming population offers you a cup of coffee, know that it was planted and produced on site. The villagers wash and dry the coffee beans, grill them on the embers and grind them by hand in a mortar The water for the coffee comes from a basin in the hills, via a pipe attached to the village standpipes. If you like sugar with your coffee, it will be the fresh juice of a sugar cane, squeezed with a very strange device (said to be the pig's beak). And there you have a cup of 100 per cent home-grown coffee.

 

 

If you prefer hiking, you can choose one of Fetraomby's six trails, rated from easy to difficult. Every hike has its appeal, while they are all very different. They pass vast white sand banks, plantations, rice fields, virgin forest with streams and waterfalls, and small villages where nothing has changed for years.