Belo-sur-Mer

The Lonely Planet describes Belo-sur-Mer as one of the few places in the world that you feel so far from anywhere else and arriving at noon you quickly realise why. During the blistering heat of the day the entire village seems deserted with no-one in sight and everything pretty much closed. It's only at night, once it has significantly cooled down, that things start to liven up. Street merchants, restaurants and people spring up out of seemingly nowhere and music resonates throughout the sandy streets. There is even a small homemade cinema with an old-school projector showing re-runs of 70's classics for 100 Ariary ($0.03).

We arrived shortly after mid-day following a 4-hour drive over 60km of countryside on dirt tracks and across the sea-bed during low tide. The only way to get there is to hire a 4x4 which costs around 370,000 Ariary ($116) for 2 days which isn't bad between 5 people. Upon arrival only one restaurant was open, and even then there were only two things available on the menu. Eggs and the two fish caught that day (the menu is heavily reliant on the day's catch, which had been poor due to high winds). At night we wandered around the streets trying the local cuisine (Bonbon Fwanzu, homemade peanut brittle, was our favourite ), having a few beers and organising a pirogue trip to the nearby islands for some snorkelling.

The next day we got up early to take the sailing pirogue and to our disappointment found that we were being taken to a different island that turned out to have no reef nearby despite having confirmed this the day before. We highly recommend that you ensure in written form that the boat driver take you to the correct island (ours simply said not possible). Despite this we visited a tiny island village and went for a swim at some stunning beaches.

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