Throughout most of our trip we have been able to charge most expenses to our credit card (and immediately pay them off with our travel budget), but here in Madagascar it is quite different to anything we have ever experienced. There is no such thing as credit here. Visa is not where we want it to be and we can’t use a credit card for anything over here. It makes life a bit more interesting when you have to rely on carrying enough cash to do what you want. It doesn’t help that there are zero ATM’s on the island that we are staying on. We have to take the small boat ferry to the bigger island of Nosy Be to find one of the three ATM’s on the entire island. It also doesn’t help that the largest note available is a 10,000 Ariary bill, which is equivalent to ~$3 USD. When we had to pull out our supply of money for the two week boat cruise and our remainder of time at camp we pulled out 300,000 Ariary which came in a whopping 30 bill stack equivalent to $100 USD.

When dealing with some of the fruits and inexpensive good the bills go down to the 100 Ariary note equivalent to ~3 cents. Not too much can be purchased for this little, but many things like bananas, oranges, home made hot sauces can all be purchased for ~1000-3,000 Ariary. We purchased a 1.5 liter bottle of local honey from the village in Barhumamay for 15,000 Ariary and we are still on the hunt to find some inexpensive vanilla. The rum is also dirt cheap, which is reflective of the quality. Much of the rum is also home made ethanol and not recommended for drinking.