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Exhausted of a seventeen-hour trip over 882.5 kilometers of a road made of sharp turns and potholes, we arrive in Ambanja where we are supposed to change means of locomotion to reach the port of Ankify. It is 7 a.m. and we are already enjoying the heat of the sun. The bus station is crowded, between tourists who disembark, the rickshaws that occupy the street, and the taxi drivers who canvass because here, there’s neither ticket office nor travel ticket. I get my luggage – which consists of the bare minimum that can fit in a backpack - as well as that of my little sister, and off we go to discover a piece of land where we have never been before: the island of Nosy Be. We come to the merchants of “sabeda”, a madame rose rice porridge which is the particularity of the northern region of Madagascar. To accompany the dish, they suggest fish, fried sweet potatoes, meatballs, and skewered beef under a sort of wooden shed with a dwarf fan palm roof. After this tasty breakfast, we take a taxi and quietly criss-cross the cocoa plantations - these atypical trees of which fruits do not grow in the branches of the tree but along the trunk. I've heard that they're the best in the world and seeing the environment in which they grow, it just makes sense. An hour later and twenty-four kilometers away, we are aboard a hull boat piloted by a skipper wearing a T-Shirt offered by a presidential candidate during the last electoral campaign. The sea is calm, and I enjoy the sea breeze tickling my skin. Once on the island, we join the hotel for lunch and spend the afternoon resting on the terrace of our room. We discuss how to get to the marina - we didn't even rent a car - but what concerns us most is how not to get ripped off by the tour operators who use to suck more money from tourists than they should. We still found a boat at a reasonable price, but it was cloudy so the departure was delayed by an hour. Italian tourists shared the same boat as us. The sea is more troubled than the day before, and a young woman is feeling unwell in the open sea. From what I know of their language, I understood that she was pregnant, and asked to be brought back to Nosy Be. We stop a few minutes later near a piece of land where we can see lemurs but where we are not allowed to set foot on. The skipper didn't want to go back, but he couldn't go forward either, especially since he couldn't make the decision himself. There is not even network coverage to call where we are. After a few interminable moments, I began to lose patience when we saw another boat heading back from Iranja - our destination of the day - that our skipper undertook to hail. The skipper of that boat agrees to take the young woman with him and we continued sailing until we arrive on turquoise water with a white sandbank connecting two small islands. The wonder that I felt at the sight of this place made me thank goodness for my taste for adventure and discovery. I finally understand when they say that difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.