Cast away from the supercontinent more than 150 million years ago, the Indian Ocean’s wildest island has evolved at its own unique pace. Forests and mountains teem with creatures so colourful they should rightly belong to comic books, and almost 90 per cent of all Madagascar's plants and wildlife exist nowhere else.

Enigmatic lemurs are the star attraction, with more than 100 species to spot. Listen to the ghostly call of indri echoing through the rainforest canopy of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park; watch ring-tailed troops march through the canyons of Isalo; and marvel at the dexterity of agile sifakas as they dance across a plateau of daggers in the Tsingy de Bemaraha. Diverse landscapes have also shaped the lives of distinct ethnic groups with staunch traditions and taboos – from communities in the spiny forests of Ifotaka who refuse to point fingers to fishermen along the sparkling northern coastline who bury their dead in shrouds made of sails.