Around 160 million years ago, when dinosaurs still had the run of the place, the southern supercontinent Gondwana began to tear itself apart. Africa drifted one way, India another, and a small, unassuming sliver of land was sent wandering into the Indian Ocean.
Left in glorious isolation, Madagascar evolved. Rainforests thickened and tangled. Life crept, leapt, clung and disguised itself into crazy creatures found nowhere else on Earth. With very few rules and the imagination of a Dr Zeus mushroom trip, what emerged was not quite Africa, not quite anywhere else, but an entire world unto itself. Over a hundred iterations of lemur later, the island crawls with the brilliant and bizarre. From carnivorous fossa (nowhere near as terrifying as the film suggested), and prickly tenrecs, to chameleons that range from thumbnail-sized to house-cat proportions. If nothing else, boring is firmly off the table.
Of course, something this extraordinary was never going to stay secret forever. Deserted archipelagos, vanilla-scented turquoise shores and whale-rich waters drew seafarers like magnets. Kingdoms rose, settlers came, trade routes formed, and pirates found their perfect hideout. Ships scurried. Treasure was buried. Stories of plunder, rebellion and vanished fortunes settled into Malagasy folklore.
Today, the natural world is what draws people here. That, and the allure of a deserted island with the company of nothing else but a jolly good book. They call it the eighth continent for good reason. For an island, it’s pretty darn big, and just as diverse as any other continent would be. So, as you can imagine, getting from A to B is very much part of the adventure.
