Robin Hammond for The New York Times  Pirates have left the island of Ste. Marie, but the spectacular beaches remain. More Photos »  IT was probably the weirdest sound I’d ever heard.  There we were, our first morning in Madagascar, breakfasting on the veranda of a jungle lodge near Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, munching on Paris-grade baguettes (Dr. Atkins beware: this country has excellent bread products), when all of a sudden a ghostly cry erupted from the thick green hills. It sounded a little like the mating call of a whale. Or someone pinching a balloon and slowly letting the air out. Or a squeaky metal wheel with no grease. I had never heard anything quite like it before: a long, haunting, melodic wail, carried through the trees.  “My God,” my wife, Courtenay, said to me, “that is otherworldly.”  Our 1 ½-year-old son, Apollo, stabbed his pudgy finger toward the mountains and blurted: “Waz zat?”  The next thing I knew I was in the middle of a tropical rain forest dripping with vines and literally crawling with snakes, stumbling behind Monique, our indefatigable guide, in search of the animal responsible for the noise — the elusive Indri indri lemur.  Like so many other mammals, insects, trees, plants and reptiles (I’m talking fire-engine red tomato frogs and geckos shaped like leaves), the Indri indri is unique to Madagascar. This 1,000-mile-long petri dish of an island is a naturalist’s dreamland, and though its politics are a bit of a nightmare — there was a failed coup in November — the disruptions are rarely violent and it is generally safe to visit.  When you do, be prepared for some intensive wildlife bingo. As we approached a clearing, we ran into a group of American tourists on the prowl with their zoom lenses. One of them was grumbling about potential baby noises scaring off the animals. Meanwhile, Monique was loping through the forest whistling, hooting and making smooching sounds, constantly scanning the tops of the trees, trying to find lemurs.  “Look, look!” she suddenly said. Score. A whole family of Diademed sifakas (an endangered species of lemurs) was frolicking in the trees snacking on leaves with their little leathery, humanlike hands, seeming unfazed by the crush of tourists below, including the baby.  Cut off from the mainland 160 million years ago, Madagascar is host to some of the rarest and most unusual flora and fauna in the world. There are hissing cockroaches, giant jumping rats, pygmy chameleons, moths as big as dinner plates, along with various kinds of lemurs. You’ll see odd, wavy plants growing out of the desert that look as if they belong underwater. In fact, there is so much uncharted life here that scientists are constantly discovering more. Just this fall, a team of researchers announced that they had found a new species of carnivore lurking in one of Madagascar’s lakes.  And there are also beaches, really good ones. The last place we visited was the beguiling island of Ste. Marie, which features one postcard-perfect strip of sand after another. It also used to be a pirate hangout and still draws treasure seekers. We met some American divers who were convinced they were about to excavate Captain Kidd’s infamous pirate ship, the Adventure Galley, from the bottom of the Windex-blue seas.  But plan your trip carefully. Most of Madagascar’s goodies are sprinkled hundreds of miles apart. For example, the easiest place to see the dancing lemurs (technically known as Verreaux’s sifaka) is at the Berenty Private Reserve at the southern tip of the island; the capital, Antananarivo, is in the middle; the famous tree-lined Avenue de Baobab is in the west; the spectacular beaches in the north. The roads are rough and the internal airline hit-or-miss. Overall, it’s not the easiest place to get around, especially if your French is just comme ci, comme ça.  The whole experience, in fact, is a bit like that haunting lemur cry we heard our first morning, otherworldly and dislocating. I often found myself wondering, as we were driving around, looking out the windows: where the heck am I?  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN is the East Africa bureau chief for The Times.
Where else can one find dancing lemurs, pirate graves, untouched beaches and tropical rain forests along with Paris-grade baguettes?