It is said that the best stories start on a train and it was a jungle train that got my curiosity hooked with the desire to travel to Madagascar. An old, slow and shabby train that seems to have slipped down the time tunnel, just like the rest of Madagascar. It is a strange and wonderful island lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean. A giant laboratory full of extraordinary creatures but where unfortunately, it is also easy to see the terrible damage that man is capable of inflicting to nature.

It is a country of dignified and welcoming people who are honoured to pose in front of your camera. Here the kids have fun kicking an old plastic bottle, and the best-paid football players are seen in bottle caps. An island where Vezo fishermen go fishing in a sea that looks like a painting by Sorolla and where the poorest people look for gold among yellow mud. A place where timeless clocks set the pace for diving and riding a bicycle becomes a postcard of paradise. In Madagascar the harsh life is riddled with smiles to survive.

This is Madagascar, a wounded paradise that you will hopelessly fall in love with…