Mount Ntingui

Anjouan rises to Mount Ntingui at about 1,595 metres, and the climb is a transect of the island's whole story: up through villages and clove groves, into ylang and banana terraces, then under the surviving cloud forest where tree ferns drip and - with luck - Livingstone's fruit bats, among the largest and rarest bats on earth, sail between the ridges on wings approaching a metre and a half. The summit's promise, delivered on the clearest early mornings, is the archipelago entire: Grande Comore's Karthala, Moheli low to the southwest, Mayotte on the horizon, and Anjouan's own knife ridges falling to lagoons below.

The landscape

• The four-island view - the whole archipelago from the top on a clear dawn.
• Livingstone's fruit bats - the giant, endangered flyers of the high forest.
• The cloud forest - tree ferns and moss in the summit belt.
• The spice terraces - cloves and ylang-ylang climbing the lower slopes.

When to go

May to November for the drier trails, and start before dawn - cloud caps the summit most days by mid-morning, and the view is a lottery that early risers win most often.

Practical notes

Paths are steep, muddy and unmarked - a local guide is a necessity, not a nicety, and the day is long for the fitness it asks. The forest has retreated hard under farming pressure; expect cultivation high up and treasure the intact belt that remains. Cloud can cancel the panorama entirely - the climb has to be its own reward.

Nearby

Mutsamudu's medina, the Bambao valley distilleries and Moya's wild coast.