A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelago

The Union of the Comoros sees vanishingly few tourists, although this little African nation is in many parts a bona fide Indian Ocean paradise, said Kate Eshelby in The Times, with “jewel-green” forests, colourful coral reefs and white-sand beaches.

It comprises three of the four Comoro Islands, which lie midway between Mozambique and Madagascar. The fourth, Mayotte, voted to remain with France at independence in 1975, and in the 25 years after that, there were some 20 coups d’état in the Union – surely one reason that tourism hasn’t taken off here. There is also a severe lack of tourist infrastructure, but the country is now peaceful, and its food is good. For intrepid travellers willing to tolerate “terrible” roads and fairly simple hotels, it is worth a visit.

I travelled with the recently launched local operator Adore Comores. For a relaxing beach holiday, you should head straight to the smallest island, Mohéli, a Unesco biosphere reserve, but there’s also much of interest on the bigger and more densely populated pair. The islanders practise a relaxed form of Islam, and the sultans’ palaces and four old stone towns on the largest island, Grand Comore, reminded me a bit of those in Zanzibar. I was sad to find that many of Grande Comore’s “picture-perfect” beaches were strewn with litter, but the landscape is “arcadian” in places, as I discovered on a two-day camping trip to climb the 2,361-metre peak of Mount Karthala, an active volcano.

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On the second island, Anjouan, I was struck by the “Moon-white” sandalwood paste that many women use to cover their faces, and I enjoyed a trip to an artisanal distillery that extracts essential oils from fragrant flowers such as ylang-ylang.

Last came Mohéli, where I stayed at a beach hotel, Laka Lodge, in the far south. It’s an idyllic place, offering walks into the forests in search of the non-native lemurs that now live here, snorkelling over coral gardens “flashing with fish”, boat trips to uninhabited islets, and the chance to watch green turtles hatching or laying their eggs.