When I decided to join KE Adventure’s ‘Cycle Madagascar - Highlands to the Coast’ trip, I expected busy, broken asphalt roads and sandy, sludgy dirt tracks. I was excited by the challenge, but wary. What I found instead was some of the finest cycling I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride, a worthy rival to the Alps and Pyrenees, Himalayas and Patagonia.

Of course, Madagascar doesn’t have iconic climbs and descents, but it carves it’s own cycling niche by offering a charming, ever-changing landscape of rice paddies, rainforests, colossal rock formations, pine valleys and savannah. There can’t be too many cycling destinations in the world like it.

Outside of the bustling and pothole-ridden cities, the excellent asphalt sections are largely smooth, light on traffic and give you a whistle-stop tour of the culture and natural make-up of Madagascar. The stretch through the highlands around Ambalavao is a particular highlight.

The dirt roads, on the other hand, would make for highly regarded cross-country mountain bike trails here in Europe, and although the going is tougher and slower, they give you a deeper, more intimate perspective on life on the island.

The tracks take you under the fingernails of rural (the real) Madagascar, passing through seldom-visited villages where locals thresh rice from stalks and children stop whatever they’re doing to rush out to greet you with waves and wide smiles.

The only traffic you’re likely to encounter on the dirt roads are ox and carts carrying anything from felled tree trunks to sacks of grain, and, of course, zebus, the cow-like cattle common in every corner of the country.

I’ve always felt that cycling is the best way to see a nation or region - slow enough to appreciate a country’s intricacies but fast enough to make significant progress - and that belief has never been firmer than on this trip, which merges distance with detail brilliantly.

The hiking days are also a joy. In Ranomafana we walked through a rainforest packed with lemurs and chameleons; in Andringitra we climbed up a fertile green valley flanked by Yosemite-esque rock walls; and in Isalo we navigated our way along a craggy escarpment and down into a deep canyon.

What’s also nice about these days on foot is that they break up the cycling and make this a truly multi-activity trip. The pace changes once again right at the end of the journey, when bikes and walking boots make way for relaxation in the tropical luxury of Ifaty. Here, two days living out of beach bungalows - just metres away from the warm, blue waters of the Mozambique Channel - were the perfect end to a memorable holiday.