You could probably spend months/years wandering the wilds of Madagascar and not see all of the unique species on offer here (90 percent of all plant and animal species found in Madagascar are endemic). As part of the world's loudest bus tour, we never did get to see the Giraffe Weevil, the Comet Moth (largest in the world), the Tomato Frog, Aye-Aye Lemurs, Flat-Tailed Geckos (impossible to spot since they look like a dead leaf), Streaked or Aquatic Tenrecs, Madagascan Land Crab, and a whole lot more star attractions. We did manage to track down the Hissing Cockroaches, King Crickets (much like DH, they go into a Kung Fu stance when threatened), a Hedgehog Tenrec, a Radiated Tortoise, a Wolf Spider and more. Even the trees and forests are unique. The Baobab Tree is a relatively common sight in southern Madagascar- there are only eight Baobab species in the world and six of them are in Madagascar. The tree is known as the tree of life, with good reason. It can provide shelter, clothing, food, and water for the animal and human inhabitants. Often times, these proud trees stood out as lonely sentinels but in the very SW of Madagascar we found them surrounded by these bizarre Spiny Forests- largely made up of a mix of every plant with a thorn, spine, or needle of some sort- not the kind of place you want to get lost in. The forest was shown to us as something of an afterthought but in a country in which you are tripping over unique sights, you sometimes can't see the forests for the needles.  

Madagascar has had stability issues in the past and, as with most impoverished nations, you can't take your security for granted, but that said, I'm not sure why this island biosphere is not on more travel itineraries (in much the same way that the Galapagos is on numerous bucket lists). If that changes in the near term, it would certainly help the fortunes of the country itself (which is heavily reliant on tourism), and may go a long way to protecting the many species that are on the brink of extinction (although, as in many parts of the world, our friends in China will need to be reined in here as well). Madagascar is currently ranked as the 11th poorest country in the world. Approximately 69% of the population lives below the national poverty line threshold of one dollar per day- compare that to 42% of the population of Afghanistan living below that same poverty line threshold (you have to be in dire straits if you're aspiring to be as wealthy as Afghanistan, a country where war and destruction have been their chief occupations since time immemorial). 
 
There's not a lot of alternatives but I'm still not sure a bus tour is the best way to see Madagascar- we seemed to zip through a number of areas that warranted a longer look and spent too much time in less interesting spots. We did get used to it, made some new connections we're hoping to use in the future, and given the current state of the tourism infrastructure, probably saw more than we would have in far less time than if we had tried to do our own thing. Just to wrap up our tour, however, the old ladies (who had spent the better part of two weeks handing out their trash to anyone who begged or squealed loud enough) decided that they weren't quite done driving me around the bend- one of them wanted to take back a lot of local fabrics (fair enough) but since she wasn't willing to part with real money and didn't have space in her luggage anyway, she decided to trade most of her ratty old clothing for the fabric. An entire family could set up camp in a pair of her jeans and her underwear might make for an adequate sail on the fishing boats, but I'm really not sure what the locals were planning on doing with all of the garbage clothing she battered with. Rather than just restricting people from entering, some countries should really start banning some of their citizens from ever traveling abroad.