Mont Ntringui is the roof of Anjouan and one of the great natural destinations in the Comoros. At 1.595 metres, it is the highest peak on the greenest and most mountainous island in the archipelago, covered by Anjouan's last large highland rainforest and protected as a national park. Walking its slopes means heading into a tropical cloud forest of ferns, orchids and centuries-old trees, home to unique species such as Livingstone's fruit bat.
The park, of about 11.700 hectares, protects not only the Ntringui massif but also the Dzialandzé crater lake, a highland wetland recognised as a Ramsar site of international importance for birds. Climbing towards the summit through the forest, with views that suddenly open up over the sea and the neighbouring islands, or walking to the lake tucked inside its crater, are pure nature experiences in a corner of the Indian Ocean that hardly anyone visits.
This practical guide explains how to organise the excursion to Mont Ntringui from Mutsamudu: when to go, how hard it is, how to hire a guide and what to bring. Anjouan, with its mountain, waterfalls and ylang-ylang plantations, is a little-explored paradise for ecotourism, and the climb up Ntringui (or the gentler walk to Lake Dzialandzé) is the best way to discover its green, wild heart.
Mont Ntringui is the highest point on Anjouan (1.595 m), formed by the volcanic activity that created the island, now extinct and deeply eroded, which explains Ndzuani's mountainous, green landscape. Its national park, created in 2010, protects the island's last rainforests and the Dzialandzé crater lake, a Ramsar site since 2006 and a refuge for threatened endemic species. Its geology and biodiversity are covered in detail on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The island of the archipelago's most powerful sultanate: Shirazi ports, the citadel of Mutsamudu, walled Domoni and green slopes that distil ylang-ylang.
Read the history of Anjouan (Ndzuani) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Mont Ntringui is the highest peak on Anjouan (Ndzuani), at 1.595 metres above sea level, and the summit of the most mountainous island in the Comoros archipelago. Like the other islands, Anjouan is volcanic in origin: it rose from the floor of the Indian Ocean as eruptions piled up, within the hotspot volcanic zone that created the whole archipelago. But unlike Karthala on Grande Comore, which is still active, Anjouan's volcanism died out long ago.
That age explains the island's distinctive landscape. With no more eruptions to rebuild the terrain, erosion has worked for a long time on the old volcanic structure, carving out a rugged relief of mountains, sharp ridges, deep valleys and waterfalls. This is why Anjouan is the most mountainous and the most 'ancient-looking' of the three islands, with the Ntringui massif dominating its centre.
On the mountain's flanks, past volcanic activity also left craters, now reshaped by nature. One of them, on the south-eastern flank of Ntringui at about 900 metres above sea level, holds Lake Dzialandzé, a crater lake of about 2 hectares that has become a key high-altitude wetland for the island's wildlife. Together, the mountain and the lake form the heart of Anjouan's main protected natural area.
The slopes of Mont Ntringui hold Anjouan's last large area of montane rainforest, an ecosystem of enormous value that is also under serious threat. This cloud forest, with giant ferns, orchids, lichens and centuries-old trees, is a refuge for many species, a lot of them endemic to the Comoros or to the island itself, found nowhere else in the world.
Among the park's flagship species is the roussette de Livingstone (Livingstone's fruit bat), a huge bat with a wingspan of almost a metre and a half, endemic to the Comoros and endangered, which depends on these forests to survive. Endemic birds also live here, such as the Anjouan scops owl (petit-duc d'Anjouan) and other unique species, along with reptiles and a rich flora. Lake Dzialandzé, for its part, is an important wetland for waterbirds and migratory birds.
Because of this value, Lake Dzialandzé was recognised in 2006 as a Ramsar site of international importance, under the global convention for the protection of wetlands. Conserving these forests is crucial not only for biodiversity but also for Anjouan's water cycle, since the high-altitude forests capture moisture and feed the rivers and waterfalls the island's population depends on.
The natural wealth of Mont Ntringui lives alongside a serious threat: deforestation. Anjouan is a densely populated island, and pressure for farmland, firewood and timber has steadily shrunk the mountain's forests, with severe consequences for biodiversity and for the island's water supply. Saving Ntringui's last forest therefore became an environmental priority.
To protect it, the Mont Ntringui National Park was created in 2010, an area of about 11.700 hectares covering the island's central massif, its forests and Lake Dzialandzé. The park is part of the Comoros network of national parks, together with the pioneering Mohéli Marine Park and other protected areas of the archipelago, in the country's effort to conserve its exceptional natural heritage.
This conservation model aims to combine protecting nature with developing responsible ecotourism and economic alternatives for local communities, so that protecting the forest is also a source of income. The involvement of the villages on the mountain's lower slopes, as guides and park rangers, is key to its success.
For travellers, Mont Ntringui is Anjouan's great nature adventure and one of the best ecotourism destinations in the Comoros. The climb to the summit, through the montane forest, rewards you with panoramic views of the island, the coast and the neighbouring islands, while the gentler walk to the Dzialandzé crater lake lets you enjoy the forest and the wetland with less effort. Either way, you walk through untouched natural landscape that hardly anyone visits.
Anjouan, the 'perfume island' par excellence thanks to its ylang-ylang, offers ecotourists a set of natural attractions that can be combined: Mont Ntringui and its park, the Tatinga waterfall, the essential-oil distilleries of Bambao and a coastline with pristine seabeds. All of it with the historic base of Mutsamudu and its medina, recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Exploring Ntringui means discovering the wildest and greenest side of the Comoros, an archipelago that combines, like few others, Swahili cultural heritage, volcanoes, beaches and endemic forests. On a little-known island barely touched by tourism, Anjouan's highest mountain is an invitation to walk through the mist, listen to endemic birds and look out over one of the last forests of the western Indian Ocean.
