If I could drill down from my house in San Diego through the center of the earth, penetrating to the other side of the planet, the drill bit would emerge in water — specifically, the Southern Indian Ocean. That point, my home’s antipode (to use the geographer’s term for the diametrically opposite point of any place on the globe), is closest to the tiny islands of Reunion and Mauritius. I will almost certainly never venture to either of them. But in just a few weeks, Steve and I should land in Antantanarivo, the capital of Madagascar, whose eastern coastline lies less than 500 miles from Reunion.

Madagascar is considered to be part of Africa. But some say it should rank as the Earth’s 8th continent. It split off from the African mainland about 160 million years ago. Since then its geological development has been distinctive, and most of the plant and animal life that has evolved doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Lemurs are the superstars. More than 100 different species live on the island, almost all of them threatened with extinction.

I’m sure we’ll see lots of lemurs, but they’re not the only thing drawing us to our antipode. The island’s other flora and fauna will be fascinating. The human history is relatively brief but often wildly exotic and exorbitantly bloody. And I have to admit: we’ve come to appreciate various ends of the earth. What will the vibe be like in this one?

We’ll be taking a long, winding road to Madagascar, leaving Sunday morning and journeying through Paris, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, and Johannesburg. I’ll report on the details, as I can, along the way.

We won’t cover the whole island. It’s way too big, the fourth biggest in the world (three times the size of Great Britain.) But we’ll be driven through a big swathe of it (very roughly along that red line.)