On December 20, 1848, slavery was abolished on La Réunion. This is celebrated with a big parade in Saint-Denis, and I waa there. People show their traditional attire and facepaint, beat drums, and dance. No floats. It took hours and it was very loud! I think I spotted Hagrid.… Read the rest

After all this hiking I went to the towns of Saint-Gilles-les Bains and Saint-Paul. There is a saint behind almost every town here. Diving wasn’t possible, I checked five centers and all were fully booked, so I spent time on the beach and had a great fish for lunch with a view of the beach.…

Had some time for the village itself. It won the title of one of the 150 prettiest villages in France, and the only one on La Réunion. It’s well-deserved. Low wooden buildings with tasteful decorations, not too many cars, and polite people. Very pastoral. Embedded in steep mountains on all sides. The village wakes up…

One would think I’d have enough hiking yesterday, so today I went all in and visited the Trou en Fer, a deep canyon with a waterfall. Trou en Fer means Iron hole; the water carries iron and colors the walls red. Getting to the viewpoint is hard. It’s 9km on narrow, rocky often very steep…

La Reunion doesn’t just have seaside towns, it’s actually more known for its steep green mountain ranges, including an active volcano (which is unfortunately hard to reach). So I was looking for options this morning in Saint-Pierre. The plan was to go scuba diving but I decided to see the mountains instead, and the most…

La Reunion is a small island. It takes two hours from saint de4nis in the north to Saint Pierre in the southwest. Since the northern coast is all steep cliffs, they built this enormous bridge a few hundred meters off the coast into the sea, very impressive. Saint Pierre is just as sleepy as Saint…

Off the coast of Madagascar, a very large African island, is the small island La Réunion, formerly Bourbon island from which vanilla beans take their name. It’s still a département of France,  which means I just took an 11-hour domestic flight from Paris. There are no arrival formalities, everybody speaks French, and you pay in…