March 17, 2025

This morning, we awoke to cloudy skies and the huge volcanic bluffs of the island of La Réunion. It was quite an impressive sight as we could see commuters bustling on a perimeter freeway which we assumed led them to their point of employment. After our usual bowls of oatmeal and with our passports in hand, that we were required to carry, we made our way to the gangway.

We passed through French customs, if you could call it that. Basically, a guy and a woman dressed in uniforms under an awning were glancing at everyone’s opened passport and waved them through. We found our bus and since we were at the back of the group boarding, figured (correctly) that our preferred spots in the back would be taken. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but more on that later. We took a pair of available seats and soon we were on our way. There were a couple of empty seats up front the tour guide noted so Tod jumped up and sat there giving us both a bit more room.

She introduced herself as Simona and started in on the obligatory history of our destination. It is young in terms of geological age, only about 3 million years old. There are no indigenous peoples, and it first was occupied by the Arabs in the 1600’s. Following the requisite conflicts between the usual suspects, it ended up in French hands. At first the cash crop was coffee, but the plants proved to be too delicate for all the winds that blow through, so they turned to producing sugarcane. Because they were short on manpower, she said they needed to “import workers” (a nice way to say indentured slaves) from Africa, India and China. In 1946 it became a protectorate of France and has been governed by them ever since. Saint-Denis (pronounced Sant DenEE) the city of which we were passing, is the largest town on the island and although is considered by some to be the capital, the true capital is Paris. We were now in what is considered Europe. The currency is the Euro, they drive on the right and all the street signs and roads are straight out of France. People drive Renaults and Citroëns (French made cars) with a few Kia’s thrown in but no Chinese cars here. All signs are in French and it is the spoken language. Tod said it was like someone dropped France on one of the Hawaiian Islands.

As far as size goes, it is 25% larger than Mauritius and pretty much round with 3 massive, towering volcanoes (calderas to be exact) in the center. The population is just under 1,000,000 and the race of the inhabitants in my observation went from very white to very black with every shade of brown in-between all appearing to live in harmony. The climate is tropical and sadly, they just bore the brunt of Cyclone Jude, which slammed into the island on February 28. We saw the effects with massive amounts of debris and downed vegetation, so we couldn’t get a perfect impression of the island because they were still cleaning up the mess. All that were left of flags on poles were limp hanging strings and many of the palm trees were now just sticks.

Simona said there were just a few nice beaches on the island and they were all on the west side. The east coast beaches were essentially forbidden, not just because of the enormous number of sharks that gobble up dumb tourists every year, but also because of the currents that will certainly do you in if the sharks don’t get there first. (my phraseology, not hers!)

Anyway, we only had one slight concern as we started our journey up to the mountains and that was Simona mentioned the driver was “brand new” and had “never” driven this route before. She was going on a bit about him in a mildly derogatory way as he navigated the traffic with the big grin of a 20-year-old. Obviously, he had no comprehension of English. I searched around for my seatbelt and secured it tightly and hoped that Tod, who was about 5 rows in front of me was doing the same.

We left the main road and began our climb up the valley to one of the 3 central calderas. Soon the highway narrowed to one lane, and she explained that this was the “most expensive road” in all of France because it was constantly being washed or rained out. She also said that all the volcanos had roads leading to them, but this was by far the best. During our ascent, the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. I mean Grand Canyon or Yosemite level grandeur. I don’t think I could ever describe it with adequate justice, so I won’t even try. The photos will only give you a taste of the magnificence but will never be able to capture the size and drama of the cliffs. Tod and I both concurred that it had to be in the top 5 of the most amazing scenery we’d ever seen in our lives.

But back to the drive which, if our time in Mauritius was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, this was Space Mountain on steroids. There were at least 10 steep switch backs where the road was essentially parallel to itself except for the curve, which the bus couldn’t negotiate because he couldn’t turn that tightly. Therefore, it was turn as far as he could until he almost hit the brick wall, turn the wheel the opposite direction, reverse for about 20 feet and then put in forward to complete the turn. Oh, and did I mention it was only one lane? Cars would line up in either direction. Distracted by the beautiful surroundings and grateful we weren’t in the rear seats we just gave it up and stared out the window for our trip to Hell Bourg, the tiny town that was our destination to explore and have lunch.

We were all relieved to reach the little settlement and we had time to explore a bit and visit a few souvenir shops before heading for lunch. And shock of all shocks, I found postcards AND stamps AND a mailbox! My concern however was that when I deposited the cards in the post box, it made a very hollow “thunk”. I thought, they probably only pick up once a week if that, but we’ll see!

Lunch was outdoors at a rustic restaurant with an extremely jolly staff and good, local cooking – primarily curries and rice. Soon we all piled into the bus for our trip down the way we came. The only problem was that our young driver appeared flummoxed by the fact the AC wasn’t working. Of course, the moaners in the crowd came out whining and complaining but with the open windows and being so used to being hot and sweaty, I just put my air pods in, listened to music and enjoyed (not counting the terrifying curves part) the drive down.

After safely arriving to a 2-lane road again, we sped off for a stop at a vanilla plantation. It was interesting but almost more importantly, someone showed our driver the AC button and how to turn it on while we were there. Back in the bus with the cold air now blasting we stopped briefly to take a picture of a Hindu temple. Then it was on to Saint-Denis where we had about a half hour to wander around before our ride back to the ship. We both remarked it was very reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans sans all the restaurants and bars.

Back to the ship, I had to hand it to our little driver whatever his name was. Despite the AC lesson which I’m sure he will never forget, he really did a stellar job for his first time considering the circumstances.

In at about 5PM and anxious to change out of our sweaty duds, the captain came over the loudspeaker in our room (which is very rare) to give us an “important safety message”. YIKES – apparently what he had warned us about in days prior regarding residual wind and waves of cyclone Jude were about to be experienced as headed toward the bottom of Madagascar. We could expect high winds and swells up to 20 feet, and it should continue for several days. He basically told the crew to follow “heavy weather procedures” (whatever they were) and warned all us passengers to be extremely cautious while wandering around the ship. I wondered why there would be residuals of a cyclone that was 2 weeks ago, but I guess it’s expected. We made it down to dinner OK which is on Deck 3 and didn’t experience quite the pitching as we did in our cabin our Deck 8. Returning from our meal, on our walk down the long hallway from the elevator to our room we looked like a couple of pinballs bouncing from wall to wall. It didn’t appear to bother either of us and we actually quite enjoyed being heavily rocked to sleep after another amazing day.

La Réunion will always hold a very special place in our hearts and given the chance, we would go back and spend a few weeks to explore more in a second, except for the fact it’s on the other side of the world from California!

La Réunion

Sea Day #3 - Indian Ocean

Mauritius