Reunion Island

---

I head back towards the coast, exploring interesting roads as I go. Sugarcane is a major crop here and the sugarcane fields stretched as far as the eye could see. All the signs in towns were in French and few people spoke any English, putting my high school French to the test. In the town of Saint Andre, I came upon a Hindu temple and my brain did a backflip. It had to take a few seconds to figure out where I was. The South Pacific? India? France?…oh right, I’m on Reunion Island. It was a strange place in that way. The people were a mixture of French, African, Indian, Malaysian and Chinese. I have to say, I never encountered any of the French gruffness that sometimes seems prevalent on the continent. Everyone I came across was pleasant and smiling.

Perhaps due to the copious amounts of rainfall, almost all the secondary roads had big water channels along side them with no guardrails. Woe unto the motorist who loses his concentration for a moment. I took the only road that crosses over the center of the island. The highlands were misty and foggy, making it resemble parts of northern England. As the weather was clear, I decided to return to the Cirque de Cilaos for some more photographs.

---