La Réunion

A few days after visiting Salazie, we spent a day and a half in Cilaos, another of the cirques, to do some hiking and sightseeing. We drove all afternoon through winding mountain roads to arrive at our hotel, a nice, quaint place up at the edge of the cirque. By the time we'd settled in and had dinner in the town, it was time to get some sleep for the big day ahead...

This was our view from our hotel room in the morning! We went hiking on that mountain just after breakfast.

I didn't take any pictures during the first hour or so of the hike. We ended up at a big stream coming down from a waterfall we could see in the distance. We took a long break here and I climbed around on some rocks to take a few pictures from high up, like this one. That's M near the edge of the water in the center.

Rocks!

D and M.

Trying the timer on my camera.

Another small waterfall. Whenever I'm hiking in the woods and I hear the roaring white noise of a waterfall in the distance, I always imagine coming around a corner on the trail and finding, instead of a waterfall, a gigantic television playing static. Then I would change it to wrestling or the Daily Show and run away.

A view downward from the top of another fall.

We ran across this altar on the hiking trail, pretty deep into the woods. I have no idea what it's for. (Edit: see comment from below!)

P caught a tiny frog!

The hike proved to be pretty exhausting, what with the elevation and the heat, but not as bad as the hike up the volcano a few days earlier. Nevertheless, we were really relieved to arrive back in town that afternoon and grab a well-earned drink. On the umbrella you can see the (backwards) logo for Biere Bourbon, the popular local beer, named not for the alcohol bourbon (which would just be strange) but rather for the original name of the island, L'Isle Bourbon, back before it was changed to La Réunion. The mascot is a dodo! There used to be dodos on La Réunion! How cool is that? The dodo logo is everywhere on La Réunion, and you'll see it a lot more times in the upcoming pics.

Writing postcards to M's sisters back in Paris.

The next few pics are just some random shots in the town of Cilaos...

My pink house. It's a shame the cirque was in a cloud at the time I snapped this, because we'd passed by earlier and the color was really brilliant.

La dodo le la! That's Creole for "The dodo is here!" Biere Bourbon's mascot is so well-known they don't even have to mention the beer by name.

This is actually during another stop for a drink, later in the same afternoon. Hey, it gets hot on that island, I tell ya.

I really wanted to get at least one clear picture of the Biere Bourbon graphic design work. If only someone would order one so so I could take a picture! Thankfully, P came through for me.

Just one more set to go! Tons of strange and interesting miscellaneous pics coming up next...

Next: Part 10 — The rest!