October 22nd

We awoke and readied.Shortly after we heard Claude and Alan (our hosts) leaving. We went down to a set up breakfast on their patio table. I watched a turtle come down in their yard eating leaves! I went to grab my camera and realized there were two of them. We had toast with two jams – one she made, a yogurt, and a piece of the cassava cake. Claude thought the cake was better cold last night, but Jeff and I preferred it warm. Anyway, it was nice to sit out with a view of the sea and turtles. So we can see the sea from three sides of the house – pretty cool. After another load of laundry (we did one load last night as well). When it finished we went out.

We drove down to Saint Joseph (the Airbnb is at 1968 feet above sea level, with the town being down on the coast). We drove this ring road along the south until it curved up along the east coast. We did try to stop at a couple of viewpoints, but the access was closed to cars. So we kept on keeping on. We did find a grill on the side of the road, but he was doing whole chickens and would be at least another 30 minutes, opted to move on.

We drove on north, through an old lava flow that is the result of the active volcano of Reunion. The flow of lava at some time, recently, overtook the road (Claude said it has been rebuilt several times). There has been flows happening here that I can find since 1977, with the last being one or two months ago. the east side of the mountain has been blown out. We passed a really popular spot, called Anse des Cascades. (Claude and Alan both said it is crowded on the weekends. There are three parking areas. We decided to try to find a place to get lunch and come back here. Just a bit further north we found a mom and pop grill tent in Piton Ste-rose. They had chicken and one pork skewer left. We bought the pork and three chicken, and backtracked to the Cascades area. I think we found the last parking spot and went to find a shady spot to eat. In a way, this reminded us of Mauritius, because of all the families picnicing. But that is where the similarity ended, the area is graded, grassy sloping down to the water with all kinds of shade from trees, and the whole one side is cliff covered in kudzu-type vegation with many trickling to mild gushing waterfalls. It is a very beautiful area and we can see why it is so busy! Anyway we ate our skewers, some potato chips, and trail mix; while we enjoyed the beauty and bustling of people.

Finished we went back up to the road and north to Piton Saint Rose. We found the Notre Dame des Laves, which is a church in the middle of a lava flow from 1977. Drove on up to Saint Rose and cut back west on little roads to the town of La Plaine des Palmistes. Then we followed a main road to get to the Vulcan Road. We followed this twisty, turny steep up road to get to passes and tops of mountains to reach the park and drive down a road that turned to gravel to get to the crater view of the volcano. We gained so much elevation poor pogo had to go down to first gear a lot! The elevation lead to stunning views and many changes of landscape – through pine trees, to shrubbery, to tall lush fern “trees”, to the crater of the lava flow, a moonscape. So diverse but each area holding its own beauty. The clouds had rolled in over the mountain tops, stayed and built up, shrouding them. It made it pleasant temperature-wise, but it was to late into the day to climb down into the crater. Hope to do this tomorrow if good weather.

We went back out on the Volcano Road, because it is the only road in and out of the crater area. Jeff took little roads back to our Airbnb, arriving after six. We had bought more wine and shared two bottles. Alan shared more of their rum. Claude made us omelettes with parsley and pork pieces. Again we enjoyed their company.

Today was a good exploration day of Reunion – another jaunt.