Reunion Island is located in the Indian Ocean, 800km from Madagascar and 210km west of Mauritius. It is a very small volcanic island; an overseas ‘department’ of France and the official language is French. 42% of its territory has been claimed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and they are very focused on adventure travel. South Africans don’t even need a visa for a ‘short stay’ of less than 90 days.
Hiking in Reunion had been on my bucket list forever. But of course, life happens, other opportunities present themselves, time passes, and certain things fade into the background.
When my friend Lizél shared a FaceBook post about hiking in Reunion in December 2017 it immediately caught my attention. Roger was keen and the scene was set.
During the next 6 months our prep consisted of 2 weekend hikes in Suikerbosrand with friend Wendy and a few Sundays doing increasing repetitions of the Westcliff Steps, and of course some gym. Not quite enough we were soon to realise, especially after having a chat with Graeme and Karin who visited the island the previous year…
As always, time slipped by while Roger and I were both so otherwise occupied that we only started focusing on our trip one week before departure. We hastily started ticking off checklists, preparing snacks, packing and, of course, repacking. But then again, when one has limited time you somehow become more efficient and we were done in no time at all.
We touched down in St Denis on Sunday, 10th June after a pleasant 4-hour flight on Air Austral and my first sensation was ‘tropical, humid, much like Durban’; a short respite from the Gauteng winter!
We were met by our very friendly and efficient local agent called Loic (interesting name) from Connections, who presented us with our vouchers, maps and all the information we may need. Hats off to him and the South African agent Liesl of LAT Travel, for their excellent service.
Next we had to collect our car as the first two days of our stay was going to be a self-drive trip around the island.
Now the fun started (read that as nail-biting). To drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for the first time in your life, in a strange city, in the dark, following GPS directions, with a nervous navigator (that’s me), takes some nerve. Oh my word, I don’t know which were the worst, the traffic circles or exiting the freeway on the wrong side of the road. For the next two days I had to laugh at myself every time I got into the car as a passenger and my first instinct was to reset the rear-view mirror!
We were very relieved when we got to Central Hotel without incident.
Checking in with zero command of the French language and a desk clerk with zero command of English was interesting to say the least. Anyway, we soon settled in for the night and were looking forward to exploring St Denis the next day.