Le Port, Reunion Island
March 31, 2024 - Happy Easter to all from Reunion Island, another small island in the Indian Ocean, but one with the highest mountain in the Indian Ocean and with an active volcano. It is about 500 miles off the shores of Madagascar. French immigrants arrived on this island during the 17th century, and it remains a province on France to this day, with its capital being Paris and the official languages being French and Reunion Creole. As we drove around the island the stark differences between Mauritius and Reunion were evident. Mauritius has it’s independence, but Reunion has the support (and monetary investments) from France and the European Union which was evident in the roads and infrastructure throughout the island.
Since it was Easter Sunday and there was the expectation that much would likely be closed, we were glad we opted for the all-day tour to the Piton de la Fournaise Volcano. The weather forecast wasn’t great, but we forged ahead and had a great trip. The 2 hour drive south towards the volcano was largely along the coast road with spectacular views. but as we turned east towards the mountains there was less sunshine and more clouds. At our first lookout point, the guide got off the bus to check it out and came back onboard to say it wasn’t worth it — all you could see was the cloud cover, so we proceeded to the second lookout point, where we did get a pretty good view. We llooked down into the crater of this vast volcano - seeing the road we would follow up to the summit. Even with the clouds, it was a spectacular view. The only downside of this stop was that the terrain was very rocky and Cathy took a spill. She was luckily didn’t break anything, but got a few bruises and a couple of jammed fingers that were swollen for a few days.
We then continued on the road across the crater top towards the highest vantage point, which unfortunately provided no view at all. So after a brief stop for the restrooms, we proceeded back along the same route to the town and a local restaurant (that we stopped at on our way up for a bio break). We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant and afterwards walked to the volcano museum next door. The volcano museum had some great displays of the history of the volcano, including the info on the most recent “significant” eruption (2009) as well as some of the smaller eruptions around the island (including August 2023). Particularly impressive was a short film they had, taken by scuba divers during eruptions, showing the lava flow below the water and the “lava tunnels” and “lava pillows” unfolding. It was quite interesting, to see the underwater effects, and to follow the research they did in subsequent years about the growth of coral and marine life in these newly formed lava seabeds. By the time we got to the restaurant and museum, it was raining pretty hard, so we were quite wet for our ride back to the ship, but it was still a great experience for our day in Reunion.
It was certainly a different Easter Sunday experience for us. But we did have delivered to our cabin last night a couple of chocolate bunnies and eggs sitting in the typical easter basket grass — a small gift from Viking. And while we didn’t get to church, we have to believe we were in God’s house as we experienced the incredible beauty, strength and diversity of the earth in our visit to a volcano.
