A Pocket-Sized Beauty

Coral reefs, hot volcanoes and high mountains – Reunion Island has it all.

It’s the first pink blush of dawn. I walk along the beach, the surf is roaring on the reef, the lagoon is mirror silver and doves coo in the casuarina and coconut trees. It’s dark on the mountain, and lights from houses perched 1000 metres above the tropical heat twinkle like sequins on velvet.

Two young teens, bleary-eyed and dreamy, sit on grass above the beach wrapped in a rainbow-coloured blanket. He is black with tight curls; she has almond skin and long straight hair. They have spent the night here, dark and pale legs entwined. I bet her parents think she’s staying at a girlfriend’s house.

When the sun arrives from behind the mountain, a brown man with faded dreadlocks runs past. His head is held high, elbows pumping and he’s puffing like a steam train. His bare feet dig into the white coral sand. He’s bare-chested too and has the look of a surfer. His old dog, 30 metres behind, pants with her pink tongue hanging.

This is Reunion: a tropical island in the Indian Ocean, a department of France but thousands of kilometres from it; a vast rock thrust from the sea with jagged mountain peaks and rushing waterfalls high above still lagoons and wide, blue ocean. Near the sea, the air smells of vanilla, pineapples and molasses and in the high mountain is the coolness of cows and gorse flowers. The geographical diversity in this pocket-sized place is astounding. The soil is rich, the sun bright, rain showers come and go and it’s a Garden of Eden where everything grows but apples.
There are 50 flavours of rum, 32 varieties of sugar, and 800,000 people, French citizens but primarily and proudly Reunionnais. Reunion has been a French colony since 1662, the currency is the Euro and the people are a unique blend of French, African, Indian and Chinese, a true Creole mixture, who are, in any one family, all hues from ebony to ivory.

St-Denis, the capital, tells historical stories as I walk its streets. On the rocky waterfront, a row of mighty cannons point to the sea protecting the harbour, a reminder of the ignominy of the five years, from 1810, that British occupied the island. It wasn’t all bad. The Brits introduced sugarcane, which soon became sweet gold, and is still Reunion’s biggest crop. At right angles to the waterfront, Rue de Paris saunters gently uphill for three kilometres ending in the lush glory of the botanical gardens.

Along the way and down little side lanes, I pass Creole mansions with picket fences, attic windows, wooden shutters and wide cool verandas. Many have fancy-patterned wooden lace surrounding the doors and windows to catch the breeze and provide privacy.
I pass grand neoclassical buildings, the old town hall, university buildings and the 1832 cathedral – and interspersed with these are cute boutiques, bars, bistros and bakeries. Yum, and so Francophile, down to the tiny espressos and pains au chocolat.

Rue Marechal Leclerc, the busiest shopping street, is less exclusive, less French and more multicultural. French chic mixes with Creole sass and shops sell sexy dresses, highly tailored and brightly coloured men’s dress shirts, funky tee-shirts and multicoloured beachwear. The Grand Mosque is in the middle and there is an interesting mix of people on the street with gorgeous Creole women showing off shapely legs and jutting breasts and Muslim women with long dark coats and headscarves.

St-Denis deserves more time, I want to spend longer here, but the mountains behind it are calling. Reunion’s volcanoes, cirques and mountains, one third of its area, were given Unesco World Heritage status in August this year. These are serious mountains and their volcanic origins and dramatic rise from the sea makes them uniquely spectacular. Piton de Neiges, the highest peak, is 300 metres taller than Mount Ruapehu.
On the island’s eastern flank Piton de la Fournaise, an active volcano, regularly bursts its seams and a great red-hot slug of lava dribbles down to the sea. “It’s a friendly volcano,” our guide Phillipe Techer tells me, as we casually clamber over the crust of the last lava flow looking for fumaroles in which to poke sticks.
“It takes things slowly so we come and look at the action rather than run away from it.” I can feel the heat through my shoes before we find a hole exhaling air so hot that our sticks ignite and, in a moment, we have a fine little fire but no pan or eggs to fry.
The volcano is fun and Reunionnais delight in its unpredictable antics but it’s the Cirque’s, three ancient inactive volcanic craters bunched in a vast cloverleaf, which delight and intrigue me.
Philippe doesn’t look like a Frenchman but drives like one, taking the 420 corners, most being switchbacks, to Cirque de Cilaos at speed, while chatting in Creole on his cell phone. Have faith, I think, and offer a few Hail Marys because this is mostly a catholic country.

A tunnel takes us under a mountain top into the bowl-shaped valley that is Cilaos. Saw-toothed ridges rise precipitously from lush lowlands, sun-white cloud rolls over the dark peaks and mysteriously dissipate and villages surrounded by neat green fields perch on flat land cut by steep gorges. What a sight, what a scene. “Gaspingly beautiful,” I say. “Always gorgeous,” Philippe says and he’s been here hundreds of times with tourists.
The rapid rise in altitude is accompanied by a temperature drop of 10 to 15 degrees so I haul out my hoodie and socks before walking around Cilaos, the biggest of three villages in the Cirque. The white bell tower of the church is the town’s focal point, and wooden houses painted pretty pastel shades – pink, baby blue, yellow with apple green shutters – cluster below it. Cilaos is cute, a tiny toy town, with French-style temperate climate gardens filled with dahlias, cosmos, chrysanthemums and cherry trees budding up.
Cirque de Salazie, a few kilometres as the eagle flies but hours of hair-raising road in a car, is tantalisingly behind a mountainous ridge. Philippe tells me it’s just beautiful, maybe more so, because it’s the windward side of the island and gets more rain. He tells me about dramatic waterfalls, rushing rivers and lush jungle greenery. I’m cursing that I don’t have longer.
Next time.

Cirque de Mafate, the third of these circular volcanic valleys, takes four days to visit as it has no road access and the 2,000 people who live there walk to the road end when they need to go to the rest of Reunion. Angelo Tierrce, the recently retired Mafate postman, walked 167 kilometres over five days for 35 years, delivering letters. The new, young posties don’t have his stamina and the job has been divided in to three.
There is time, late in the afternoon, to snorkel and the Grand Hotel du Lagon, where I’m staying, is next to the beach. Under the lagoon’s still surface, an extraordinary array of brightly painted, weirdly shaped tropical fish go about their business. Favourites are the Picasso fish with a long nose, googly eyes and purple, orange and black markings and an orange box-shaped puffer with black and white spots who flutters through water with lips permanently pursed for a kiss. The sun is low, beautifully illuminating schools of angelfish that I follow through canyons of coral.
It’s a magic world under there and the reef is in fine condition because the entire lagoon (20 kilometres of it) is a marine reserve. Fishing or taking shells and corals are forbidden, as are boats.

I’m drip-drying on a deck chair when the barman suggests a Sundowner. “Not strong, just rum, ginger and vanilla, all from Reunion. You must try it. No? Oh, you break my heart.” I give in, Sundowner it is. The sun goes quickly, sliding into the sea without the slow pink show of dawn. However, I swear it wasn’t the rum; I saw the green flash. I’ve longed for that moment for years.

Liz Light