Yes, believe it or not, this is an island, still under France. Little provincial towns and tiny French cars everywhere made us think we were in France! Creole and French are spoken, so we quickly had to practice our French. The terrain is volcanic and we headed to the Piton de la Fournaise volcano that is still active. It fortunately hasn't spewed lava in five years. The ascent up followed a zig zag skinny road, and as we entered the center of the volcano, the road eventually became a rough lava trail. The vegetation went from tropical on the coast, to evergreens, to small brush and then a moon-like terrain. At one point on the way up, the scenery almost looked like Vermont – with cows crazing, rolling hills, and small forests. It was a six hour round trip journey that took us past canyons and sugar cane fields. Homes appeared along the narrow flat coast, and then villages were scattered up the sides of mountains. It started raining, so we never visited the beach front.
Accustomed to cheap prices at other former British colonies we've visited on this journey, Reunion uses Euros and is expensive, just like France. A great day on this surprisingly large island, only a speck on the map in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.
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