17 january

My closing entry. I am cheating and writing this from Australia. I would have prefered to write it my last day but with the packing up and everything it was a bit much. At least this way I get the full "closure" experience. Meaning even the flight back can be part of the experience and, when I think about it, it nearly wasn't. An experience, I mean.

My last 2 days were spent in more shopping and mostly, family visits and outings. I went to eat at my godfather's, with almost everything on the table out of his garden, including the meat. "Parrain" is a very active retired man. One of the most active one I know. He has chicken coops (they are much larger than my other uncle's) and he loves his gardening. It does not matter to him that the back garden be aesthetically pleasing provided it is well stocked, and well stocked it is! He has some bits at the furthest back not planted in yet because he is waiting for the rain. When he means not planted in, I suppose he does not count the herbs and choko vines I spotted in there. But he has another block of roughly 2000 square meters where he plants stuff he has no room for at home, zucchini and pumpkin.... And when I asked him, as he lives with his wife alone, knowling he gives a fair bit of it away to neighbours and people he knows (such as us), what he did with all his produce, his answer simply was "why, it's for the hens!"
So here you go, again, a person who will not let their hens roam free (please note in Reunion edible animals rarely roam free for long) but will slave for hours on land outside his plot in order to give proper food to the chicken.  Go figure. I sure can't. Anyway I spent a lot of time  at my godfather's when I was little and I really liked seeing him. I always do.

 I had an all right flight on the way back. I realise I have been extremely lucky with the plane views on this trip. I never asked for the window seat and ALWAYS got it, in every single plane.  I also had the best views I ever had flying. We arrived in Reunion  from the other side of the island at sunset when the highest mountain was bathing in clouds ; we arrived in Sydney at dawn when the ground changes colour every minute and ended up circling around a bit before landing; upon leaving we had a good view of the harbour. We descended  through a sea of  high altitude clouds in Melbourne.
So it does not really matter that the plane was old, the movies crap, the food not really good, the seats tight and, in retrospective, it does not really matter that they almost did not let me fly in it.
I was put in the comical situation of being told, despite having 2 passports on me, one of them Australian, that they might not let me in in Australia.  My passport number was not coming up somewhere or something. So I had to wait until someone managed to get in touch with Australia (this was on a sunday at checking in). Of course in Australia, I went through the machines at customs and did not even talk to a custom officer.......
Never mind....

I noticed the welcoming Oprah placards were still on the highway of Sydney.

Anyway it's been a lovely trip, much needed at some levels, and I'm glad I went, and took a few succinct notes along the way. I'll have to remember that some things get harder each time, even if it remains home. The heat, the getting used to the use of space, the bugs....  and there were things that I just didn't transfer well. If I had access to that many litchis here as I did home I would not eat that many. Because it's not like eating it at home. When I am in Reunion I crave samosas, especially at the start. Yet I do not appreciate  tham here as I do there. Same for dim sims. It's not just that it tastes different I guess, It's that it's out of context.  Of course it's not like that for all the food but it must ne like that  for other things that I'm not consciously aware of.

Anyway, a few photos of those hikes, with no captions, to close off this blog.

12 january

It's been a while but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to put pictures on today. shame cos I have some good ones, except not for today as my camera ran out of batteries on me at the beginning of the day. Each time I turn on the computer I tend to read about Brisbane. People here keep asking me if my house is ok.

Firstly I am a bit stiff in some parts and leaner too, probably due to a little bit of hiking combined with the heat. I did 2 hikes lately, not very long, one of 7ks or so (Piton Fougeres- Fern Hill) and one of 17 kms (Nez Casse of Riviere de l'Est- Broken nose of the eastern river- don't ask).

The first one was with mum and dad and the ground had a certain squishy and slurpy quality to it, the kind that sells for good money in fancy spa under names such as "regenerative and purifying mud mask". By the end of it I think I had about, oh, let's say a good $30's worth of it on my legs. Dad would not let us back in the car with our shoes.
The scenery was exquisite, a primary forest. we were walking under a canopy of ferns and fallen trees covered in moss. We walked to a superb view point (usually the aim when walking here), with the whole "circus" of Salazie laying at our feet.... and had an excellent lunch of foie gras sandwiches. Dad cut me a bamboo stick which turned out to  save my ass from getting a mud treatment too.  We did not see many animals so on the way down I amused  myself with the  disgusting thought that, if stuck there, Bear Grills would have had to eat toads. Raw (too humid for fire). I take that back he could probably find "zandets" (witchity grubs).

The second hike was a more social affair, with family and friends of the family. We hiked down a  shady path to reach a plateau and, at the end, another excellent view and then we retreated to a dry river bed with shade for a lunch of, wait for it, rice and chicken curry and roast pork curry, and that was after the foie gras toasts and punch . Now, THAT is the traditional lunch when hiking here. Anybody who is going to walk in reasonable heat,  for a certain number of hours tries to downsize their backpack by bringing energy food. But not creol people. No. why make it simple when you can have it complex and harder? Not whinging mind, the food was delicious and I did not carry most of it; though I had more than my fair share of bottles of water to carry. And my parents did not choose to bring their curry in a plastic light box either. It's coming in full on saucepans if you please, with the gas heater to heat it up. And heat up the coffee too after....

We felt a bit guilty, eating so much, although I seem to remember dad and his friend not being so happy about us not eating more (they were carrying leftovers back up you see). I knew it was going to make me slower,  to my shame, maybe even slower than the cows. Because you see, as you come down a path that is sometimes so tricky with slanted river beds you have to steady yourself holding on to branches, you cannot help noticing the cow dung further down the path and then it dawns on you. The cows take the path regularly. Surely if a cow can do it, you can too? And faster? and that's not mentioning mountain bike riders, whom we met at the botttom.

We did make it back up, some of us a bit slower, but none faster than the mountain bike riders. Luckily the sun was not out. When we left in the morning the sky was blue and the vistas clear and pure. Coming up in the afternoon, the fog had moved onto the plateau and at the top of our hike. We could see it moving in the plains around the volcano reaching further and further and further like an impredictable cotton blanket. It is normally forbidden to wander off the path on the plains around the volcano. The fog can come up so quickly you can get lost and with 5 to 6 degrees overnight in full summer and cliffs a little bit everywhere, you can only imagine what kind of a night you'll be having.

It is quite a sight reaching the plains around the volcano, called "sand plain". You are coming up a road where vegetation resembles a bit what you have in the countryside of the Yarra Valley around Melbourne, a bit Jane Austenian I like to think. Then suddenly it's fresher and it's not so many trees but more scrubs of a sort. You come up a winding little hill, barely there and, right at the top, as the car turns on the other side of the hill, you cross over to be faced, to your great amazement, by... the moon. It should have been named "moon plain". No trees, no scrubs but brown  earth with reddish tones as far as the eye can see, with some hills, and, in the distance, the Volcano, majestic, grand, calling you....... And a crappy crappy dirt road. Make sure your car can take it.

It was a long day, with a 5.30 wake up call and traffic jam on the way back. We didn't make it back before 7.15pm. Also we had to stop to buy a "palmist", like a fresh palm heart thingy. And I do stand corrected on one point, there ARE lots of palm trees in "Palm tree plain", that I alluded to a while ago. It's just that it's not really palm tree, but more a palm heart tree, a different kind of tree with some of the trunk that can be eaten.

Today has been a bit of fish spotting and history. We had a pic-nic planned today but our friends cancelled so we went to the beach in Saint-Pierre, stood around in traffic for an hour and turned around to go to the beach in Saint-Leu instead. A beach I recommend: it has a good public toilet, an extreme rarity around here.  And fishes in the lagoon, and if you like to surf a good left as well.
The beauty was that after flopping around in the water  with me chasing fish, we  just had to hop out and here we were , in a restaurant for lunch, righ there on the beach; not a sandwicherie, a proper restaurant with a view on the beach. Nice.
Our stomachs full of ducks breast in pineapple and four spice sauce, salad of smoked fish and sorbets, we headed to the Musee de Villele, where, to my great shame, I had never been before. I'm not sure I would count it as a must see, it's not very well managed and we had the most monotonous guide we had ever seen. We think he was a) tired,  or b) drunk, or  c) sick, possibly d) all of the above.

The site is the estate of the Deybassins family, the richest people in Reunion in the 18-19th century. And in Reunion that means they also had the most slaves. They had around 400 I think.  I guess it is difficult to make a site of this nature more animated and interactive. It is a side of history that does not lend itself easily to screens and costumed characters like in Sovereign Hill. But they do need to look after the grounds a bit better and make it easier to access.
They had beautiful trees. I sat underneath a perfumed Ylang-Ylang, mum spent some time sneaking Tamarind in her handbag and I spent the whole afternoon with my nose in Frangipani flowers just picked from the floor ( a fragrant and beautiful flower- if you're not sure you are in the tropics, pick it off the floor, look at it and smell it, you'll know). The mot amazing member of the family is "Madame Deybassins". She has been demonised a lot in literature, in children stories. She was a mean old lady (she lived until 91 years old and took care of the estate for 46 years after the death of her husband!) or so the stories say. The written history says otherwise, but it is the story written by family and white slave owners. So no one really knows for sure what kind of a woman Madame was.

On this non-conclusive thought, I am off to bed.

6 January

Just a quick one today as I stop by my computer before it decides to heat up. Firstly I wanted to show some photos from my uncle's garden. He is a keen gardener who, as he puts it, "has nothing much left in his garden". Of course by nothing he means everything.  He also has the uncanny skill of being able to pick up stuff, bits of scrap by the side of the road, sea shells from the sea, coconuts and make beautiful lamps out of it.

This is something beautiful I found in his garden. He said it was called Baobab of the desert "or something" and he picked it up from "some lady". I have since then found out it is called andenium:

It looks almost too exotic to be true,  as if someone took a bonsai baobab and stuck some azalea flowers to it. But I did check, and the flowers were not stuck on. It is worth checking though (I have an aunt who bought a beautiful flower cactus that everyone marvelled at and just turned out to be plastic flowers stuck on a very common cactus indeed).

As I mentioned before he has everything in there, like this:

The front of the yard is quite organised with flowers arranged a certain way and an artificial pond. The back is more traditionally creol: chaotic, with every bit of ground being put to use to produce a flower or herbs or a vegetable or to shelter animals. Why somebody who lives alone with their wife would feel the need to produce soooo much food is beyond me. The only thing that would explain this in my opinion is having lived in poverty and pride. Pride of being able to grow just anything. Being able to pick up some interesting looking plants from someone, cutting a bit of it and growing it with success, then giving bits of it to everyone who comes to see you and goes "oooooo, look at that, what is it? how does it flower? how did you grow that?". Then you stand back and wait til you see them again and take stock of who managed to grow it.

See, nurseries have it hard around here. Mum got  more than half her stock of plants from family and friends. And when they visit each other, an important part of the conversation is on what is in their garden, what they have grown successfully or not, what they have grown successfully that nobody else has managed and would you like some salads? or bananas?  passionfruit? or a seedling/ cutting of that one to try it?
We left my uncle's house with two boxes full of fruit and three pots full of seedlings for us and for a friend of mum's.  That's just the way it is. We NEVER leave anyone of a certain age empty handed. Since I have arrived we  have been given litchis (3 times), mangoes, coconuts, passionfruits (3 times), some type of tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces, bananas (3 times), chillis, green peppers, peaches, prunes and asian greens.

The downside of all this is that my uncle, as a lot of creol people, seems more worried about the well being of his plants than his animals. Very often plants who need to be protected from the sun sit comfortably under big sheltered spaces especially built for this purpose whilst hens will live in small "parc poulet" shelters under the glaring sun, dogs tied up to a tiny bit of chain.  My uncle was complaining about some of his chickens getting mean and crazy. I had to point out, many times, that I would be too living like that. Sadly I can't say I was heard. I can only repeat it again and again each time I see him.  There is a lot to be done yet on a cultural level as regards the welfare and management of animals here. I have an uncle who raises animals for eating and I think that's a good thing if you are not a vegetarian. I remember reading in a Tim winton book that "you should have killed or seen killed the animals you eat at least once, to have an idea of your responsibilities" and I think that's just right. My uncle can cook a goat he raises but he cannot kill them himself. I don't think he struggles with any other animal, just the goats. That is amazing to me given the way he was raised and his relationship with the rest of his animals.  I did not think there was such a hierarchy in his views of his animals. His dogs he uses for hunting so I get that he could not kill them like that, but his goats he raises to eat just as his chickens, rabbits and pigs. I mean, if I could eat only the meat that I killed myself I don't know what I would eat. Would you?  I'd eat snails. Sure I'd eat fish and sea food. Chickens? Would I be so hungry as to kill a pig or piglet myself?

There is so much we take for granted when we have only lived in the one place. Take shopping and what shops look like. I have been shopping with mum on the eastern side of the island, where the shops look even more run down than the center of Saint-Denis (which, understand me, looks run down compared to,  say, the shops in Melbourne but glamorous compared to other towns in the world I'm sure) , where the population looks more Indian and Arabic and where samosas tastes spicier and more exotic. If you equate shopping with the clean, sparkling and air-conditioned shops of Chadstone or the picturesque, well maintained streets of Richmond and you are not open-minded, then you would be unable to shop here.

I swear every shop keeper is either Arabic or Indian in the center of Saint-Andre, a town where many an amazing or horrific bargain is to be got. I have found the most amazing shop with curtains: they are nice and soft and fluffy, with fresh or rich colors; there are classic designs or more modern but with taste, and all that, believe me, at a very reasonable price, cheaper and better chosen than any of the shops I have seen in Saint-Denis for that range. I have seen the most beautiful shop for evening dresses, expensive compared to the rest of that part of town but not more than in Melbourne. The dresses were better cut, in better fabric and better taste than any of the shops I have seen of late in Melbourne. I am not joking. I was looking for a dress for a wedding in Melbourne and, hell, I would have found my own wedding dress just accross the road from that evening dress shop in Saint Andre. I had to shop for hours in Melbourne to find anything. I would have been happy with at least 3 designs from that only shop in Saint Andre.
But. As there is a but. Right next to it, there was ..... that shop. Mum tried to stop there. She was looking for underwear and there were underwear pieces in the windows you see. But. I would have gone in with her IF there had been enough room. Seriously. You did one step in and you were in front of the front desk with boxes everywhere around you and shelves filled with more boxes and two guys in muslim dress not caring the least you were a potential customer.
And, here's the thing, it did not look in the least like the shop was in any way different than any other day: they weren't doing an inventory, there was no sign explaning why it was in that state and no word of explanation offered. As neither of us felt like asking two men to .... I don't know, break the window (I have no idea how they would get to it any other way on that day) in order to try the "blue panties with that little bit of lace on top", we  just stepped back and continued to the next shop.

Anyways, gotta go now and thought I would leave today with an exotic food picture: the baba - figue.

I took this photo on the way back from the Plaine des Palmistes (Plain of the palm trees and in answer to your  question I don't know and I can't remember seeing one up there now I think about it). I had been to see "le moun les hauts" (people up there: ie family), namely my cousin and her fine beautiful private little tribe (ie  her 4 children). There would be a lot to say on family from this lovely visit but that's best left to later or never.
Now, as to my photos, you may have noticed it is coming out of a banana tree. It beats me why anything coming out of a banana bunch might be called "fig" and on this matter I will take the common, and somewhat lazy stance of " I don't know why it would be so and I don't care it tastes damn fine when cooked well".

So long. hiking tomorrow.

4 January

Gee what a struggle to get to the computer!  Even harder with it heating up. Where was I?

Before resuming on my heavenly way to reenergise after partying  from one year to the next, here is a photo of a yoghurt aisle in a supermarket. Please note, on your left, yoghurts. And on your right, MORE yoghurts!

Anyway, I think I did promise some pictures of the pic nic spot. Imagine driving down a cliff of vegetation into an "alcove", a flat portion of land covered with green grass and alleys of coconut trees. Before you drove down it was hot and sticky and all of a sudden it's nice and cool and you can hear the wind in the leaves and the birds singing and the waterfalls splashing and you can see the open sea in the distance.... aaaahhh isn't that just nice?

Look up:

Go for a walk along the sea and look at the Badamiers and Pandanus trees.

There's even a big Banyan tree (those bits of bark will become trunk and roots) by the fishermen's little boats. That boat  is meant to read : Ti coq, yes, truly it is, no matter how hard to believe someone would have mispellt Q on their own boat).

Technically, you can't swim in the sea (although some of the locals do) but you could always go and stand underneath the small waterfalls or sit in the clear streams of water (too bad you forgot your swim suit though).

See? That was a good day!

I did loose a game of "Philippines" though. When two litchis are stuck with each other, 2 people make a deal: they choose a prize each ( I chose a rougail morue mangue vert- ie a cod and green mango dish and mum picked the painting of my brothers' room, the one with the graffiti) . Then you both pull, a bit like a bonbon.  The one that has the stick of the wood chooses a date. On this day, the first person to say "Philippines" to the other, won their prize.
I should have known better really, last time I played I got beaten by my little cousin, who remembered to say Philippines one year later as we had bet.
So now I may have to paint my brothers' room. On the up side, I get to paint the graffiti :)  And I guess the colour is up to me too since she did not precise any.........


After our pcinic,  I went home and did some gardening with what I had thought was a smart set up. Garden at the back until the mosquitoes come out, then garden at the front. Unfortulately the mosquitoes came out much earlier than expected and truly determined  to eat me even when covered with tea tree lotion (I have never smelled so Australian) and I had not really counted on the red biting ants being so hungry at the front either.  On the upside, Eugene the lizard let me touch his tail.

Yesterday was spent in a giant family picnic in the mountains, which was awesome (check out the food)

 and today consisted of family visits which were very nice too. One of the hihglight of the day was passsing our old house, in a street named " the Golden Basket", and, guess what, the new owner added turrets to the house. So it looks like the Castle of the Golden Basket street. How did we find out? You won't believe it. My mum visits the sick in hospital, and one day one conversation went like this:

"So where do you live?
-In the 14ekm in le Tampon.
-Oh, really, I used to live there! Where exactly?
-In the Golden Basket street.
-Oh, really, I used to live there too! what number?
- 08.
-...........!!!! That was my house! You bought my house!!!!!"

 and so followed a detailed account of what neighbours remained and so on. Here is a photo of the house, still being renovated, in case you don't believe me about the turrets (sorry about the quality but the sun was high):

It does look odd in the Reunion Island landscape, and it leaves me with this tortured thought that will end today's blog entry:

OMG I COULD HAVE BEEN THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN BASKET STREET! (that left turret is right where my pink bedroom used to be. Darn!)

2 January

Maybe not too long a message. I have tried to use my computer less as it tends to heat up quickly. I might try to write this in 2 parts.

A pretty smooth transition in to 2011 so far. Out of the thousands of people  who decided to celebrate on the beach, there was only 5 complaints to the police, which is pretty good.  As usual, of course, the state of the beach by the morning was disgraceful.

But we didn't go to the beach. With mum and dad we went to a restaurant for a nice little "diner dansant". We picked one that had a cheaper menu, something that sounded new to us, or not cooked easily by us and one that did not include  unlimited alcohol because we did not want to pay for the other boozers. It was a  smart move given mum doesn't drink and I can't handle more than 3 (indeed I was struggling to  even drink my glass of champagne of the  New Year).
It could have turned into a non event  as dad was getting sulky at the beginning of the evening: the music was  absolute crap and  there was no one on the dance floor. As it turned out, the kitchen was closing at 12 so they did not start the dancing until later than we expected. When they started they did very well:  with a massive whoosh the dance floor went from empty to completely full with even all the kiddies joining in.

The djs did everything by the book for an evening of dancing in Reunion Island:

played all the 80s and 90s French good tracks: tick
played a medley of ALL the Boney M: tick
played  a medley of all the songs of La Compagnie Creole: tick
played zouk music, especially  AT LEAST  3 kassav: tick
played soukouss: tick
played something popular on the radio at the moment: tick
played sega from BOTH Mauritius and Reunion: tick
played something arabic sounding: tick
played something  latino sounding: tick
played madison: tick
played something electro or techno sounding: tick
played something african that required complicated steps that I had never seen before: ?
played something  traditional russian?
played classic rock: we left at that time.

So we danced a lot and left around 1 am.  At 12, when the fireworks started, all we had to do was  go outside and look left. In front of us we could see all the lights of both Sainte-Marie and part of Saint-Denis and, consequently, everybody's fireworks too. Nice.
The food was nice and well portioned (although for me the dancing and heat combined made it actually hard to eat- well, in all honesty I did devour dessert, not usual for me). We ate  sort of a shepherd mix of duck with a heart of foie gras or a tartar of saint jacques, then for main there was either a fish called legine or a bit of rabbit with prune sauce and wild mushrooms. Dessert was divine: iced souffle with cointreau or chesnut cream fondant. And a glass of champagne with .... a litchi in it!

I stayed up till about 2.30 expecting we would be having a slow morning at home to recover. I woke up around 7,8 to this sky:

Mum was cooking meat and dad was gone on a bike ride and it was announced we would go for a pic nic in the east, which turned out to be heavenly....

The Eastern coast of the island, from Sainte-Anne, Sainte-Rose to Saint-Philippe (very catholic around here) is a stark contrast to the burnt Savannah look of the West at the moment. Where on the West you are looking at hills of low scrubs trying to compete to become natural matchsticks, the vegetation along the road in the East looks like a green blanket trying to cover the road and swallow your car. The road is narrower and bendy, houses are more traditional, gardens are better organised, flowers more abundant and EVERYONE  has at least one big litchi tree in their front yard. And at this time of year, let me tell you, they look good and well, fruitlful!

Mum meets many a person at hospital who got injured  going up the tree to get more fruit.

So anyway we passed the different lava flows and I was reminded again of how much we are at the mercy of the volcano on this side of the island. The latest eruption to be pretty big (ie, the lava crossed to road to go into the sea) was in 2007 or 2008, so I was midly surprised to see this:

Which reads: Risk of intense fog (???).  Apparently the  sometimes 60 meters high lava underneath, is still hot, and creates fog as the vapour rises. I thought, come on, "risky" fog? My parents assured me they had come to meet some friends at a restaurant on the other side lately and  they HAD to turn around because they could not even see the front of the car, it was that thick. On bad weather days, people have to go accross half of the island to go to work rather than cross the road.

Something huh?  Here are some more pictures of the site:

Distracted myself during the rest of the trip by looking at names of creeks (we call them "ravines" around here), especially not pretty, plain stupid or not aptly named ones. The award goes to "Ravine before the river of the East", runners up being "Ravine bamboo arm 1", "Ravine Bamboo arm 2" and "Ravine Bamboo arm 3". A special mention for "Slippery Ravine", which was dry as.
Still, more cheery than "Widow Ravine", "Hole Ravine" and "Lice Ravine" which stand next to each other on the West Coast.

At last we made it to the picnic ground. I don't  know if it is because we never lived on this side of the island but each time I arrive at "L'Anse des cascades" (The Alcove of the Waterfalls?), I feel like i am rediscovering something that was buried deep in my memory and that I had completely forgotten about. Why it would be that I keep forgetting such a place beats me as it is as close to perfect a pic nic area as you can get, provided you do not go there on a sunday (or as it turned out  after 2 on the 1st january) as there is always some idiot with his boom box and parking becomes... well... tricky. Sometimes it would be people with their "jumbes" (percussions) and I don't mind that.  Call me harsh but I draw the line at having Scorpio's Wind of Change blasting loudly when I am trying to nap peacefully undearneath my tropical coconut trees, gazing occasionally at the "Paille en queues" flying over in a perfect blue sky.

Better stop for now as I need to let the computer rest a while. and then, I will put pictures of the pic nic spot :)