CILAOS mountain road

It is a great spot for hikes and canyoning. Although we just enjoy a long French style lunch with various courses .

mountains make huuunnnggryyyy

mountain huts in Cilaos

On the West Coast there is another stunning descent into the valleys to Maidu.

Maidu stunning moutains

Maidu offers a spectacular view into the valleys. This is, where people still live today totally off the grid.

on top of the world

They even refused to get a road built in order to stay away from modern influences. There are only helicopters coming sometimes and bringing some supplies to the village. As a hiker you can go down to the village and stay with the people.
Some parts even remind us of the alps with happy relaxed cows grasing in the forests.

just like the Swiss alps

Coming from the mountains we dive into Agnes” and Bubu”s paradise…

ready for surfing

…with wonderful Reunion cooking from Agnes in the beautiful garden under the stars.

sunset in front of Bubu\”s beautiful garden

Agnes\” birthday BBQ

St. Pierre kiting

Jean is amazing. He goes surfing everyday possible and then goes kiting later in the afternoon. He is the one waiting for Gerry at 6.30 in the morning to go surfing at TroisBassin or in St. Leu. St. Leu is one of the most famous waves in the world. It is also one of the more challenging ones as it is a rather shallow reef break… Gerry went out and slowly but surely made his way into the line-up to get rewarded with some unforgettable rides after some also unforgettable “washings”.
Jean is not the only one rather extreme, it seems to be just the normal way of living here. There is Bloody, who goes surfing, kiting and parasailing- and enjoys the beautiful girls de La Reunion. They seem to live to enjoy and play every day.
Bloody made a very special present to us: he offered to take us on a tandem flight over the bay of St. Leu. He participated in world competitions and flys since more than 20 years. Robinson absolutely wanted to go and got ready.

Robinson ready to fly

take off

the lightness of being

between ocean and online casino sky

happy landing

Almost ready to fly…

talking about the cool flight

Then it was my turn to fly like a bird. And honestly, I trusted him. Everybody knows Bloody and what an experienced guy he is. But at the end I just knew, that these blue eyes must belong to the best parasailing guy in the world :). And I promise, I did not have time to be scared…

you gotta trust these blue eyes

It was amazing to fly down the mountains and over the turquoise bay with the perfect waves. We followed the birds, that played in the thermal winds and got lifted up several hundreds of meters.

happy happy happy

Later on Jean invited us to his house for dinner. We are overwhelmed by his hospitality. He picked us up and we enjoyed the sunset on his terrace overlooking the mountains and the bay.

Relaxing at sunset in the spa…

What a great place to enjoy Jean’s juicy dorade with chou-chou-gratin.

delicious dinner with the perfect view

Dudes

On a clear night, if you climb up on one of the mountains in Western Mauritius, you can actually see the glow of the lights from la Reunion, one of the Departments of the Republic of France. It is a short up and down flight of about 30 minutes to get to the youngest of all the islands in the Southern Indian Ocean. Ile de la Reunion is a mountain island….2 million years ago La Reunion was created with the rise of the volcano Piton de Neige, that is more than 3.000 m high.

You feel a little bit like being in the South of France. You find the French Boulangerie with baguettes and croissants, you get the most delicious and largest selection of cheese you could think of.
We drive up to Bubu’s house, where une Madame welcomes us warmly talking about l’amour, comme c’est belle l’amour….

Agnes’ and Bubu’s place feels like a little paradise.

Bubu\”s family

They live at the West coast of the island, where you find most of the beaches in La Saline des Bains, right next to the famous left breaking wave of St. Leu.

Their house is in a luscious garden right next to the white coral beach and the turquoise lagoon. It feels tropical and very relaxed.

sweet home

The first evening Agnes and Bubu took us to “one of their most amazing spots in the world”. We drove along the coast up the mountains. Witihin minutes we felt like in the Austrian mountains, green alms with black and white cows and dense forests. Up in 2000 meters was the huge crater of the volcano Piton de la Fournaise and the peaks of La Reunions highest mountain lightened in deep orange of the sun. The volcano was last active in January 2010 and is the most active volcano in the world after the Hawaiian volcanos. Interestingly, Hawaii and La Reunion have the same kind of red lava, that flows gently instead of exploding crazily.

We stayed in a beautiful mountain hut in complete calm and refreshing Minderjahrige durfen nicht in diesem Online http://www.besten-casino-liste.de Casino spielen unter keinen Umstanden. 5 to 10 degrees temperature.

Our home for a night

kuscheling to keep us warm

The most stunning moment was the sunset at 6 a.m.

Magic sunset

Agnes and Bubu enjoyed the night under the stars on the back of their pick-up truck…

Bub and Agnes

After a French breakfast with a bowl of coffee and baguette, we went on a hike in this moon-like landscape.

Ready for a hike

Stunning views

cowboy and cowgirl on the horse

pic nic on the moon

You can also discover this unique and peaceful nature on horseback.

Horse riding at the volcano

hugs inext to the crater

Tamarin in Tamarin Bay, Mauritius

St. Leu in Reunion

In Mauritius, we were very fortunate to be staying at the Hotel Tamarin, which is approx. 23 meters from the spot where you start paddling out to the Tamarin wave. In Reunion, I was very fortunate as the local French madman Jean gave me a board and took me out to breaks at Trois Bassins and St. Leu.

So we just paddled out and caught some waves? Not exactly!!!! These waves are absolutely beautiful, but come with a few serious challenges:

• the wave breaks over a really shallow sharp reef, depending on the tide you have between 20 and 100 cm of water
• the reef is decorated with beautiful sea urchins
• there are strong currents pulling you in the general direction of Africa or Antarctica
• the waves break fast and hard, you need to escape to the left quickly
• big sets come out of nowhere and have a tendency to clean you up over the reef if you are an unsuspecting tourist
• bull sharks have a tendency to be territorial and even swim up the rivers here, the water is very dark once you paddle a little bit from the reef
• the locals are trained in various martial arts and have a tendency to be very clear about owning the spot, i.e. never even think about getting close to a wave when they are around, or better yet, just go back to the beach

Particularly the last challenge caused us to display maximum respect and surf in the second row, i.e. catch the wave at a later stage of its long turning travel along the reef. I became a little too friendly with the good old sea urchin in Tamarin (10 sticks) and a week later in Reunion (11 sticks). Let’s just say I am a master at operating out these black urchin sticks – as thick and sometimes as long as a match – with needle and pinchers (the truth is: I only got 20 out and after 2 hours of trying 1 was cut out at a Mauritian community hospital, free of charge, on the spot). It takes hours and should be followed with some good antiseptic / antibiotic ointment. The good news is that I was back in the water within a day.

When you are charging down the face of one of those waves, looking down at the razor sharp reef, and cutting back up to the lip with a clean bottom turn, you forget about all those challenges. You are in the flow…

in the flow…