Ah, such fond memories of Reunion Island.  Staving off locals trying to keep us from leaving the port, masks being handed out to us as we clear passport control.  6 years almost to the day.  Pretty wild when you think about it.  But here we are, ready to explore the other side of the island from the sites we saw 6 years ago – which were pretty extensive.

On the first shuttle out to the port gate, we head up to passport control where the guy in front of us (stinky running guy from the treadmill this morning who apparently is going out for another run here coz he’s dressed the same) doesn’t have his passport and is surprised he needs it.  Oops.  Guess he didn’t read the Insider.  And no one mentioned it in the morning PA announcement or at the gangway, so…..we wonder how many people are going to have to return to the ship to get their passports.  Ugh.

We go right through and walk down the street to Budget, passing the legendary “fight gate” where Ed had to power his way out of the port 6 years ago.  As I said, memories.

At Budget, the guy is so sweet and nice, slow, but sweet and nice.  He tells us to be careful with our time as it is the first day of school today and there will be lots of traffic.  Thanks for the warning!  We will definitely keep that in mind as we are going to drive virtually ¾ of the way around the island to go to the Spice and Perfume gardens and we will need the time on our return.  And to his credit, what has always been a 1.5 hour drive now is estimated at almost 2 hours with traffic this morning.  Crud.  We need to be there for a 10:30 tour and it looks like we will just make it.  Fingers crossed.  Off we go on our sojourn in an awesome upgraded Citroen C5.  Really comfy car, brand new (ack – hate brand new cars – we’ll always be scarred by St. Paul de Vence), with great interior design features (like the little cloth tags on each door that say “be cool,” “have fun,” etc.). 

It is a gorgeous drive through the on and off rain – this island is just beautiful with its soaring mountains and huge ravines on one side and the blue, blue ocean on the other. Unfortunately due to the road and the weather, pictures are hard to come by – but trust us, it’s gorgeous. 

Making good time, we hit the turn off to the garden with 10 minutes to spare – but oh – that road!  Holy cow, you’d think we were driving down a forest track.  We know this is in the Mare-Longue forest, but we never expected this.  It is virtually one way, thankfully at this time everyone is going in, not out, but we know there is a tour here later and we’ve no idea how that bus is going to get down this road.  Rutted and potholed – we are bouncing around everywhere, but it is gorgeous with the trees towering and leaning over the lane. 

Arriving at the gardens, we make the mistake of trying to drive up to the entrance – again a one lane road that already has cars parked an the narrow sides.  Abort!  Ed, #1 driver still, executes an excellent 3 point turn and we drive back to the little parking area at the head of the entrance lane.  Then make our way through the water puddles and uneven gravel to the gift shop and ticket office. Sadly, here is where our plans go awry.  I signal for 2 tickets and the gal asks just for the garden or the tour – the tour please. Unfortunately, the tour is only in French.  What?  The website said French and English.  Bummer.  So, well, just the garden it is.  

And with that, we intrepidly hit the garden in the pouring rain, wandering all around looking at the most amazing plants.  None of which we could identify – figuring we’d do that later once we are out of the rain.  And that we did – so here is the list in order of appearance:

And so much more!

It was an amazing visit – just the 2 of us traipsing through the garden, oohing and aahing over all the gorgeous foliage – the trees, the ferns, the vines, the paths winding through everything.  It was absolutely fantastic.  Even in the rain. And probably much better than a tour – as we passed the hordes of them on our way back to the shop. They’d only made it a few feet from the entrance after 20 minutes of touring!  Yeah, we were much happier on our own!

Drying off in the shop, we decided to have some really expensive (seriously, 6 euros 50) little baby cups of Reunion coffee.  Which were actually quite good.  Too expensive for our tastes to buy the beans though (39 euros for a little can? Nope!).

Back in the car, we make our way cautiously down the one lane pot holed road/trail and start our journey back toward the port, plotting out our next stops. First though – what else?  Lunch!  This side of the island, it is a little tough to ferret out places to eat.  We definitely don’t want to try anything in St. Joseph, one of the towns we drove through that was jam packed with cars and teeny-tight on street parking.  Ed did some research and found Chez Lydie – a great Creole place with parking.  We’re there! 

We are obviously early by Malagasy standards, as we are the only people there besides Lydie (or who we assume is Lydie) and her assistant.  Oh, and they only speak French.  No worries – we feel like we are back in Japan!  Lydie has a whole conversation with us in French, asking for our order and fortunately showing us a menu that has English translations – once we order, she shoos us away into the sitting area which turns out to be basically the carport area – complete with tin roof and tropical plants.  Perfect. 

And the meal was amazing – Ed had the Rougail Saucisse, an excellent sausage and tomato sauce dish served with rice; I had the Poulet Sauce d’huitre, stir fry chicken in oyster sauce – accompanied by a bottle each of the great Bourbon beer all the while being serenaded by the pouring rain.  Totally fun.

As we sat there waiting for the rain to abate, we made the executive decision to skip the Trou Noir waterfalls as most of the reviews say the path is slippery – and since it is a monsoon out there, we figure we’d rather be safe than sorry.  Risking life and limb for a waterfall, albeit one that looks amazing, just isn’t in our plans today.  In the same vein, we also skip the Etang-Sale, a forest walk we had planned.  Rain, mud, uncertain trails.  Nah.  So, instead we head directly to the Jardin d’Eden – a botanical garden – with a stop at the Carrefour for supplies (that we really don’t need, but that can never hurt – especially since we grab a six of the Bourbon beer to take back. Plus, we have a bonus sighting of this adorable little gecko catching a ride on a car (we mistook as ours) in the parking lot.

The drive to the Jardin d’Eden is beautiful with long views out to the mountains on our right and sea views on our left.  The Jardin d’Eden turns out to be a sweet little garden – probably miss-able, but a nice place to wander through the different botanicals – now in the sunny heat of the afternoon. 

There is lots of great information around on placards, all of which translate to figure out; there are 2800 species of Palm trees across the world, nearly 50 of which can be found on Reunion; there are 9 species of Baobab trees worldwide, 6 endemic to Madagascar with a lifespan of 1,000 to 2,000 years, they can store up to 120,000 liters of water in its tissues to withstand drought, it was introduced to Reunion in 1767. 

In addition to flora, the garden also has a big beekeeping section.  20 or 30 beehive boxes are placed behind a large windowed wall for viewing.  We had noticed honey at the spice garden and also at the gift shop here – apparently a somewhat important industry for Reunion.  There are 1000 beekeepers on the island, 80% of which are amateurs and over 200 tons of honey is produced on the island. 

A fun visit and nice way to end our Reunion explorations for the day.  Back aboard, we watch as the clouds come and go over the mountain range in the distance, then begin our nightly routine – which has changed a bit as we now have pre-dinner drinks in Discoveries with Putu before grabbing our Table #2 for dinner.

Tonight – Poke bowl!  With lots of tuna (yay!) and a stepped-up spicier sauce.  And a double portion of chicken gyoza for my main.  Yum. 

Then it is back to the cabin for the night – it is Six Strings again in the Cabaret, and while we loved that show, we don’t want to see it again so soon.  The balcony is calling with a sliver of a moon visible in the night sky.