Réunion Island is beautifully lush and green, mountainous, strangely exotic, colourful, very French (but more Creole French), warm and perceptibly humid.
At noon we bid farewell to our pickup and rooftop tent in Joburg, admitted the loss of a knife to the rental company, and then travelled via Joburg’s OR Tambo Airport to Saint Denis on Réunion Island.

Saint Denis is the island’s capital, but with only 140,000 inhabitants it appears to lack the grandeur and bustle of most capital cities. We arrived at 9pm and were too tired to argue with the rental car agency about the additional expenses, which always seem to be unexpectedly and unjustifiably incurred. It strikes me as an industry habit but one I refuse to get used to. This time it was the airport pickup (which we were aware of), the late pickup, and a cleaning fee.

While our voucher stated pick up until 11pm was free of charge, a faded notice pinned to the board in their office shortened that time to 8pm. Somehow a notice on a board in an office trumped the information provided on their online booking platform and our voucher. Also the employee had the audacity to suggest to us that we could always not use the car to avoid the cleaning fee. He paid us back with a Renault Twingo, a French car, and as much as I adore the French for their croissants, the car was awful. It felt like a tin can and wheezed up a slight slope at 60kmh on the way to our accommodation.

When the air-conditioning turned itself off in a desperate attempt to compensate for the failing engine, I vowed to spend more money on a German rental next time.

Réunion Island is beautifully lush and green (it rains a lot), mountainous, exotic, colourful, very French (but more Creole French), warm and perceptibly humid. Fish is a food staple, perhaps not surprising for an island surrounded by ocean, the mango and passion fruit were the best I have ever tasted, the baguette was authentically French, and the pain au chocolat consisted of a delicious pile of butter and oozing chocolate.

When I told friends and colleagues we would be spending a week on Réunion the most common reaction was „Oh, that’s lovely. But it’s French, isn’t it?“ This culturally acceptable Francophobia, I believe, is fuelled by the widespread belief that the French are arrogant and impolite to foreigners, especially to those without a perfect mastery of the French language.

A friend of mine, and one of the most sociable people I know, refuses to visit Romandie, the French speaking part of Switzerland, and much less France. She has spent years abroad, speaks several languages fluently, and loves to interact with people of other cultures, all except the French. I have met some of these arrogant, impolite French but just as many lovely Frenchmen who contradict this stereotype entirely and the locals on Réunion (apart from the rental car moron) were wonderful people who animatedly communicated with us despite the lack of a common language.

Réunion Island is an outstanding off-the-beaten-track, active travel destination spoilt with breath-taking pristine scenery and a profusion of hiking trails. It is perhaps less of a shopping paradise with the only exception being the market in Saint Paul on Friday and Saturday mornings, which sent me into a shopping frenzy for fruit and handicraft.

Shiny avocados smooth as glass, chubby round mangos, pink pitaya, twenty tiny bananas on a stalk, aubergines as big as melons, and baby pineapple were piled up high in pyramids, like a colourful still life. The market had the exoticism and hustle of many Asian and African markets we visited but without the sickening smells, nor were half-dead fish frantically thrashing about here.

Piton Maïdo at 2190 metres elevation is arguably the most scenic spot on Réunion Island and lies inland at the end of a serpentine road climbing steeply through a forest of tamarind trees for two hours. It is a worthy journey for the most impressive and unique views of Réunion await.

The Mafate basin lay at our feet, a rugged yet steady rise and fall of valleys and hills surrounded by a steep, angular escarpment and cloaked in a uniform green blanket. This blanket was dotted with remote mountain villages, tiny hamlets, and farmsteads the size of pinheads, like chocolate sprinkles on peppermint cupcakes. They looked isolated and a little forlorn, narrow dirt roads their only connection to the outside world, yet the outlook was also incredibly peaceful and soothing.

We went on two half-day hikes while on Réunion. On one we stumbled across tenrecs (hedgehogs with pointed snouts) along a trail climbing steeply uphill in the direction of La Plaine des Sables and into pea soup fog. On the other, starting from Belvédère de Bois Court with spectacular views of wooded cliffs and valleys rivalling those from Piton Maïdo, we descended into the Grand Bassin gorge to the Voile de la Mariée waterfall. The two French biologists we met in Blyde River Canyon who studied on Réunion had been hiking almost every weekend for months and had not yet exhausted the plethora of hiking trails on the island.

We would have loved to do more hiking but a cyclone circling over Madagascar pushed large heavy rainclouds our way, which covered Réunion’s mountains almost every day. Admittedly, I didn’t mind waiting out the tropical downpour, lazing about on the comfy couch on our veranda and watching the heavy rain beat down on palm leaves, its noise so deafening it swallowed all other sounds except the thunder.

On two evenings I let myself be persuaded to eat fish despite my general aversion to the stuff. Since we were at the highly recommended Le D.C.P., an all-fish restaurant, there was also a distinctive lack of alternatives. It lived up to its reputation and I suffered much less than feared despite the raw tuna carpaccio and sushi for starters. I dare say I’ll never try carpaccio again but I must admit that the fish, raw and grilled, didn’t taste anything like the dead fish smell during low tides that I loathe so much. There was a mere hint of the sea and I wondered whether a longer stay on the island would cure my aversion to fish.

However, when dessert arrived I wished, not for the first time either, that it were socially acceptable to skip both starters and main, and move straight to three desserts. Yellow-blue flames flickered across the crunchy sugar crust of my crème brûlée as it was delivered to our table and the delicate taste of vanilla with a hint of pineapple absolutely merited its mention in the Michelin guide.

On a day that promised no rain we chanced a trip to Cilaos which is situated in a 100-square kilometre wide cirque (basin) at 1200m altitude, and has a mere 6000 inhabitants. The drive there was a rollercoaster ride with more than 430 curves in a 40km stretch of road. Most were tight hairpin bends and oncoming traffic was surprisingly heavy for what was meant to be a remote area.

But once we arrived at the top the view of an impressive mountain silhouette with steep, green peaks above 3000m compensated for the road. There was little to else to see and after a leisurely walk and picnic we bid farewell to each of the 430 curves, and stopped in Entre Deux on the way back.

Entre Deux is considered the prettiest village on Réunion and we agreed with its designation, as it was indeed lovelier than any other village we had passed through. Old Creole mansions decorated with tamarind shingles were surrounded by well-kept flower gardens and the soothing slowness that permeates all the island villages was most noticeable here.

Whatever worries someone may have about unfriendly French locals were unfounded on Réunion Island. While the official languages are French and Reunionese Creole, the locals exhausted their English vocabulary to try and communicate with us and listened to my pitiful French stammering with the patience of saints.