In A More Natural Light . . .

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Going back to Reunion Island where we spent of couple of idyllic weeks in February, in the tropical heat, while winter was still waging its cold war in the north . . . what most amazed me about the island is the incredible relief of the terrain there. Of purely volcanic origin, la Réunion climbs out of the sea to over ten thousand feet at the top of the Piton des Neiges, the highest point. Hundreds of thousands of years of erosion and continuing volcanic activity have created a tortured landscape of ravines and cirques, where one often finds oneself looking up or down sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high. If you suffer from vertigo, you may want to pick another destination for you next trip, as the vertiginous heights there could bring on serious attacks of it. This first view gives a little idea. There is no road to the homes visible at the bottom right, people either hike the river valley to get there, or take a sort of cable lift down from where this photo was shot. You can just make out a large waterfall at the lower center . . .
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In fact there are numerous waterfalls all over the island, many of them quite spectacular, some that come to life after tropical rainstorms. We went to this next one the first afternoon we arrived on the island, above St. Denis, just beyond the village of Brulé . . .
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Vegetation runs rampant . . .
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Tree ferns luxuriously green . . .
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Strange flowers abound, the likes of which I'd never seen before . . .
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A marvellous road crosses a large stretch of central forest, which has become a National Park fairly recently, the rising ground to the left leads up toward the Piton des Neiges.

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The Piton des Neiges visible through the morning haze . . .
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And from another angle, the summit . . .
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