excursions

La Réunion

Excursions

Updated 06.19.2005

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the way to the vulcan

the summit

Enclose Foquet in the fog

Reunion is really a trekking paradise and is one of the best places to perform extreme sports in real contact with nature: surf and windsurf, rafting, canoeing, mountain climbing, biking, skydiving, hang-gliding, diving and more over. The volcano offers a lunar landscape for unforgettable walkings, the excursion at its summit is really superb. It is a 5 hours walk round trip, about 7 miles and with an over 2.000 mt of level difference, quite hard and exhausting, but really fantastic. You need a car to reach quite far and high car park at the Bellecombe Pass, a quite difficult road with wonderful landscapes, and you have to start very early in the morning to avoid the late morning orographic heavy cloudy conditions and fully enjoy landscapes and ambience. It may be securely run without guide, but you have not to leave the beaten track, that will lead you to cross an incredible old lavic valley, the "enclose Foquet, and then to climb the crater. You have also to wear strong mountain boots and to watch your step to avoid falls, lava is in fact very sharp. Weather conditions may change fast, so remember your sun filter but also a good wind jacket, and also water and food. The volcanic activity is frequent, I was able to see a new just started lava flow. Another superb place is the "Malfate cirque" a real lost paradise, an high secluded valley where no roads arrive, and where only about two hundred people, descendants of escaped slaves searching shelter in this far and inaccessible mountain valley, live in a segregated and quite primitive way of life. A real trekking paradise where you can have wonderful walks in absolute loneliness. There are also a lot of wonderful walks in the tropical forest and to the many waterfalls and ponds.