Hiking app for Réunion

If you read/understand French and are interested in hiking in Réunion you might like a new smartphone app: Decat'Rando.

Created by a well-known brand of sportswear shops the free app has more than a hundred hikes ranging from very easy to very difficult, less than two hours to more than eight hours, and tells you the weather forecast, the duration, distance, elevation, difficulty, trail description and even shows you a preview image. 

Piton de la Fournaise, Réunion (Wikipedia)

You can also share locations and performances on social networks directly from the app, and view your location in real time, which reduces your risk of getting lost!

Currently only available for iPhones, an Android version is planned for 2013.

P.S. Note that while iTunes' Appstore shows the app as being made available in French AND English, this is an error - it's currently only in French.

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Books about Reunion & worldwide literature

A recent exchange with Ann Morgan, who's currently reading her way round the world, got me thinking about Reunion Island books in English. As far as I'm aware, with the exception of 'Bourbon Island 1730', the list I came up with contains only books that I have been written directly in English and not translated. In fact as far as I know there are no English translations of books by well-known Reunionese authors like Daniel Vaxelaire or Axel Gauvin, although the latter's books have been translated into German.

Books about Reunion I haven't read myself (but which are all on my Bookmooch wish list!):

• Reunion: An Island in Search of an Identity by Laurent Medea
• Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage by Françoise Verges
• Island Born Of Fire: Volcano Piton de la Fournaise by Dr Robert B. Trombley

There are also two romantic fiction/chicklit books set or partly set in Réunion:

• Dead Sexy by Kathy Lette (a "satire on the sex war"; see my review here)
• Second Chance Sister by Linda Kepner

Bourbon Island 1730

Books I've read myself:

• Crags and Craters: Rambles in the Island of Reunion by William Dudley Olivier (this is my favourite).
• The Last Colony: An Experience of Reunion Island by Michael Steane (an e-book but full of inaccuracies)
• Six Months in Reunion: A Clergyman's Holiday, and How He Passed it by Patrick Beaton (I didn't like this much).
• Bourbon Island 1730 by Appollo & Lewis Trondheim (a graphic novel)
• Island Awakening by Lynne Martin (romantic fiction).

I've written reviews of the above five books.

Also: Bonnes Vacances!: A Crazy Family Adventure in the French Territories by Rosie Millard is about a 4 month tour of the DOM-TOMs Rosie made with her husband and four young children to make a documentary series for the Travel Channel ("Croissants in the Jungle"). Its final chapter covers Réunion (briefly); see my review of the book here.

In the introduction I mentioned Ann Morgan who is currently reading her way around as many of the globe’s 196 independent countries as she can, sampling one book from every nation. (She's also recently included a Rest of The World wildcard section, hence our exchange about Reunion Island). However as she asked herself: what counts as a story? Is it by a person born in that place? Is it written in the country? Can it be about another nation state? While in some respects she's still answering that question she had to lay down her terms and so decided to limit herself to all narratives that could be read to full effect by one reader on their own e.g. memoirs, novels, short stories, novellas, biographies, narrative poems and reportage, but not non-narrative poetry and plays.

It got me wondering about which countries I'd already read literature from, and after a quick tour of my bookshelves (and my memory!) this is the (non-exhaustive) list I came up with, in English and French:

• Algeria - L'étranger [The Outsider] - Albert Camus [Author/Setting]
• Australia - The Secret River - Kate Grenville [Author/Setting]
• Belgium - L'Enfant de Noé - Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt [Author/Setting]
• Botswana - The Kalahari Typing School for Men - Alexander McCall Smith [Setting; Author is British]
• Cameroon - La saison de l'ombre - Léonora Miano [Author/Setting] (added November 2013)

The Kalahari Typing School for Men

• Canada - Where White Horses Gallop - Beatrice McNeil [Author/Setting]
• Central African Republic - Princesse aux Pieds Nu - Evelyne Durieux [Author/Setting]
• Burma - The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason [Setting; Author is British]
• China - Leaving Mother Lake: A Childhood at the Edge of the World - Yang Erche Namu [Author/Setting]
• Czech Republic - L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être [The Unbearable Lightness of Being] - Milan Kundera [Author/Setting]
• Cuba - Our Man In Havana - Graham Greene [Setting; Author was British]
• Democratic Republic of Congo - The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver [Setting; Author is American]
• Denmark (& Greenland) - Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow - Peter Høeg [Author/Setting]
• Egypt - Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi (translated by Sherif Hetata) [Author/Setting]
• Germany - The Book Thief - Markus Zusak [Setting; Author is Australian]
• Haiti - Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden) [Setting; Author is Chilean American]

"Island Beneath the Sea"

• Hawaii - Comfort Woman - Nora Okja Keller [Author/Setting]
• Iceland - L'homme du Lac [The Draining Lake] - Arnaldur Indridason (translated by Eric Boury) [Author/Setting]
• India - A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry [Author/Setting]
• Indonesia - Krakatoa - Simon Winchester [Setting; Author is British]
• (Inner) Mongolia - Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong (translated by Howard Goldblatt) [Author/Setting]
• Iran - Jamais Sans Ma Fille [Not Without My Daughter] - Betty Mahmoody [Author/Setting]
• Ireland - Angela's Ashes - Franck McCourt [Author/Setting]
• Israel - The Red Tent - Anita Diamant [Setting; Author is American]
• Italy - The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino (translated by Archibald Colquhoun) [Author/Setting]
• Jamaica (& Dominica) - Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [Author/Setting]
• Japan - Out - Natsuo Kirino [Author/Setting]
• Lebanon - The Fifth Mountain - Paulo Coelho [Setting; Author is Brazilian]
• Madagascar - Muddling Through In Madagascar - Dervla Murphy [Setting; Author is Irish]
• Malaysia (Borneo) - My Life in Sarawak - Margaret Brooke [Author/Setting]
• Mauritius - Paul & Virginie - Bernardin de St Pierre [Setting; Author was French]
• Mayotte - Mon Mari Est Plus Qu'un Fou : C'est Un Homme - Nassur Attoumani [Author/Setting] 
• Netherlands - Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier [Setting; Author is American]
• New Zealand - Behind Closed Doors - Ngaire Thomas [Author/Setting]
• Nigeria - Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe [Author/Setting]
• North Korea - The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Kang Chol-Hwan [Author/Setting]
• Norway - Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (translated by Paulette Møller) [Author/Setting]
• Pakistan - The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid [Author/Setting]
• Rodrigues - Voyage à Rodrigues - JMG Le Clezio [Setting; Author is French]
• Russia - Dans Les Forets de Sibérie - Sylvain Tesson [Setting; Author is French]
• Seychelles - Travelling Hopefully - Maggie Makepeace [Setting; Author is British]
• South Africa - Disgrace - JM Coetzee [Author/Setting]
• South Korea - Who Ate Up All The Shinga? - Park Wan-Suh (translated by Yu Young-nan) [Author/Setting]
• Spain - The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón [Author/Setting]
• Sweden - Millennium Trilogy - Steig Larsson (translated by 'Reg Kreeland') [Author/Setting]
• Tibet - Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa [My Journey to Lhasa] - Alexandra David-Néel [Setting; Author was French]
• Trinidad  - A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul [Author/Setting]
• Tromelin - Les Naufrages de l'ïle Tromelin - Irène Frain [Setting; Author is French]
• Turkey - My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk (translated by Erdağ Göknar) [Author/Setting]
• Uzbekistan (& Iran) - Samarcande [Samarkand] - Amin Maalouf [Setting; Author is from Lebanon]
• Vietnam - L'Amant [The Lover] - Marguerite Duras [Author/Setting]

Samarcande

Notes:

• I've arbitrarily excluded the UK, France and the USA as I've read so many books from these countries I'd have trouble choosing just one!
• If I've read several books from a country I've generally just listed my favourite.
• I've also taken liberties by listing some non-independent regions (e.g. Rodrigues, Hawaii, Tibet, Tromelin).
• I excluded some books (such as Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, or William Boyd's African novels) that take place in unidentified countries.
• I also excluded books (such as Elie Wiesel's Night) whose action takes place in several countries.
• If I've read a book in French but an English translation exists I've added the English title in brackets [].
• I've included books not written by natives of the country in question.

My conclusions:

I have vast swathes of the planet where I haven't read any literature from, for example South America or the Pacific! Places like South East Asia or Central Asia are patchy too. Although I list Paul Coelho and Isabel Allende the books of theirs that I read were not set in their native countries. And despite living and travelling for three years in Asia I've mainly read Korean books (North and South) but very little from the many other countries we travelled to in the region. I need to broaden my horizons even more.

What about you? Do you enjoy reading books from other countries? Do you have any books to recommend? Is literature from your native (or adopted) country easy to find in English?

P.S. Here's the link to Ann Morgan's site: A Year Of Reading The World. Other reading around the world blogs I've come across are: Reading the World, The Rushlight List and World Lit Up.

This post originally appeared on A Smart Translator's Reunion.

Related articles

• Island awakening: book review
• Press article round-up
• Cimetière Marin, St Paul
• Whale-watching
• The 'blogosphere'
• Bourbon Island 1730: book review

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Le Gouffre d'Etang Salé

If you're in the area of Etang Salé (on Reunion's south-west coast), one of its most impressive natural sites is the blowhole known as Le Gouffre. We stopped off here last Thursday on our way back from La Fenêtre des Makes.

Le Gouffre is a natural corridor in the basalt cliffs 1km south of Étang-Salé-les-Bains. 

Waves come crashing into the rocky crevice and spurt upwards.

In rough weather the waves produce particularly spectacular plumes of spray, although that wasn't the case on the day we visited.

A consequence of the rocky coastline has been the loss of life: some lost at sea, some suicides - a poignant reminder that the power of the sea should never be underestimated.

Some of the memorial crosses next to Le Gouffre

 This part of the coast is particularly dry.

Agaves

 The rocky black coastline on either side of Le Gouffre is equally tortured.

coastline slightly south of Le Gouffre

Here's a photo of the same site taken yesterday evening by 'Frog974', a talented amateur photographer (it rather puts my photos to shame!).

Le Gouffre Coordinates: 21° 16′ 50″ South  55° 20′ 26″ East

Related posts:

• Croc Parc, Etang Salé

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La Fenêtre des Makes

panorama of Cilaos from Fenêtre des Makes viewpoint

After a visit to a forest adventure park at Les Makes, St Louis, at 1300m altitude, we carried on up to La Fenetre des Makes which is a viewpoint over the cirque of Cilaos, 1574m above sea level.

Ilet à Cordes

Although we arrived at midday, as you can see from the photos we had a cloudless blue sky and a wonderful view.

Cilaos town, with the village of Bras Sec to the right

 Fenêtre means 'window' and today its name was well-deserved.

Palmiste Rouge

The viewpoint is about 10 km further uphill from the village known as Les Makes, which is strung out along the road between 900m and 1200m altitude, itself 12km from the town of St Louis.

looking towards the Dimitile

Les Makes is also known for its astronomical observatory, which regularly offers stargazing programmes open to the public.

Gros Morne and Piton des Neiges

looking towards the Col du Taibit (centre)

 I had a good view of the final part of the path I hiked up to Ilet à Cordes in May.

path leading up to Ilet à Cordes

I was also able to quietly approach and take photos of this Reunion Stonechat, a bird endemic to Reunion.

Saxciola tectes / Reunion Stonechat / Tec-tec

Saxciola tectes / Reunion Stonechat / Tec-tec

Useful links:

• Makes Aventures (in French) - website of treetop adventure trail
• Makes Observatory (in French) - 21° 11' South - 55° 25' East
• Visiting Les Makes Observatory - Runweb.com
• The District of St Louis - Runweb.com

Related Posts:

• Maido Forest Adventure Park

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Hiking in the shadow of the volcano

The area surrounding St Philippe often gets neglected as a hiking destination in favour of Réunion's more challenging sites. This is a shame as trekking in this low-lying part of the island at the foot of Piton de la Fournaise can offer a different perspective of the island.

near the 2007 eruption

We got dropped off by our transport close to the site of the April 2007 eruption, and from there we walked along the quiet main road until we came to the turn-off for 'Le Vieux Port'.

wild vanilla

From here we walked along a track until we reached the coast. St Philippe is prime vanilla-growing area, and a lot grows here wild (there are no pods though, as the vanilla needs to be hand-fertilised to produce any).

wild vanilla growing on a tree-trunk

vanilla flower

'The Old Port'

beach area, Le Vieux Port

We then headed west, walking along the coastal path (Sentier Littoral de St Philippe).

coastal path, St Philippe

Although St Philippe is not at a high altitude its location on the extreme south-east coast means it gets plenty of rain, and so plant life is luxuriant.

wild orchids

more wild orchids

close-up of wild vanilla

The most common tree here is the screwpine (Pandanus utilis), known locally as the vacoa.

The name screwpine comes from the spiral arrangement of the leaves around the branches.

prop root system of vacoa tree

Vacoas have an unusual root system whereby prop roots grow from the stem well above soil level; these roots help to anchor the plant and keep it upright during periods of heavy wind and rain.

young prop root

The young roots have a rather phallic appearance, reinforced by the fact that the root tip is covered by a removable cap!

removable cap on young Vacoa prop root

Vacoas grow well near the sea as they are salt-tolerant. (Another variety, Pandanus montanus, grows in the highlands of Réunion).

interesting root growth

The leaves are long and spiny and make a thick covering when they fall to the ground. They are used for thatching and to make ropes, baskets, mats, hats, place mats, and bags.

a forest floor 'carpet' of Vacoa leaves

The fruit is called a pinpin and can be cooked and eaten. This, together with the tree's leaves and erosion prevention properties, make it a very useful plant to have around.

pinpin, screwpine fruit

close-up of a pinpin segment

Passiflora foetida / Wild water lemon / poc-poc

After a while we started to get a clearer view of the coast, which had never been very far, but whose view had often been obscured by vegetation.

fishing

We soon came across signs of the 1986 volcanic eruption, which is one of only six recorded eruptions to have taken place outside the main caldera.

The 1986 eruption took place from March 20-29

Mother nature always finds a way to grow back after an eruption!

open-ended lava tunnel

At the time, in 1986, the lava flows enlarged the island by 25 hectares at a place known as La Pointe de la Table, pushing the coast 200 metres out into the sea along a distance of 1.5 km. Since then the sea has battered away at this 'intrusion', and today not much of it is left.

Pointe de la Table

In 1776 an eruption whose lava flows were particularly thick took place. As it slowly cooled the basalt fractured into prismatic shapes which some liken to organ pipe columns.

basalt column cliff, Pointe de la Table

coastline

sprouting Fish Poison Tree, known as Bonnet
d'Evêque in Réunion (literally 'Bishop's Hat')

Ananas bracteatus/Red pineapple/Ananas marron

After hiking for about 12 km we eventually reached a picnic area, where we had lunch before walking a short distance to the main road where our transport was waiting for us.

fungi

By the way one of St Philippe's claims to fame is that it is the starting point of the annual Diagonale des Fous aka Grand Raid ultra marathon mountain race. (You can see a video about the race here).

Bauhinia

The people of St Philippe enjoy gardening, and walking past their gardens to the main road was a real pleasure, as you can see from these photos.

Duranta

Useful map:
Piton de la Fournaise (La Reunion) IGN 1:25,000 topographic map 4406 RT

If you liked this, you might like:

• Aurere & the Sentier Augustave
• Cayenne hike
• Hike from Le Belier to Hellbourg
• Hiking the Canalisation des Orangers
• Hiking Piton des Neiges from Cilaos
• Hiking to and from Ilet à Cordes
• Morne de St François & Le Brulé 
• Plaine des Palmistes to Plaines des Cafres via Piton Textor
• Trekking the volcano

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