La Reunion - Cradle of the Gods

I never really expected to be as impressed as I was by reunion, I mistakenly thought that being part of france it would have fallen by the wayside to the trappings of civilisation, but remarkably outside of a few spots it's amazingly free of that jazz.
No suprise here it's breathtaking , I highly recommend ANYONE who's ever considered hiking to do the cirque de cilaos and cirque de salazie. I only really touched the tip of the iceberg when it came to places you could walk there.  For me it is a once in a lifetime visit, if only so I dont tarnish my fond memory of the place. It stands out even brighter for that.  I could barely speak any french at all, which was strangely freeing, because I was so bad at it I didnt feel like I was missing out on communicating like I might in an english speaking country. I accepted it; took things as they came.  On the ferry to reunion I met a couple of trekkers from the czech republic, they said they were going to do the trek around so initially we co-booked the gite de montagnes to save us a little money along the way.
As it turned out (well it was pretty obvious) they set a much faster pace than my old bones could handle, and that was fine, although I think maybe they wanted a little competition and didnt like the casual approach I took to it.  Well, casual was the ONLY way I was going to do it, I didnt have the fitness or need to blast away and push myself beyond my limits.  At that altitude and inclines I was already there at my limits.
I think they may have been scared I was going to have a heart attack on the path somewhere. Well.. it didn't happen I made it.. somehow :)
More often than not I was trekking alone down some path or another, especially in the later stages.  Luckily I fell only once on a muddy trail on my last trek day , piercing my hand on a spike of wood in a minor way but I dressed it and kept going.
I was only there some 8 days in total but really it was the most memorable of my 8 week trip, it had the things I love most. Natural beauty, travel and tasty food!  When you go to these places it's almost as if they were made especially for you, but then you think no, they were made for everyone to enjoy.
I made a lot of time up in the last day and skipped my last gite night to take the bus from salazie back to saint denis to stay my last night there and make my morning plane flight. I dont usually have much luck with these things, but just this once it was and nothing went wrong and I flew out in the morning to the granite islands, the seychelles to start the next part of my trip.