Plantații de vanilie, rasism și un masaj dublu

And, guess what? That's right, we're in La Réunion.

La Réunion is an island, about the size of the canton of Bern, east of Madagascar. It is famous for its Bourbon vanilla plantations, which allegedly smell very good. In addition, there are sugar cane plantations besides plenty of fresh tropical fruits such as pineapple, bananas, papaya, and coconuts. In the north of the island, there is one of the most active volcanoes in the world: Piton De La Fournaise. It is about 3,800 meters above sea level and around it is jungle, jungle, and more jungle.
It is a shield volcano and is considered less dangerous than, for example, Mount Etna. Why? Because it does not produce high gas explosions. By the way, shield volcanoes have a hill shape because the gas content in the lava (magma) is very low and therefore thick. So the lava flows very slowly but over a long distance.
Oh, one more thing: "Le volcan, il pète" (go and find out what it means). That's how the islanders refer to the volcano's movements.

You can find many beautiful graffiti on the island.

There are four main religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Also, plenty of superstitions can be found here. The crime rate is very low and there is no racism. That's why you can see many mixed families and cultures. Everything is accepted except for Corona! Unfortunately, they are stricter here than in Switzerland because La Réunion is an overseas department of France. So the same rules apply there.

Now let's talk about what we have done:
We haven't done much in the past few days.
We slept in, went swimming, and had a very relaxing massage (at least me and my parents...).
On August 5th, my parents celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary and my brother and I arranged a double massage for them outside in the hotel garden. The day before yesterday, we also rode electric bikes to the harbor. Yes, even my brother and I were allowed to ride them here. Then we got on a small fishing boat and went out to the open sea. The sea was rough. It's humpback whale season and we were hoping to see a mother with her calf, but we saw nothing but a sea turtle. However, we did witness a beautiful sunset.

After six days at sea, our tour of La Réunion began this morning. We are now in Entre-Deux. It is right next to Le Tampon (hahaha😊).
Our hotel is small but nice.
Today we went hiking. First, we drove to a bakery and bought baguettes, pain au chocolat, croissants, and water. Then we continued to Bras de la Plaine. The hike led into a gorge where a small stream flows. It was very beautiful and somehow mysterious, for example because of the rock walls that have a very strange shape...

Today we also saw two (fortunately) small silk spiders. They are very well known here and can grow up to six centimeters long (yuck)!
I'm curious to see what awaits us tomorrow...