The horse we rode in on

The first thing that struck me upon arrival here on Reunion Island was the epic traffic jam. It was huge. HUGE. A single lane of traffic held up for (quite literally) kilometres. We’d barely finished stretching our legs after the gruelling 12 hour flight before being thrust back into that waiting saddle.

Apparently the rue Littoral, the main road from the capital St Denis to St Leu, our destination, was partly closed due to the day’s heavy rain. The road is sandwiched between a pristine ocean scene and a shear, rocky cliff which comes unstuck in the wet – think Great Ocean Road on STEROIDS. That means the usually fast paced multilane highway was reduced to a single lane crawl.

Of course we did have CHERIE FM to keep us company in back of the taxi; and, I’m happy to report, CHERIE hasn’t changed its jingle since I last tuned in to it in France. And how French everything is here! Not that I should be surprised, Reunion is a Departement D’autre Mer – a little outpost of mother France. Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the street signs, the traffic lights, even the advertisements (which, unlike CHERIE have been updated) There was something deeply comforting knowing that I’m back on familiar turf, I’d forgotten just how much I missed the old country, and this island seems to be a tropical reminder of it. Traffic and all.