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Some tasteless humour

The above photo was featured in the The Telegraph's Sign Language special photo gallery on toilet humour with the caption 'The world is your urinal'. 'Sign Language' is a picture gallery where readers send in amusing photos of strange signs and bizarre translations in the UK and around the world which are published each week. Pisse en l'air is a small waterfall on Reunion, in the cirque (natural amphitheatre) of Salazie, but ironically it's not the waterfall shown, which is actually 640m-high Cascade Blanche. Pisse en l'air literally means 'piss in the air' and it is another smaller waterfall renowned for falling from a cliff onto the road - and onto your car if you happen to be driving by underneath (make sure you keep your car windows closed!).

Something else that frequently amuses non-French visitors to Reunion is Le Tampon - this is the name of a town and municipality in the south of the island, not far from the volcano.

Le Tampon logo

While 'tampon' only has one meaning in English, in French it has several meanings, including 'buffer' or 'stamp', however in this particular case no one is exactly sure of the town name's origin. There are several theories:

- Tampony is a Malagasy word which means 'viewpoint', or 'summit that can be seen from afar';

- it could come from tampon de combat, or 'shot plug', a type of stopper used to seal a projectile hole in a ship's hull during combat, and/or tampon d'écubier, which was a 'hawse-plug' or 'buckler' (a block used to stop up a hawse hole at sea);

- documents dating from 1727 mention a small river gully known as the Ravine du Tampon, so known because a tampon de hublot, or 'porthole stopper', had been placed there as a landmark.

Keeping with the theme of toilet humour, I saw this sign in the lavatory on an Air Koryo flight when I was flying back to Beijing from Pyongyang (it also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ photo gallery):

Hips don't fly

Still on matters of taste, what about this on a Delhi restaurant drinks menu:

Name your poison - toxic or tonic?

Back in Reunion a restaurant in Saint Denis has these offerings on its menu:

Drop in for dinner?

For those that don’t speak French the Crotin [sic] de Chèvre Chaud should be ‘Warm Goat’s Cheese’ in English and not ‘dung’! (These photos were also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ ‘Best of January 2014′ photo gallery).

Here Souris [d'agneau] (knuckle of lamb) has been translated literally as ‘mouse’:

Puts a ro-dent in your appetite?

Things have improved however, as a few years ago filet was translated thoughout as ‘net’ instead of ‘fillet’, and cabot de fond (a type of fish) was translated as ‘dog bottom’!

Hiking the 3 cirques

The beginning of this month saw us hiking Reunion's three cirques (Salazie, Mafate, Cilaos) over a period of several days.

Col des Boeufs

To be honest we didn't really hike in the cirque of Salazie (this time) ;-) , we only set off from there, from the Col des Boeufs (2011 m) to be precise. From there we hiked to the hamlet of Marla (1600 m), where we spent the night in a gîte, before hiking up the Col du Taïbit the next day.

Marla church (and church bell)

This was the first time I'd been back to Marla since 2007 or 2008. There are now at least nine gîtes, two chambres d'hôtes (guest houses) and three épiceries (grocery / convenience stores)! As recently as 2003 there was only one gîte!

view of Marla from the Col du Taïbit

After a good night's sleep we set off to ascend the Col du Taïbit (2090m), which is the gateway to the cirque of Cilaos from Mafate (col means 'mountain pass').

Col du Taïbit seen from Marla

The climb from Marla takes an hour or less; the descent on the other side about 2 hours.

Piton des Neiges (3070m, Reunion's highest peak)
seen from the Col du Taïbit

To the left the Gros Morne (3019m, Reunion's 2nd highest peak)
seen from the Col du Taïbit

Tree dripping with beard lichen, Cilaos side of Col du Taïbit

road leading to Ilet à Cordes, seen from Col du Taïbit hiking path

One of the more pleasant stops when you're hiking this path is the herbal tea stand that's been set up by the Trois Salazes Association. They sell 'uphill' (ascenseur) and 'downhill' (descendant) herbal teas for €1; the ingredients depend on, and are adapted to, whether you're climbing or heading down the path! The ascenseur is made from lemon grass, marjoram and St John's wort; the descendant contains mint, cinnamon, geranium, heliotrope and St John's wort.

herbal tea stand, Trois Salazes Association

After this halt it's only about 20 or so minutes down to the Cilaos <>Ilet à Cordes road (known as CD242) which is at an altitude of 1260 m.

We then spent the next two nights at Gîte Grondin (more of a guest house really), the same gîte where we'd stayed on our two previous trips to Ilet à Cordes (see here and here).

sign outside our accommodation, Gîte Grondin

On the following day we did a short hike to picnic at the Bras de St Paul, which I visited last year (see here).

Bras de St Paul

The next morning we had an early start as we were going to be hiking in one day what we'd done leisurely over two days in the other direction (Cilaos>Col du Taïbit>Marla>Col des Boeufs).

sign at the bottom of the Col du Taïbit hike, Cilaos side

Needless to say we stopped off for an ascenseur herbal tea on the way up! Further uphill we had good views of the Trois Salazes (2132 m), three rocky pointed outcrops perched on the ridge separating Cilaos from Mafate. These geological curiosities gave their name to the îlet (hamlet) where the Trois Salazes Association is based.

the Trois Salazes

After an uphill climb of 830 metres we were back at the Col du Taïbit for our last views of Cilaos before heading back down into Mafate.

small shrine near the summit of the Col du Taïbit

view of Cilaos town from the Col du Taïbit

looking towards the Dimitile & St Pierre (from Col du Taïbit)

Looking Mafate side we had a clear view of La Nouvelle (1400 m), the largest and only village of Mafate (other places are hamlets), and the easiest to hike to from the Col des Boeufs.

La Nouvelle seen from the Col du Taïbit

We had a 470 metre descent down to Marla, where we had our picnic lunch next to the school.

crossing Marla

After Marla we still had this ahead of us (see photo below)! Marla is separated from the plain area of Plaine des Tamarins by a river valley, which means a steep climb (or descent, depending on which direction you're coming from) of about 400 metres.

Col des Boeufs from Marla

Once at the Plaine des Tamarins we could look back and see Marla. Unfortunately by this time of day the Col du Taïbit was shrouded in clouds.

Marla from Plaine des Tamarins, Maison Laclos in the foreground

Plaine des Tamarins

After the Plaine des Tamarins there remained a final climb of 250 metres up to the Col des Boeufs, followed by a 15 minute walk to the car park and our hike was finished ... until next time!

Our final destination, Col des Boeufs

Altitude and distance of our final day's hike

Useful maps:

Saint Denis, Cirques de Mafate et de Salazie IGN 1:25,000 topographic map 4402 RT
St Pierre & Cirque de Cilaos IGN 1:25,000 topographic map 4405 RT

Hike from Le Belier to Hellbourg

Gros Morne at sunrise

Early one morning recently we started this hike at Le Belier, a hamlet at an altitude of 1255m next to the small town of Grand Ilet in the cirque of Salazie.

sign board at the start of the hike.

At 7am at this time of year the sun has not long risen, and we had some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains at sunrise.

looking towards the Col de Fourche, Gros Morne to the left

The walk itself is not very difficult by Reunion standards; the total distance is 10-11 km but it took us 5 hours to complete as we often stopped to pick goyavier (strawberry guava; see pictures below)!

As we always walked on the GR R1 (Reunion's main hiking path) or its variant, the track was well-maintained.

Initially the path passes to the south of Piton du Grand Sable and Piton Lelesse (1332m).

As usual there were a couple of rivers and streams to be crossed, but nothing very difficult as there has not been any heavy rain recently.

Part of the hike passed through a forest,

but most of the time you're surrounded by bushes.

goyaviers

As it was early morning, there was still dew on the goyaviers.

dew-covered goyavier

wildflower

looking towards the east and the cirque entrance

Bamboo can be found in many places on the island, but they grow especially well in Salazie. It's said they can grow up to one metre per day.

bamboo

hunt the signpost!

This river crossing was a little trickier than most,

walking the plank

but there was a lovely little waterfall to be seen once you'd crossed.

waterfall

We passed this small religious shrine.

shrine

During the second part of the hike it's easy to see the distinctive Piton Enchaing (1356m) to the left.

flat-topped Piton Enchaing

The end of the hike is along a paved road, and you arrive at Ilet à Vidot, a hamlet near Hellbourg.

road nearing Ilet à Vidot.

Walking along the road we passed some gardens, where we saw chili peppers and chou-chou (chayote) growing.

chili peppers

chou-chou growing on a trellis

We finished the hike at an altitude of 930m, 300 metres lower than we started, although with the up-and-down type of the path we actually had an elevation gain of 530m and an elevation loss of 831m. Our lowest altitude was 784 m.