One day three million years ago, an unknown volcano broke through the surface of the Indian Ocean, creating a new land of more than 2,500 square kilometers of blazing lava, and plants and animals grew naturally on a coastline that snaked for more than 200 kilometers... Many, including explorers of the Age of Discovery, overlook this dot between Madagascar and Mauritius – a magical island of volcanoes, ice buckets, waterfalls, black sand beaches, basalt cliffs, tropical forests, vanilla, beauty and rum, a "paradise" for adventurers and travelers.
"If you don't climb the crater on foot, you haven't been to Reunion!" This is why so many volcano lovers flock to Reunion. At 2,631 meters above sea level, Mount Furness, which occupies the southeast corner of the island like a god, is one of the youngest volcanoes in the world, only 500,000 years ago, and is still active. From 1640 to the present, the behemoth has been stirring up more than 170 times, and in April 2007 it erupted for a month, with waves of fire accompanied by lava, spreading down the mountain to layers of forests, rushing all the way to the sea, and the flames illuminated almost the entire island. Because of its extraordinary activity and ferocity, this eruption has been called one of the ten most violent volcanic eruptions in human history. In January 2010, Mount Furness erupted again, lasting two months, attracting scientists, photographers, volcano and outdoor enthusiasts from around the world. In the same year, Mount Furnais, along with The Inner Day Peak, ice buckets and cliffs, was inscribed on the World Natural Heritage List.
The ever-changing scenery from the west coast to the volcano is a great backdrop for a road movie: from the Swiss countryside with meadows and cows frolicking, to the French "Côte d'Azur" lined with sandy beaches, sunshine, marinas and small towns, to the African wilderness surrounded by low meadows and shrubs... Eventually, a desolate landscape made of brown volcanic stone appeared in pieces, like a star-like scene. Our car was parked on a plain of volcanic rock mixed with various red textures, and a lone dirt road led straight to the volcano in the distance.
The volcano hiking trails on Reunion Island vary in difficulty, with the hardest one being reaching the Great Crater, which takes about 6 hours. One of the most common routes taken by travelers is the route to the small crater of Mount Furness.
A series of white dots are painted on the mountain wall from the mountainside to the bottom of the valley, which is an important sign of the safe route - the volcanic eruption will create some hidden cracks, and if it falls, it may fall into the abyss of the earth's core in an instant. I followed daniel, a professional hiking guide, whose skin was chocolate-colored, a testament to the history of European, African and Asian descents. Daniel privately prefers to speak Creole to French, a dialect that mixes French, Madagascar and even Cantonese Chinese. After walking for at least 3 hours in the fantastic landscapes and bitter winds along the way, I climbed up the crater with a heavy breath and trembling.
Half an hour later, I reached the plain at the bottom of the valley, where the lava solidified into undulating ridges like waves, and a few tenacious plants were scattered on the craters- like hills. Because of its lunarly desolate landscape, some footage was filmed here in 1969 when NASA was making the official promotional film for the Apollo moon landing program. It is said that the latest episode of Star Wars was also secretly filmed here.
Another way to explore the volcano is to experience a "lava tunnel". There is an area in the southeast of Reunion Called le grand brule (meaning "place that was burned by fire"), which is a necessary place for the magma of Mount Furness to flow into the Indian Ocean, leaving a large number of unexplored underground caves. Daniel urged me to try a 2 km long tunnel that he had discovered and named 5 years earlier that would lead straight to the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Before leaving, I made a special visit to the famous Church of Our Lady of lava. When the volcano erupted in 1977, a huge stream of magma poured into the church, and when it reached the statue of the Virgin Mary, suddenly the ghost split the god into two strands and flowed out of the side door of the church, without swallowing anything. The miracle quickly made headlines, and the church became the most legendary building on the island.
Follow Daniel through the patches of black magma remains until you find the hidden tunnel entrance. Jumping from the sinkhole is like entering the "alien mother's nest", and the surrounding landform shows a chilling and hideous face. Countless volcanic eruptions throughout history have created a bizarre underground world, and the movement of the earth's crust has caused the layers of magma that have cooled to intersect with each other, forming interconnected hollow tunnels layer by layer.
Daniel and I curled up like two grave robbers, crawling slowly through the cramped darkness of space, surrounded by strangely glowing metal seducing its visitors, but not a single cent here I wanted to take out—as a discoverer, Daniel had to guard everything in this natural cave. A hundred years ago, it was a holy place for Hindu monks to meditate, sitting motionless in the darkness of isolation, searching for the light of enlightenment in their hearts. At the end of the tunnel, Daniel stopped, made me a cup of fragrant black tea, and turned off my headlamp. Like him, I held my breath, listened to my own heartbeat, counted the faint noises of the distant tides, and silently survived the "dark 10 minutes" . Only by returning the same way and officially "exiting" to see the light again, I can be considered to be aventurer (Creole, meaning "adventurer") in the true sense of the word.
Due to monsoons and ocean currents, the west coast of Reunion Island maintains a typical tropical landscape of dryness, little rain and strong sunshine all year round, and the three famous lagoons – saint-gilles, saint-leu and saint-pierre – surround the narrow coastline to the west, with dense coral reefs blocking out the raging waves.
The inhabitants of the island are happy to enjoy the sea. Snorkel in crystal clear lagoons, surf in the gauche de saint-leu and experience one of the best waves in the world, and everyone can charter a boat to go fishing, even if you want to compete with sharks, there are professional sea anglers to escort you. Of course, if you really catch a shark, you must be released after taking a group photo, otherwise the captain will not hesitate to hand you over to the police. Try to maintain the balance of the ocean, and you can play with it, but never offend— the inhabitants of Reunion are careful to obey the laws of nature and never cross the thunder pond half a step.
Every year from July to October, people flock to the deep sea to watch dolphins. Luckily enough, you can bump into some of the behemoths without going out to sea — one of the most spectacular humpback whales on the planet, swimming all the way from the east coast of Africa, stopping briefly for the ultimate destination, the South Pole. When they appear, the seaside highway is often jammed with traffic, everyone is scrambling to watch, there seems to be nothing more important than this, and sometimes these big guys are happily spraying water at people!
In the best nightclub in Saint-Paul, a town on the northwest coast of Reunion Island, I met several oceanographers who lived there. After a few rounds of brawling mixed with beer and rum, they enthusiastically invited me to join—they desperately needed a daring underwater photographer, and I was the best candidate. Early the next morning, a windy pickup truck was parked at the hotel reception waiting for me.
The unique geological features of the volcanic island make the waters around Reunion have the possibility of various deep dives, countless drops are formed at the collision of plates, and huge trenches and cliffs provide a natural guarantee for biodiversity. As the large army rolled over into the sea, I entered another silent but not lonely planet: the colored eel, the moray eel, the parrotfish gracefully displayed their proud figure, and the Nemo clownfish swam past my eyes; perhaps provoked by the flash, the red sea chapter was always hostile to my lens; the six pairs of compound-eyed colored shrimp had been hiding in the exit of the cave and pressing their troops, and its front paws had a toxin that paralyzed the nerves, although not fatal, and I carefully held it across the camera, and finally "forced" it to turn and run ......
The ultimate goal of our trip was to meet the special "visitors"—the herds of humpback whales. 20 meters underwater is a nearly transparent world, humpback whales do not care about humans, even if they are only a few meters away from us, they still maintain a playful, courtship, entanglement, breeding and wandering posture, like a hunk pet that has just escaped from the reins.
"The one named Samy is the navigator of this group of whales. I saw it born in this sea five years ago. Now, it has its own children too. "Peta from Paris has lived in Reunion for 11 years, and apart from soaking in the Institute of Oceanography, his favorite thing to do is swim with the whales." I know almost every whale that passes by. I always wanted to get close to Samy and take a close-up of it, but it always rolled over shyly every time. I think samy is human, and it always inadvertently comes over and rubs my camera and spits out a series of bubbles. "After a few laps of repeated swims in the whale swarm, I finally plucked up the courage to get closer to samy – for divers facing humpback whales for the first time, they are too much like giant beasts floating out of the deep sea. Peta fiddled with the camera in front of me, attracting Samy's attention, and I took the opportunity to sneak aside and take a picture of them: a whale swinging its tail gracefully, revealing a docile and innocent temperament, and in the distance was an endless deep blue, with a group of awe-filled, dumb, human beings.
From the sky, the northwestern part of Reunion Island resembles an unusually striking "clover", scarred natural grabens, all thanks to the Neiri Peak, which first rushed out of the sea. As the initiator of this land, it tirelessly erupted for hundreds of thousands of years before the underground part was "spit out" to the essence, and the empty land around it continued to sink, and after years of weathering and erosion, it gave birth to a rare geological wonder in the world - the ice bucket.
Watching the ice bucket by helicopter can get the most intuitive feeling: the dense jungle as a whole takes on a sunken shape, the waterfalls split and fly down from the valley, and the extremely deep canyons and steep cliffs all highlight the difficult and difficult geographical characteristics of the ice bucket.
The island's three most iconic ice buckets are named after three slave leaders – Mafate, Cilaos and Salazie. In the mid-18th century, some black slaves who could not bear the torture fled into the ice bucket and built the "Republic" with natural barriers.
The Silao Ice Bucket is on its way to the summit of Mount Nege. Before 1973, to enter this hinterland surrounded by mountains, you could only walk or take a palanquin, and after the "400 bends" winding road was completed, the situation improved, but the road conditions were frightening. However, well-preserved Creole traditional villages, traditional wooden houses, and colorful roofs also make travelers feel that the trip is worthwhile. In a famous restaurant, several musicians beat unique local instruments, black singers were passionate, two Creole girls danced in skirts... The music, known as maloya, originated in the 18th century when slaves on sugar plantations entertained themselves with heavy labor, and was inscribed on the World Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2009.
In addition to the Creole culture, if you wander around the capital city of St. Denis, travelers can also find Hindu temples, churches, Chinese Guandi temples and mosques, and when the local Chinese celebrate the traditional Guandi Festival, people of other races will also participate, which shows the fusion culture of Reunion Island.
In the afternoon, I left For Silaos because I had to arrive before sunset at caverne dufour, the closest hotel to the summit and the only mountain chalet that protected me from cold winds and low temperatures, so I booked a bed and a simple dinner six months in advance. Despite having only 12 rudimentary beds, the campsite is extremely sought-after online, especially during the high travel seasons in October and November.
Three hours before dawn, I jumped up and began my final sprint to the "top of the Indian Ocean". In the darkness of the night, the volcano reveals its truest existence, the undisturbed emptiness is bottomless, and the occasional meteor that flies attracts the cries and whispers of the land elves. Lying on the volcanic rock at the top of Neiri Peak, I watched the vast starry sky above me transition to the warm morning sun, carefully smearing all those fleeting colors on my face.
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Lotto Travel Network and Media Column: China National Tourism Released: 2018.02.23