I have spent most of today driving up and down mountains, in and out of Creole villages and over old lava flows in a car the size of a golf buggy. The first stop was a town up in one of the "Cirques" (a valley surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs rising to 3,000 ft high) called Hell Bourg. Apparently Mr. Hell was a French governor who also occupied the island of Nosy Be in Madagascar (my next stop).
Reunion is renowned for its active volcano, but I use the term loosely. It is a hole in the middle of a collapsed crater that could spurt lava at any time, but especially not while I was there watching it. Still the crater and the lava plains and flows down to the ocean are simply surreal sparking all those conspiracy theories about Apollo NOT actully landing on the moon.