March 3rd, 2023 Day 59 of 128

La Possession, Reunion

Today we visted France. Well kind of. It is a French territory and under the control of the French government. We are in Reunion. Another country I have never visited before. We were up and ready to head out by 7:30am. Megan got a few bug bites yesterday on our excursion and I thought I had escaped without any. But I woke up this morning and during my sleep about 30 bites became irritated and I woke up itching. So a new part of our morning routine for the next few weeks, when we are in ports, will be head to toe insect repellant. At least this one doesn’t smell too bad. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the Lido and then headed to the Main Stage. Like yesterday there was technical difficulties but they were resolved quickly and efficiently and we were off on our excursion in no time at all. There are four buses doing the same excursion as us today but we are visiting our spots in different orders so we will not all be at one place at one time. We had a wonderful guide today who shared so much information about Reunion and it’s history and culture. Megan diligently took notes all morning and has a wonderful record of all the things we learned. I brought my crocheting and was able to get some work done on my blanket while we drove around in the bus from stop to stop. We saw so many beautiful waterfalls. The best words I could use to describe this side of the island is lush. Much like Hawaii it has a dry side where they get little rain and then the wet side where it almost always rains. This was the wet side and the amount of green was breathtaking. We had a chance to visit a couple of small communities and do some shopping. There were many patisseries and we bought a baguette and ate the whole thing just the two of us. It was delicious. We had a lovely lunch and were served fresh juice, very strong rum punch, wine and variety of local food all served family style. One of our table mates grabbed a photo of our group and I’m glad we have that memory to keep. Our last stop was at a vanilla plantation. We have previously visited a couple of them now and that freed us to spend more time playing with the family dogs and relaxing while everyone learned how they cultivate and grow vanilla. It was a long day, another eight hour excursion today. We got back to the ship shortly after 4:30pm. When we arrive back to the port we had to actually get off the bus with all our purchases, go through a customs building and verify we were ship passenger by showing our key card, then we reboarded our bus and it took us the short distance further to the ship. It was something I had not experienced before, but we do what we are told when we are traveling abroad. Shortly after we got back to the room an announcement was made by the captain. There is a cyclone right in our path hanging out off the coast of Madagascar and unfortunately it was decided that it would be unsafe for us to visit there so we are not going to have our port of call there. In the photo below you can see the cyclone and the yellow boat represents the path we were supposed to take. The red boat is our new route bypassing Madagascar. So that port will have to be for another day, cruise and time. So we will now have four days at sea until we reach Maputo. We are expecting some rough seas in the days ahead so we will be rocking and rolling along. I am looking forward to a few sea days and it will give Megan and I a chance to pack for our upcoming Safari. We are going to spend two nights off the ship and then fly to meet up with the ship ahead of where we got off. It is called an overland tour and this will be our first time doing this through the excursion department on board. We actually have a meeting tomorrow to learn more about what to pack, how to prepare and what to expect. So happy they are doing that for us. Happy weekend to you all back at home. Hope you do something amazing and memorable the weekend. Hugs and Love from us to you.