Smoking Skills

This video mixes 2 things i like a lot: beat boxing and anti-smoking PSA.



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Le Cirque De Mafate Day1

Last week-end we went to le cirque de mafate, it is an amazing place that you must deserve. To enjoy this place you have to go on a 4 hour hike on the way in and a 6 hour hike on the way out.


Piton Carre

To reach the start of the trail leading inside le cirque you have to ride a 4x4 in the bed of la rivière des galets. In this time of year the river is very small so the drivers can bring the hikers to the beginning of the track but during the raining season the river gets stronger and carries anything that goes in it. The 4x4 are all pickup trucks which are normally forbidden to take anyone in their rear cargo but everybody does it. There is a watchman at the entrance to the river and to avoid getting caught you just need to drop some people along the river, they will walk to the dirt track while the driver goes through the official access where the watchman will gladly stay under his tree instead of writing down the number of persons each driver is bringing in. Once inside we get the people left on the side and we go on our way.


Piton des Calumets

The hike in le cirque de mafate is not that difficult but you still have to walk for four hours. On the way you get to see the piton cabri, le piton carre, le piton maido and le piton des calumets. Just before lunch break we had to walk that really steep track, my poor body worked so much that I could feel my heart beat extremely strong. On the way we went through Cayenne, a small town where only 30 people live (5 families), on this place the electricity is only solar. The water comes through small pipes hidden under the dirt tracks and connected to huge plastic tanks in a higher location in le cirque. The families will shop together and use a chopper to bring the goods; the chopper brings what has been ordered and returns with the garbage, it can lift up to 800kg. The inhabitants are growing corn, beans and manioc, it is nice to see corn being grown at such a height.


Piton Maido

The last part leading to the cottage is very also steep, it feels like you have to really work to get to relax afterwards, I feel like I am losing the pounds I lost in Kiribati and got back since I have been here. The gite Pavillon is in the middle of nowhere, there are solar panels everywhere as well as batteries to store the energy. There is a shop and even a bakery where the owner makes his own bread; in the shop you can see that being in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean being disconnected, there is a satellite decoder, a credit card reader, the laptop has a 3G USB key for high speed internet access and if you are bored you can play a game on the Playstation 2. There is too much food for diner but it is so good that you just can’t stop eating, you feel like you won’t have space for breakfast in the morning but at least you know you will have the necessary strength to walk 6 hours.


Gite Pavillon


Piton Cabri


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BBC Winter Olympics

I didn't get to see the winter olympics during my stay in Kiribati so i found this nice BBC video to cheer me up.



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My Sound Of The Day

Something very mellow: DJuma Soundsystem - Les DJinns (Trentemoller Rmx).




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Nothing To Do This Week-end

Last week-end as Thursday was a holiday I managed to get Friday free to get a 4 day week-end. During this week-end, we have seen what it means to be in a place where you can do a lot of things yet you spend most of your time at the beach.


Le Cirque de Mafate

My wife and I had everything planed: scuba diving, paragliding, hiking and chopper tour. There is so much to see in La Reunion that we really have to optimize our schedule while we are here. I wanted to start the week-end with some scuba diving but on Thursday morning I got a call from the diving centre saying that no diving expeditions were possible because the sea was much too rough. It was supposed to be like that all week-end long so absolutely no diving for me that week-end. We went to the beach instead.


Le Trou de Fer

On Friday we woke up around 8 PM to go get a scooter. To go paragliding we had to drive to the launching pad, but on the way to get the scooter we found a text received at 7:50 PM saying that there would be no paragliding that day because of too much wind. We used to scooter to go to Saint Leu where the Leu Tempo Festival was happening, it was a festival of street shows but none of the interesting attractions were taking place when we were in the city so we decided to go to the beach. The sand was so thin that it was like silk under our feet, we took some with us in a bottle it will look like in our living room.


Le Piton de la Fournaise

Once home in the evening we received a call from our hiking partner saying that there were chances that we would get some rain on the way to le piton de la fournaise because the weather was changing very fast. As we had been quite lucky so far we decided not to go hiking but there was absolutely no drop of rain on Saturday on the way to le piton de la fournaise. We went to the garden of eden in L’ermitage a beautiful botanical garden where you can see a chameleon if you are lucky; we finished the day on the beach in l’ermitage were the lagoon is quite wide. The current are so strong in the lagoon because of the rough sea that you could hardly stand straight in the water. My foot still remembers kicking in some coral while I was trying to keep my balance.


L'endormi

Finally on Sunday, we woke up at 5:45 PM to catch a bus to get to the heliport. We got to see the sun rise on the heliport before boarding the chopper four a trip around the island. We went over le cirque de Mafat, le cirque de Salazie, le trou de fer, la foret du piton papangue, la riviere des marsouins, la plaine des palmistes, le piton de la fournaise, la plaine des cafres, la foret de berbour, le cirque de cilaos, le piton des neiges and le piton Maido. This trip lasted 45 minutes and was amazing even if expensive. The chopper ride complete erased all the things we couldn’t do during the week-end and we concluded the day on the beach in Boucan Canot. This week-end lasts 3 days, let’s hope that there will be no cancellations.


Le Piton Maido


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My Sound Of The Day

Nothing better for me than to be in a restaurant or a bar listening to some music i like, it will always be a pleasure to go ask what is being played to get it at home. This way when i listen to the peace i will remember where i was and what i was doing when i listened to it for the first time: Mark Rae - Lavish Feat Veba (Deadbeats Remix).




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Can’t Go To Work

Last Monday I had to work in the evening; as I live in Saint-Gilles and I was supposed to work in Le Port I ordered a taxi to come and pick me up at my place.



I stepped out around midnight to go get my taxi but there was nothing waiting for me outside. Ten minutes later istill didn’t see any taxi coming. I called the driver and asked where he was, he answered that he tried to call me but it would never connect. He thought it was a prank mostly because I asked him to meet me in front of a bar right in front of where I live. I told him that I really needed a taxi and that he should hurry to come and get me but he didn’t seem motivated: he was afraid I would not be there. I explained that I didn’t call him twice the same day not to show up when he would get at the meeting place, he was still not convinced. He asked for my phone number but I just had that number for 4 days and really couldn’t remember the digits. I answered that he should write the numbers appearing on his phone but he countered that no numbers where displayed; that was odd but not impossible. I repeated that he should hurry up because I had other things to do than waste time talking to him instead of being at work, it finally convinced him to move.



We set up a meet in a place he knew in the city and he asked me again to be at the meeting place before hanging up. I confirmed that I would be waiting for him, hung up and 2 minutes later he called back to remind me two wait for him. I could have sworn he told me my phone number didn’t appear on his phone… In the end I was 45 minutes late at work, one thing is for sure the next time I work at night I will rent a scooter.


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Two Men Rape Another

I have been in La Reunion less than a week and I really like it here. Two days ago I have read a great story in the newspaper.

« Last 6th and 7th of March, three guys were playing cards in a neighbourhood of Saint Paul. The game ended in the middle of the night after a lot of bottles were emptied. The victim left the game and went through a small street were he fell on the ground completely drunk. The two guys he was playing cards with, almost as drunk as he was, found nothing better to do than to remove his trousers and take a bottle. The man woke up the next day in a hospital with a sick leave of 21 days. »
The only question I ask myself about this is: what can possibly go through your head so that when you see someone lying on the ground you think about sticking a bottle in his...




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