Wednesday, June 30, 2010
My Sound Of The Day
I really like lounge music, here is a very good exemple: Be Noir - Let The Sun Goes Down With Me.
La suite!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Castle Lite
Why not use two old "hip-hop legends" to sell beer in South America. Here are 2 videos with Vanilla Ice.
This one is with MC Hammer.
La suite!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Last Week-end
Everything comes to an end and it is time for me to leave La Reunion. It is a little bit sad but I will have the pleasure to go back to Paris and return to my nice apartment.
I have organized a great last week-end. I will start by going scuba diving, I hope I will have the chance to see some sea turtles and stingrays. I will then spend most of the afternoon doing nothing on the beach with a colleague to improve my sun tan. The evening will start with diner on a terrace and end on the dance floor till early in the morning. Sunday morning I will go mountain bike hiking and I hope I will not fall on the ground to often because I will not have slept enough.
To conclude the week-end properly I will spend Sunday afternoon in Le Grand Boucan. It the big carnival of Saint Gilles, there is a parade with costumed people, there are concerts, the Dodo king will be burned and fireworks will end the day. It will be nice to take pictures of the parade and meet a lot of people. Have a nice week-end.
La suite!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
My Sound Of The Day
The day i listenend to that song i couldn't get the tune out of my head all day long: Audio Bullys - Only Man. The video is in the complete post.
La suite!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Music Celebration
Every June 21st we French celebrate music, anyone feeling like playing something can go in the street and start playing all day and all night long. I hit the streets hoping to find some good music and have a good time.
Music is not celebrated on June 21st in La Reunion, it is celebrated the week-end before to allow everyone to enjoy the party as much as possible. It is a good idea but it kills a little bit the original idea of celebrating music on the first day of summer. You end up having almost no music to listen to outside on the 21st because the celebration already happened and most people are back in there routine. Saint Gilles is considered the Saint Tropez of La Reunion, it is nice and quite little town were everything is expensive for no reason. I expected the 21st to be a little bit lively but it was dead. To be fair there was a live band in a bar on the beach and a DJ was mixing in a bar on the main street. I thought that the music celebration in Tahiti was the worst but Saint Gilles is in fact the worst place for this celebration.
will have to go and see how music is celebrated in Europeans countries, it is certain that it will be better than in Tahiti and Saint Gilles.
La suite!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Amnesty International Russian Dolls
A video to remind ourselves that our beautiful world isn't always a nice place to live in.
La suite!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sports Anywhere and Anytime
This island is a real paradise for athletes, for anyone who doesn’t like staying indoors you really have the opportunity to work your body.
Scuba diving is for me the number one sport anywhere I am on the planet because it the most relaxing activity I know. To be in this calm universe is a real pleasure even though you find yourself 20 meters underwater relying on a metal bottle with air inside. I get a little bit scared before each dive and I have already done 25 dives but it disappears as soon as I hit the water. One of my favourite moments is when I release the air inside my jacket to start going into the depth of the sea. You can either grab the rope going done, let yourself fall or you can use your palms to go down fast. I love to let myself fall, you feel like you are hovering even though the water is not holding you at all. Once down there the show is never twice the same, there is no routine during a dive.
I have discovered paragliding on the island, this is one of those things you tell yourself you will do one day but the opportunity never comes. With time you are not disappointed never trying it but you miss something really interesting. When you are on the launching deck and the instructor explains what has to be done to take off, you can't help but look at other people take off or crash. Taking off looks fairly easy and it is: once the wing is up you need to run even though you feet don't touch the ground anymore. If you stop running when your feet don't touch the ground, there is a possibility that the wind may not be strong enough to carry you, you will then fall back to the ground but with no traction you will fall and tumble in the grass with your instructor. I assure you it is a really funny thing to see! Once you are soaring in the air you are comfortably sited and you can fully enjoy the sight, the only sounds you will be hearing are the wind and your digital camera when you take pictures. What can I say except that you really feel good up there and you wish that the flight would last much longer.
I tried mountain bike hiking last week-end and I loved it. You drive to Piton Maido which is 2000 meters high and you have to go down riding the bike going through mountain trails, fields and the forest. You will go from small mountain path with rocks and mud to tracks covered with grass full of dew which are very slippery, you will end up in the middle of a sugar cane field or on a narrow trail with brambles left and right that you have to avoid. I fell 7 times during the ride down but that doesn't mean I didn't have fun. Sadly I couldn't take pictures during the ride but I am working on it. If everything goes well I will have I mounted camera on my forehead next time I will go mountain bike hiking, I can't wait.
I think it would be possible to hike for at least 15 days non stop on the island. The terrain is such that there are all kinds of hikes for every kind of hikers. Still it is important to know your hiking level, the hike to le piton de la fournaise is 2h30 one way and 3h00 back; when you meet people on the way and ask them if the hike is long they will answer that it last 2 hours and forget that you have to walk back. This hike can be all the more hazardous because you are at such heights that you will need a sweater because it can be chilly and you will need sunscreen because the sun is very strong up there. Even though you will need 5h30 to complete the hike you will meet people who will make it in less than 4 hours.
I have only covered the sports I have tried on the island. Running, cycling, surfing and windsurfing are also popular here. There is so much to try here that you have to make so choices, this week-end I should have tried canyoning but it was cancelled, it is only postponed.
La suite!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Le Cirque De Mafate Day2
Today we have to walk for 6 hours so we better be in shape. We will not walk our way back with the same trail we took coming in, it would make the hike to easy and this will allow us to discover the place a little bit more.
Cayenne
Yesterday we walked 700 meters up and 200 meters down, today we will walk 800 meters up and 1300 meters down. My knees will do a lot of working. On the way we went through Ilet a Bourse, Ilet a Malheur and Aurere; you see schools, helipads, bars, cottages and a doctor’s office. Even though those towns are lost in the mountain they are everything but dead, some families have been leaving there for a very long time and they would leave this place for nothing in the world.
The families have for ancestors a group of people called les marrons, they were slaves who fled in the mountains. During slavery time the masters would send their slaves to get some ice in the highest part of the mountains, they had to find a way with almost nothing to get where the ice was. One day some of them decided to go have a look at what lies beyond the top and discovered this remote place; from that day on many slaves tried to flee in le cirque de mafate. Of course that wasn’t as easy as one could believe, the police and some hired hunter hunted les marrons; as they had to bring back proof that they had killed the fugitive and they didn’t want to carry the body it is said that the hunters would cut the hears of the dead fugitive to bring back as trophies. This story would explain why the Creole people would call the people coming from France les zoreilles (the hear people).
Ilet a Bourse
As it is only possible to get in le cirque de mafate by foot or with a chopper most people coming to le cirque are hiking, doctors or teachers; this leads to the fact that the people leaving in this area are all cousins. With time most couples are inbred and there is not much that can be done to solve this problem. You can’t force people to leave, you can ask people to come live in le cirque but life there is not for everyone, you can’t tell people not to have kids because in time there would be no more inhabitants.
Zoiseau Couillon
Thankfully there is a much better solution to the problem. During the 2 days we were hiking we have been passed by youngsters who were literally running on the trail as we were struggling to keep our walking pace. On Sunday they were running much slower because they hadn’t slept much, they had drunk a lot of non water and had smoked anything but regular smokes. When we got to Ilet a Malheur we saw the rest of a music festival, everyone from the music players to the music fans had to come on foot. With this kind of event the ilet inhabitants have more chance to meet new people hence reducing the number of cousins in the area.
There is only one bad thing about this hike. Once you are back where you have to get on the 4x4 to return to the city, you can clearly see that there are far more hikers than available seats. The drivers accept anyone in order to maximize profits so you end up standing on the cargo during the 10km drive in la riviere des galets which is very dangerous. I really don’t like putting myself in arms way just because an asshole can’t abide by the rules. But I don’t have a choice because it is strictly forbidden to walk that road and the best thing is that I pay for that.
La suite!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
My Sound Of The Day
Today is mashup day, you have to guess the songs:
- Arty Fufkin - Crazy Logic
- Synchronoize - Acceptable American
- ComaR - I Want You D.A.N.C.E.
La suite!
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