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.