How about going back in time?
I went to Cilaos with some friends and we spent the night in “Ilet des Chicots”. To get there you have take a very winding road that will take you to Cilaos City (the road has 400 turns) then take a very narrow road. Between the winding and the area of the road where two cars can’t pass each other you have to park the best way you can in the few areas designed for parking. We ended up on a beautiful plateau after walking up some stairs, it was overlooking the road and offered an amazing view of “le Cirque de Cilaos” as well as “le Piton des Neiges”.
In Reunion Island the “ilet” are small villages with very few houses located in a cirque. In “Ilet des Chicots” there is only one house, it has a small dormitory, a kitchen and a dining room. There is no electricity and but there is running water, the owner is using a generator to power the lights and I guess he takes the water from a small river running higher in the mountain. A shower and toilets are located not too far away from the house and there are 3 individual bedrooms looking like wooden tents.
We were in this amazing place frozen in time and far away from the world even though the road was 5 minutes away. People were still living there 2 generations ago. They had chickens, goats and cultivated the land. In the family that owns the place the sons make medicine from herbs. They created terraces around the plateau and planted different kind of plants. When you stay there you get to have a tour and they will explain which plants are good and which ones are dangerous.
This is the perfect place to leave everyday life behind for a few days. Those who are afraid to be cut off completely should know that there is perfect cell phone coverage over there.
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