La Réunion - a full two weeks

My apologies. I was sleepy and sloppy in my first post from La Réunion and got the days of the week mixed up: arrived on Thursday, Hell-Bourg and Ste. Suzanne on Friday (east), St. Philippe and the southern coast on Saturday.
Sunday, we needed our rest and the Thomas clan arrived early in the afternoon. They needed their rest, too.

Cirque de Mafate

Monday morning, Paul, Anne, and I had our helicoptor tour of the island. It's splendid. Our tour took off from behind St. Paul. The company is Helilagon. There is another company based closer to us at l'Ermitage, Corail, and they seem to be just as good. We had scheduled the 7:00 tour because we had been told that one must do it very early so as not have the view obscured by clouds. It turned out that they rescheduled us for 8, which we only found out because we also discovered they would pick us up at our hotel at no extra charge and I phoned to arrange that. The pick-up was at 7:20 and when we arrived at the héliport, we discovered the 7:00 people and the 8:00 all still waiting for the all clear signal.

Take off for our group of 6 was at about 8:30 and the sky was wonderfully clear. We flew over St. Paul and picked up altitude to enter the Cirque de Mafate via the Maïdo peak. From there, we dipped into the Cirque. The cirque is one of the three caved-in calderas of the Piton des Neiges volcano, the one that has been dormant for long enough for people to feel safe living in the cirques. The Cirque de Mafate is only accessible on foot or by helicopter. There are villages on the plateaus that are separated from one another by deep gorges and the cirque is surrounded by almost vertical walls. The inhabitants voted against having a road built along the canyon entrance and against having electricity brought in. As far as electricity is concerned, they were right, because now, they all have solar panels and do not need the heavy installations. Mafate was originally settled by run away slaves. Apparently one was called Mafate and in Malgache, that means either "qui pue" (who stinks) or "qui tue" (who kills). Once the run aways made it into the cirque, no one really bothered trying to capture them. They were followed, later, by the poor second or third sons of planter families, and by Chinese shop keepers.
From Mafate, we went over to the Cirque de Salazie, which we had driven through the week before. It's so much greener! It's canyon entrance is on the eastern side of the island, where all the rain comes from. Still, in spite of being on the rainy side, the waterfalls are just trickles this year.

Turning south we flew over the Piton de la Fournaise, the active volcano, although there's no activity right now. There's a valley, a plain between the two volcanos and we could see the large farms.
And then over les trois Salazes into the Cirque de Cilaos, not quite as confined as Mafate, because there is a road and electricity, but still signs of rugged living.

Les Trois Salazes 

Tuesday, we (quite a group, now) made our way back to Ste. Philippe to visit the Jardin des Parfums et Epices. That was a beautiful visit. I recommend it. The guidebooks say you need to reserve for the guided tour, and you do. That said, they accept too big a crowd on a tour, so you kind of wonder if they do have a limit. Our tour was the 10:30, but by the time they got us all rounded up it was getting closer to 11 and they had opened a tour for 11, so, since there seemed to be fewer people on the 11:00 tour, we switched. It was well worth the wait; our tour guide was the owner! Of course, there's vanilla, curcuma, ginger, mangoes, papayas, bananas, and more. There's so much more, if you go, take notes in order to remember it all. The tour is an hour and a half, but ours seemed to go on a bit longer. The parents of small children dropped out a bit half way through because it's just too much information and stationary pauses. For those of us unhindered by babies, it was an enlightening tour.

 This hole in the ground is what is left when the lava cools around a hardwood tree. The tree burns slowly enough for the lava to cool around it. Once the tree has burned away, the hole is left. This is useful to determine the depth of the lava flow. It is also useful as a natural toilet. The people would choose to build their houses near two such holes, so that when one filled up, they could use the second, until the first had composted, and so on.

Notre Dame des Laves

NWhen we left the garden, we drove past the Grande Coulée, to the east coast. At Sainte Rose, there is this church, now called Notre Dame des Laves. In 1977, a new caldera formed outside the Piton de la Fournaise enclosure and its lava flowed into Sainte Rose, stopping just in front of the church (and a little around the sides). It scalded the building but that was all the damage done! A miracle! The rest of the town was pretty much destroyed and has been rebuilt on top of the lava flow. They've cut steps in the flow for access to the church. 

We continued up the east coast, to Sainte Anne, where we cut across to the road that cuts through the plain between the volcanoes. The "plaine des palmistes" is not as flat as its name sounds. The road winds up and down between the pitons. It's agricultural country. Towards the southern end, it's much more urban and less interesting. As the road descends to St. Pierre, the villages are named for the number of kilometers to St. Pierre: Dix-neuvième, Quatorzième, Onzième. I must say that in the metropolis, there are not so many pharmacies and medical centers or service stations. The roads here are in excellent condition.

On Thursday, we drove up to the top of Maïdo to the viewing rampart for the view into the Cirque de Mafate. It's a beautiful drive. And there are some magnificent views. I envy the hikers that go into the Cirque. There are places to eat and even spend the night. We are no longer up to such hiking. I hope that some of my friends who do hike and who read this blog will consider it as a future destination!

We came back via St. Paul. This is the first capital of La Réunion. It's a big town, but not as big as St. Pierre, and certainly no as big as St. Denis. There are only a couple of shopping streets. There's also a market on Fridays and Saturdays, but this was on Thursday. We did stop for lunch. And we stopped along the coastal road on the way to St. Gilles. In fact, it turned out to be where we stopped on our return from the wedding on Saturday, at Cap La Houssaye.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were taken up with the wedding activities. Monday was Anne's last day with us. We did not feel like doing very much. It wasn't really a nice day for the beach, either. We has lunch at Salines-les-Bains and then spent the latter part of the afternoon with Louis, Gwen, and Sacha, who came over to our hotel for a dip in the pool. We then took Anne to the airport..

Le Marché Couvert at Célaos

Tuesday was a nice morning, so we headed south, along the coast, to St. Louis, where we turned and went into the Cirque de Cilaos. It's a beautiful drive, but there are too many S curves to count. You don't have the impression you are going up a mountain because you keep going up and down, following the meander of the river. There are villages here and there, not along the road, but always a little distance off. There are staircases carved into the rock along the road that lead to paths to get to the isolated farms. There are hiking paths to take hikers into the Cirque de Mafate and the Cirque de Salazie.
At the town of Cilaos, there is a little covered market with local produce: melons, lentils, mangoes, peaches, wine, ... and some local crafts, like the embroidery. Further along the road, at the end, is the Ilet à Cordes, on the opposite side of the cirque.

Célaos embroidery

Wednesday was another rather lazy day, spent pleasantly with the Thomas clan. It rained during lunch.
There was a big storm during the night but we woke up to a beautiful morning and decided to take one last drive. We went back to St. Louis to see the Museum of Decorative Art of the Indian Ocean. What a disappointment! The site is an old coffee plantation, Maison Rouge, and they've started cultivating the rare café bourbon again. A small tin of the coffee, 125gr., costs €22! We would have loved to taste a cup of coffee (€2) but the snack bar was closed. The museum exhibit was of Chinese furniture and porcelain that the locals imported -- very beautiful, but nothing made locally. We didn't stay long. We read the posters describing the particularity of Boubon coffee and the life and death of the coffee market in La Réunion. After this very brief visit we got back into the car and decided to see where the little road ended. That was a drive on a little road cut through the fields -- fields of sugar cane, bananas, a bit of pineapple, and more. Some banana plots were empty of fruit; others had fruit already in bags, but still hanging from the plant; and others had tiny fruit just starting. Some of the cane has already been cut, but there is plenty left. We saw four workers in one field cutting. These hillside fields are not good for mechanical harvesting. This agricultural path led to the Department road 3, slightly wider. Beautiful. There's a break in the road, though, where we had to go down the mountain to cross the ravine and then go back up to the D3, which is marked in green from this point on to indicate it is picturesque. Well, the preceding portion was very picturesque, but this bit, which runs parallel to the main highway, but at about 800m. altitude, all the way to St. Paul, has house on each side. We could imagine that there must be nice views of the coast from time to time, but since we were caught in a cloud, we couldn't see. Tired of all the twisting and turning, we called it a day and returned to l'Ermitage.
Tomorrow, we hope to go to the St. Paul market. It's a big tourist attraction. Almost all the Réunion souvenirs are made in Madagascar, though. I hope it's not a tourist trap. We also want to see the Sailors' cemetery. We've passed by it several times and this time we want to stop.

On to La Réunion

Louis and Gwen are getting married! In La Réunion! Not many of the Lebelle side are going to be here. In fact, it's just Paul, Anne, and me. Claire just gave birth to Constance, and besides, Aurelia just started school and can't really be taken out outside school holidays. Emma is just getting down to work on her house and taking time for a trip to La Réunion. It's a long way and merits a long stay. (wikipedia article in English, in French)
Today, Sunday, is a day of rest. At least, the morning is supposed to be. The rest of the family, Louis, Gwen, Sacha and the whole Thomas side, arrive later this morning.
It's a night flight. Taking any flight from Orly suggests an exotic destination, much more so than leaving from CDG. There are no lines; there are crowds. We got to the airport a full three hours before the scheduled departure and the crowd in front of our check-in zone was so big that we didn't see there was a sign for a line for people who had their boarding passes already. We just got into the crowd that slowly became a line for check-in and in over an hour, we were checked-in. I wonder what time the first people in the check-in line got there. We went straight through to the security check and came out at the other end in about half an hour. Our flight was already announced with a delay, so we had time to get a little something to eat. It was already 8:30 and who knew when we'd get our flight dinner! Our Corsair flight was on a recently refurbished 747. It looked and felt new, very comfortable, but we didn't really leave the gate until after 10:30 and it was past midnight by the time dinner came, so it was a good thing we had had a bite beforehand. There's a two hour time difference with La Réunion, so it was about 10:00 a.m. when we arrived on Wednesday morning.
For some odd reason, the local travel agency did not have our voucher for the car, but apparently that happens a lot; our car was indeed reserved and waiting for us, but it was almost noon by the time we got it.
Needless to say, we were a bit tired on arriving at l'Ermitage, just south of St. Gilles, on the west coast of the island. We walked over to the beach, had lunch, and then collapsed for a few hours.
We walked over to the shops and got some breakfast things and some pasta for an eventual dinner in. There is a bit of sticker shock when in the supermarket; almost everything is imported from metropolitan France, but even local produce seemed expensive. Back to the beach for the sunset and back to the studio for a light dinner and plan for our first real day.

Thursday morning, we headed to the west coast and inland from St. André to Salazie and on to Hell Bourg on the rim of the Cirque de Salazie. (photo) The cirques here are really the calderas of extinct volcanoes. This volcano is the Piton des Neiges, which has been sleeping several thousand years. The other one, the Piton de la Fournaise is still very active, almost annually! The landscape changes dramatically as you drive up the dry west coast, past St. Denis, and down the lush east coast. The rain comes from the east. All the towns along the coast around the island seem to be Saint something or other. They were founded by the French. Other towns, inland, have more picturesque names. Something that is striking about this island is that it is rather big, but was totally uninhabited when the French arrived in the 17th century. It, along with Mauritius, Rodrigues, and the Seychelles, are far enough west of Madagascar and east of Australia or southeast of India, that no one had ever settled there. So, the French didn't take it from anyone. No previous civilization was extinguished. The French Compagnie des Indes created the first outposts and then planters and slaves from Africa and Madagascar, followed by low-paid workers from India and China, brought in when the slaves ran off into the cirques -- a rather typical colonization for the period. In addition to the runaway slaves, many second sons, who would not get a piece of the plantation, also went up into the cirques. A few generations along and everyone was a beautiful mix of colors and religions and they had their own créole language.

Hell Bourg was developed in the 19th century as a spa, up in the highlands, away from malaria. It is a pretty little village that has maintained the houses (cases) from the 19th to early 20th century. We visited the Case Folio. It's an interesting guided tour. Isabelle "non-stop" (because you pick up the tour as you arrive and she just keeps going) told us the uses for all the local products: bamboo, different trees, plants, etc. Almost every plant can be used entirely from the leaves to the fruit to the roots, and when no longer productive, the wood.

On our drive back, we stopped in Ste. Suzanne, to visit a vanilla plantation. This is a recent plantation and actually it's a sugar plantation with a vanilla production showcase. The vanilla is grown in the forests. What we saw, here, was just for demonstration purposes. Vanilla is an orchid plant. The flowers, though, only last one day. So the flower has to be pollinated during that day, or there's no vanilla pod. Now, October, is the flowering season, so we got to see how they do it. The technique was invented by a 12-year-old slave, Edmond Albius, in the mid-1800s. He got no compensation other than his master, a botanist, did give him the credit for the invention. Since slavery was finally abolished in 1848, I suppose he didn't have to wait long. It's an interesting visit and a long process for good quality vanilla. The vanilla grows in the forest. It has to be detached from the tree trunk and so that the workers can reach the flowers and then the pods. They have to manually pollinate the flowers (The bees that can do this work are Mexican bees that did not adapt to La Réunion. Vanilla is originally from Mexico.) The pods must be hand harvested as they ripen, just at the right time, 9 months later. The crop is put into baskets and plunged into hot water, not boiling water for 3 minutes. Then, the pods are put into wood trunks and covered with blankets to steam. When they come out of steaming, they have turned brown. They are sun-dried for 6 hours a day, 10 days, and then continue drying in the shade. When they are dry enough (and we were shown how to determine this), they are put into wood trunks to age for a year. During that year, they are inspected regularly in order to throw out any pods that show mildew. After the year, they are sorted by size and tied into bundles and stored away again in wood trunks for further ageing. In all, the process is 2 years. We were cautioned against "fresh" vanilla that hasn't been dried. It looks nicer, but won't last. And the vanilla from Madagascar is sun-dried too long and not aged, so it becomes brittle and doesn't last, either. By this time, one is no longer shocked at the price they are selling their vanilla and is prepared to pay.

Yesterday, we headed south, to St. Pierre and beyond. La Réunion is not yet fully tourist-friendly. There are not many signs to the attractions and it's hard to find street names. St. Pierre is a bustling town with a couple of main shopping streets that measure up to any you would find in any sous-préfecture or préfecture in France. The city hall is located in an old warehouse that belonged to the Compagnie des Indes. We tried to find the market and there was an old colonial house to look at, but the house gates were closed, so we couldn't see it, and the market was on a street we didn't find. We left to visit the rum distillery.
Finding the rum distillery was another adventure because the guidebook did not say which exit to get off the highway and as we were in town, we didn't know from which direction they were giving the little instruction they did. It's a good thing we had a real map and managed to find our way to the main road and finally found signs for the distillery. There, too, is an interesting story about the difference between rum agricole, made directly from sugar cane juice and is more common in the Antilles, and rum traditionnel, made from molasses, which is already a by-product after the juice is separated to make sugar. The bagasse, the fiber, is used to fuel the electricity plants, thus supplying the sugar plants with whatever energy they need and a bit extra for the local grid. They also claim that the sugar cane consumes the entire CO2 production from cars on the island. The guide took us through the distillation process, distillation, condensation, ageing... to tasting and, of course, buying. The specialty on La Réunion is rum "arrangé", with fruit. It's really quite good.

From there, we continued along the southern coast to St. Philippe, where we saw our first lava coastline. The village has been here quite some time, so whatever flow created the beautiful hillside and coast, it was a long time ago. We had a very good lunch at La Bicyclette Gourmande. I had a "sauté vanille" -- a mix of lots of vegetables with shrimp (but I could have chosen meat or chicken) in a vanilla sauce, with rice and lentils. Then we had ice cream for dessert, from a local ice cream maker -- a scoop of ginger and honey and another of pralines. Excellent lunch.

After lunch, we continued all the way to the Grande Coulée, the 2007 flow. Plants are just starting to come up. We stopped, on the way, at le Vieux Port, where the forest has grown considerably since the 1986 flow. The floor of the forest is all fern and then there is a variety of trees and other shrubs. It's very tropical, virgin forest -- but young. Anne and I walked all the way down to the ocean. There are some spectacular sights and, a bit further on, a volcanic beach. We didn't go that far.

Finally we got to the Grande Coulée, but we couldn't see the Piton the Fournaise, because, like so many volcanoes, it was shrouded in fog.
On the way back, we stopped at Le Puit des Anglais, a volcanic swimming pool for safe swimming. Looks like fun! And another stop at Le Cap Méchant, more volcanic seaside.

It might sound as if we covered great distances, but really, no, we didn't. We left in the morning at 8:30 and would have been back at 5:30 if we hadn't got caught in a traffic jam at St. Gilles. We quickly turned around and came back to l'Ermitage for our third sunset.

Resumé des vacances en français

On est revenu de Monténégro. Je n'ai pas eu le courage de mettre en français toutes les entrées du blog au fur et à mesure. Voici un résumé :
Paris - Tubingen - Salzburg : La Prius roule vraiment très bien. Elle est confortable après des années de Prévia (qui n'était pas horrible, mais quand même...). En tout cas, il faisait beau et elle roulait si bien, sans avoir besoin de boire, alors au lieu de s'arrêter pour une petite visite à Strasbourg, nous nous sommes retrouvés le soir à Tübingen! On s'était arrêté à Horb, où Paul avait fait ses "classes" pendant son service militaire en '71, mais, à part le fait que c'est toujours une charmante petite ville, il n'y avait pas de quoi s'extasier. Tübingen est charmante, une petite ville universitaire presque entièrement piéton/vélos. Notre GPS nous indiquait un hôtel "Am Schoss" et nous trouvions ça charmant, près du château, mais dans le dédale de rues, il était difficile de nous frayer un chemin "auto". Les allemands sont très friands des asperges et j'ai mangé un menu asperge du début (soupe) jusqu'à la fin (mousse asperges/rhubarbe avec un coulis de framboise). Paul a eu du sanglier avec de la polenta. Nous étions tous les deux très contents. Le lendemain, autobahn vers Munich avec des travaux tout au tour de Munich, pour arriver tôt dans l'après-midi à Salzburg.
Salzburg : une vraie carte postale. Ou le modèle pour Disneyland. Très joli, très baroque. Le décor du film "Le son de la musique". Pour les amateurs de voitures anciennes, nous avons assister à un rallye. Plutôt, il y avait un rallye et où que nous nous promenâmes, nous rencontrions ces voitures. (Un Bescherelle serait le bienvenu, là, je crois.)
Salzburg-Zagreb : un peu d'autobahn, un peu de route de montagne au mois de mai. Les prairies sont toutes fleuries. Sans arrêt en Slovénie, nous sommes arrivés suffisamment tôt pour prendre le tram et nous promener dans la vieille ville quelques heures. Encore un menu asperges!
Zagreb-Dubrovnik : autoroute et route de montagne côtière en Croatie. C'est très joli, mais même le joli devient un peu monotone. Il faut voir cette côte depuis la mer. Les belles petites plages ne semblent accessible que depuis la mer. Sinon, c'est un peu la construction à la Côte d'Azur dans les années 60.
Dubrovnik : Arrivé en fin d'après-midi à Dubrovnik, on s'est laissé guidé par une dame qui nous a loué une chambre en haut de la ville avec une vue magnifique sur la vieille ville. Sauf que la vieille ville est tout blanc et propre avec les toits rouges tous neufs. Mais c'est à voir. Nous y avons passé la soirée et le lendemain matin à faire le tour des remparts, explorer les rues.
Dubrovnik-Herceg Novi : C'est un saut de puce de quelques kilomètres, mais on traverse des frontières. Croatie - Bosnie-Herzégovine - Croatie - Monténégro. L'agence Black Mountain se trouve à la gare routière, facile à trouver. De là, on nous a accompagné à notre appartement à mi-hauteur entre la route du bas et la route du haut. J'ai oublié de dire que tout est à la verticale. Il y a des escaliers entre la mer, la route du bas et la route du haut. Et notre appartement était encore au dernier étage de l'immeuble !
Herceg Novi - petite ballade de découverte. Nous sommes descendus à la mer, direction marina et le bureau principal de l'agence où nous nous sommes présentés à Hayley, l'épouse de Jack. Sa mère était là aussi et elle nous a raccompagné à mi-hauteur, dans la vielle ville, à la place de l'église où se trouve des restaurants et des cafés. Notre première surprise est le prix des repas. A deux, nous avons déjeuné pour environs 20 €. Ensuite, en rentrant chez nous, nous nous sommes arrêtés à un supermarché pour acheter de quoi faire nos petit-déjeuners et légers repas du soir. En tout, environs 11 €.
Le lendemain, nous nous sommes rendu dans le parc de Mt. Lovçen via la baie de Kotor; j'ai grimpé jusqu'au monument du grand poète du pays. Cette baie est magnifique. Alors mercredi, après un café le matin avec Jack (et son fils, Max, 2 ans et demi), nous avons faits une excursion en bateau. Ça a duré toute la journée : la baie, la petite église de Notre Dame de la Rocher au large de Perrast, la ville de Kotor (plus petite que Dubrovnik, mais tout aussi intéressante avec des constructions de toutes les époques depuis la renaissance) et enfin Perrast, une ville presque fantôme du 17è siècle.
Jeudi, une excursion en voiture vers le lac Skadar (Scutari), vers la frontière avec l'Albanie. C'est un paysage très sauvage, très beau. Vendredi, nous sommes restés en ville, à Herceg Novi, à visiter le château (herceg) qui n'est plus très neuf (novi). Il y avait des orages, tellement que Hayley a renoncé à monter déjeuner avec nous. Jack est venu et nous avons pu discuter un peu mieux de ce qu'ils ont déjà accompli et ce qu'ils veulent encore faire. C'est passionnant.
Samedi, il nous est venu l'étrange idée d'aller voir Mostar. On aurait pu faire une petite déviation sur le chemin de retour. Non, on en a fait une excursion de la journée. Il reste encore des traces de balles sur des maisons, mais la plupart des constructions sont soit réparées, soit plus récentes. Le fameux pont est tout neuf. La ville est une grande entreprise touristique : une rue principale qui mène au pont, un peu comme à Mont St. Michel, Lourdes, ou la rue de Steinkerque à Paris. Nous n'avons pas tardé sur place.
Dimanche, excursion au monastère d'Ostrag.
Lundi, promenade à pied dans Herceg Novi, en évitant la pluie.
Le retour : Départ le lendemain sous un déluge. Alors, à propos de ce départ. Notre chère Prius "mange" les cartes d'identité ! Oui ! Arrivé à la frontière, ma carte avait disparu. Alors, il est facile de toujours dire que Ellen perd tout, y compris sa tête. Nous sommes retournés en ville, mais la rue est devenue un torrent et il était dérisoire de penser trouver la carte qui serait tombée par terre. J'avais mon passeport, alors pas de souci pour sortir de Monténégro, mais là, arrivé encore au poste de frontière et c'est la carte de Paul qui avait disparue ! Lui, qui ne perd jamais rien. En cherchant, mon ongle a découvert une fente entre le compartiment où nous avons mis les papiers et la radio, au dessus. Nous sommes convaincus que nos cartes sont parties dans cette fente, mais démonter la voiture serait disproportionné -- et si elles n'y étaient pas....? Nous serions vraiment fous !
Il y a un ferry de Split à Ancone, en Italie, alors plutôt que de continuer sur la route côtière vers Trieste selon notre projet original, nous avons pris ce ferry. Mais nous disposions de quelques heures avant le départ pour découvrir Split.
Nous avions le projet de visiter un peu l'Italie du nord, mais après les prix bas de Monténégro, nous étions d'accord que l'Italie nous semblerait excessivement cher et qu'il serait dommage de finir les vacances avec cette impression. Nous avons pris l'autostrada pour ne le quitter qu'après Turin. Là nous avons pris la route de Mont Cénis. Nous avons eu le temps de nous promener à Chambéry avant le dîner et le lendemain, nous sommes rentrés à la maison.

A whole week flew by - - Une semaine déjà partie !

en français après la version anglaise, sous le trait

It's Sunday. I can't believe it. The week just flew by. Of course Sunday was lost in travel and we got back to Paris early Monday morning. Paul went straight to the office and I went straight to the hospital to have the catheter changed. I ended up having to wait quite a bit, so I did not go home afterwards, but went straight to the FIAP - Jean Monnet, near Denfert-Rochereau, where the STC France general assembly meeting was scheduled for the evening. That gave me the time to space out and actually prepare my treasurer's report. I hardly remember the meeting at all. Going home, I almost got on the wrong R.E.R. and then, on the right one, I almost slept past my stop!
Tuesday, I mowed the lawn. Anne hadn't touched it in the five weeks we were gone. Not her fault - it rained a bit. I could see that from the grass, which was high enough to be spreading fresh seed. That and the laundry.
The rest of the week just slipped by so fast. Met the new neighbors across the street. Met the new babies next door. They are adorable. Born just the day before we left on our trip. Paul and I got to babysit yesterday for a couple of hours. The French tax declarations are ready - just have to log on and get that over with. I even managed to do the I.S.F. declaration (that's for the annual estate tax) but will wait until the very last minute to send that in, since it has to go with a check.
Paul and I had dinner with Laurent's parents to bring them up to date and show them pictures of Emma and Laurent. A pleasant evening at the neighborhood Moroccan restaurant.
I got a note from the lawyer handling the estate business in the States asking me to sign a document and send it back. It looks like that is close to closing. I may be going to the States this summer, again. Erica is organizing a little get-together of some of us orchestra members from high school - nothing big, just 5 or 6 of us. I'd like to go - see Barbara, Bonnie, Gail, Erica and whoever else can make it. That's going to be in mid-August. I have to be back here before the end of the month, when Ken and Sandy are due to arrive. So, I'd like to drop in on the family in Pittsburgh closer to the beginning of the month. I guess that is going to be a project for next week - see if such a trip is doable. Another thing I should do is go over the posts I put up while we were away and add links, edit, correct my French. Just thinking of that has taken all the steam out of me. Better do a French update before I stop completely!
______________________
Une semaine déjà passée. Les vacances sont loins déjà. J'ai vu pas mal d'erreurs à corriger dans mes postes alors je vais essayer de les corriger et aussi de rajouter des liens et des étiquettes. (C'est le moment de m'envoyer vos remarques et corrections !)
La semaine à été pleine d'activité - Paul a repris le chemin du bureau et je n'ai pas chômé de mon côté. J'ai préparé la déclaration d'impôts; il ne reste plus que me logger sur le site.
On a fait la connaissance des bébés à côté - à croquer. On a eu le plaisir de les garder une heure ou deux hier pour permettre au parents d'accompagner l'ainé à la présentation de l'école maternelle.
On a dîné avec les parents de Laurent, histoire de les mettre à jour et monter les photos, car ils ont aussi peu de communication avec lui que nous avec Emma.
Et là, il est déjà dimanche. Mais où est passé cette semaine ?

Uluru (en français)

Cette fois-ci, ça va être plus près de la version originale, car je viens de l'écrire !

Avant de venir ici et après avoir vu tant de documentaires, nous pensions que nous serions peut-être un peu blasé au vu de Uluru (Ayers Rock). Eh bien, non, pas de tout. Comme tout le monde, on a pris des dizaines de photos qu'il va falloir trier pour ne garder que les meilleurs. A chaque tournant, à chaque changement d'ensoleillement, c'est différent.. Soit on bouge, soit on reste sur place, c'est toujours différent. La couleur dominante est le rouge, mais il y a des rainures noires et des trous qui casse la monotonie et laisse travailler l'imagination. A un endroit, il y a un bout de roche qui a glissé, laissant apparaître du gris et beige à l'intérieur et des coulures de rouge à la surface, comme si on avait tout peint et que le peinture se serait trouvé à cour de peinture.

Sur la route depuis Kings Canyon, il y a une autre montage solitaire, le Mont Connor, que nous avons, à première vu, mépris pour Uluru, tout en pensant que c'était drôlement gros pour être encore si loin (plus de 100km.). Une fois le mystère résolu au "point de vue Mt. Connor", nous sommes repartis et Uluru est bien visible de très loin. Cette fois-ci, par contre, on a bien reconnu la forme. Et aussi loin sur la droite est une autres formation qui ressemble à un tas d'œufs. Il s'agit de Kata Tjuta (Les Monts Olgas) et notre impression d'œufs n'était pas trop loin car cela correspond bien à l'histoire de la création locale selon les Anangu (Aborigènes, dans leur langue).

Il y a quelque chose dans ces histoires de création qui sont très similaires aux histoires de la création dans la tradition Navajo. Je me demande si quelqu'un aurait fait une étude comparative entre les histoires des aborigènes en Australie et le amérindiens.

Sur la route ici, nous avons vu des chameaux (dromadaires, pour être précis) qui mangeait dans les arbres. Nous savions qu'il y a des chameaux sauvage (On en a importé en Australie au milieu du 19è siècle et des échappés se sont multiplié. Ils sont environ 500 000.) et nous avions suspecté qu'ils étaient peut-être les animaux qui laissaient de si grosses traces de leur passage et en si grande quantité.

Nous avons aussi remarqué un arbre, que j'avais pris, à première vu, pour un pin. L'arbre mature ne ressemble pas à l'arbre jeune. Il commence sa vie comme une arbuste en forme de goupillon pour biberons – tout couvert de feuilles. Au fur et à mesure qu'il pousse, il continue à porter ses feuilles sur tout le tronc (des feuilles tellement fin et long que je les prenait pour des aiguilles de pin). C'est ce qui lui donne son apparence d'arbuste. Enfin, vers 4 ou 5 mètres de haut, il perd les feuilles vers le bas de son tronc et commence à former ses branches, mais c'est encore un arbre fin. Ensuite, à maturité, les branches prennent forme et les feuilles ne poussent qu'à leurs extrémités. C'est enfin un arbre, une espèce de chêne. Ce que je croyait être des pommes de pin sont, parait-il, des glands en bouquet.

Nous avons fait le tour d'Uluru et presque tout un tour autour de Kata Tjuta. Nous avons vu le coucher de soleil sur Uluru hier soir et le lever ce matin. Nous avons passés un bon moment au centre culturel, qui est très bien fait. Je sais que je comprends mieux les Anangu (Aborigènes). J'aurais voulu marcher un peu plus, mais ce n'est pas un bon jour pour moi, alors j'ai eu le temps d'écrire et de charger les photos sur la clé USB. Cet après-midi, repos et demain, Sydney, où on retrouve Emma et Laurent.