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Réunion

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Where Weavers Nest

This tree was not afflicted by some strange disease: "Village weavers" — little yellow birds we got to see on both Mauritius and Réunion islands — had made it their home.

Vanilla Siesta

The secret of the French island of Réunion"s vanilla lies in its drying stage: the beans are laid out in the sun and intermittently put to rest in the shade.

Nature Calls

There's a waterfall on the French island of Réunion that flows directly from the mountainside onto the road. Hence its, well, original name. And it looks like this tourist took it quite literally.

Mighty Piton

Don't let it fool you: The roads that lead to the Reunion Island"s Piton de la Fournaise (in the background) may be barren and stunningly quiet — but the volcano is one of the most active in the world. Just two years before we went there, the March 1998 eruption lasted 196 days, and le Volcan as they call it there still shows signs of activity once or twice a year.

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Sweet Past

At the end of the 19th century, Saint-Leu's Stella Matutina sugarcane factory employed some 250 Indian, Cafre and Malagasy workers. It closed its doors in 1978 and has now been turned into a museum. The loading platforms are still functional — a token of the French island's once flourishing sugar economy.

Réunion
Cécile Deffontaines

Jaws, Revisited: Series Of Shark Attacks Haunts Reunion Island

"They're going to need a bigger island..." Surfers on this Indian Ocean island are (mostly) staying out of the water after the fourth deadly attack. Up close, very close, with those targeted.

SAINT-LEU - It rose from the abyss like a colossus, zeroing in on its target. “I can still see the eye and mouth, right here, 50 centimeters (20 inches) away from me. He was chewing on my shin.”

Yes, Fabien Bujon looked death straight in the eye off the coast of the Indian Ocean island of Reunion: it came in grey and copper-like skin, with a white belly and a ferocious glare. A real life “Jaws.”

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