We spent the weekend and Monday planning. I found a bunch of cool activities and J attempted to work out bus routes to them. By Sunday afternoon we caved in and decided to rent a car. You can get to most places in Reunion by bus, but because there are several different companies most trips take several hours. We can get to a couple nearby cities, but not to many of the places we want to go. We had already committed to a cooking class on Wednesday and the taxi for that alone was going to be 180 euros. So we rented a car for Wednesday through Saturday for 100 euros. We then mapped out how to get the most use from it and see as much as possible. After we return it we'll do a couple more things either by bus or within walking distance. Monday was spent with longer term planning. We needed to book a ticket out of Madagascar, since that's one of the things they want to see upon entry. The trouble is, you can't really get anywhere from Madagascar. We finally settled on what's going to be an awful week. Two nights in Antananavario, we're going to need to pick up our passports there, then fly back to Mauritius, spend the night, fly to Johannesburg, spend the night, fly to Singapore, spend the night, fly to Denpasar (Bali), spend the night, then finally the ferry to Lombok. I know it's hard to believe, but that was actually the cheapest and easiest option available. We do want to go to Australia, and that should be a pretty easy step after Lombok. We still need to book hotels for the overnight stops, but we booked a nice cheap villa in Lombok. We also ran into frustrating and time consuming issues with both US Bank and Verizon, but those now seem to be resolved. If Miriam from Baird is reading, we really appreciate that you are never a source of frustration! We did find time to let the kids swim each day, but that's about all

Tuesday was more fun. The kids woke up early so it was still a little cool and Sean and I walked to the playground and bakery after he did math and language.

Tuesday afternoon we had a combined science and PE activity. The beach across the street has a stand where you can rent a transparent kayak and take a guided trip around the lagoon to see fish and coral. One thing we learned, although there is a large section of the lagoon marked as a protected area with no boating or swimming, it's not actually doing any better than the unprotected part. Why? Because even "reef safe" sunblock (the only kind we get) creates an oily surface on the water and causes it to heat up more than it should. The solution is to use long sleeve rash guards like the kids have so you just need sunscreen on your face, and put it on an hour before you get in the water, to give it enough time to absorb. So now you know.

We did see several types of fish and coral as well as sea cucumbers and a huge clam.

Wednesday was one of the most fun days we've had, because we met some nice people, which is hard to do when traveling during covid as most folks are (understandably) pretty much keeping to themselves. Our first stop was a museum called Cite du Volcan. It has lots of good hands on exhibits about volcanoes, which are very prevalent here in Reunion. The kids really enjoyed it.

On the way in we met a young woman from Ohio, she'd seen us in Mauritius and also wants to go to Madagascar, so we may have a new friend. She's been to a lot of places and we enjoyed comparing notes.

After the museum we went to our cooking class. An older woman, her husband, and son welcomed us into their home and garden. They have a beautiful outdoor kitchen. We learned about native spices, and got to taste fresh sugar cane and natural honey.

We made rum punch (the kids and I had plain mango juice) , spring rolls, a rice dish, sausage, and sweet potato cakes for dessert.

Everything was so yummy and we really enjoyed meeting a local family.

Thursday we toured a lava tunnel. We did this in Iceland, it was interesting, but basically it was just a walk on a path while the guide explained things in English. There are several lava tunnels in Reunion so I picked the one closest to us. The website did say we'd have to climb a bit at the beginning and rappel at the end, as well as crawl a little way, but I didn't think it was anything we couldn't handle. For one thing I forgot that meters are three times as long as feet so the climbing and crawling were a lot longer than we thought. Well, J and the boys were fine, but I was scared to death climbing up a rock face, even with handholds.

Once in the tunnel there was quite a lot of crawling, and when we weren't crawling we were climbing over piles of basalt. We also couldn't understand a lot of the explanation, so it was more PE than science, but definitely a really neat experience. I'm so proud of us that we were able to do it. Sean got a bit tired and whiny, I was definitely exhausted, but we sure can do hard things.

I was nervous about rappelling, but it was actually kind of fun.

S, of course, loved it.

I wanted to go to a nearby lake after that, it sounded like a lovely spot and the idea of cold water was pretty enticing after all that hard work. The ocean and the pool are warm, which could be nice, but not so good for cooling off. Unfortunately, as we were walking the path to the lake it started raining and a waterfall that hadn't been there before appeared. Since we don't know the location well enough to know where else water might quickly rise we just went home and swam in the pool.

Friday was a busy world schooling day. We went to several places, all within 15 minutes of the house and each other. We started out at Kelonia, which is a sea turtle rescue and research center. They have several tanks of turtles you can visit. You can see them on their level outside or go downstairs and observe them (and their caretakers) underwater through glass like in an aquarium. You can also go up an observation tower and watch them from above.

In addition to watching turtles there are lots of interactive exhibits about turtles that the kids really enjoyed.

J seemed to enjoy them as well.

The next stop was one I thought of originally as just a filler. I figured we'd have time after the turtles and before the coconut workshop I scheduled at 2:00, and it was in the area. I wasn't sure we'd like it at all, and was totally prepared to skip it. All the website said was that it was a museum about sugar production, which didn't sound that interesting. We might have skipped it all together, but there was a temporary pirate exhibit that I thought the kids would like. It turned out to be a favorite stop for everyone. It was actually an old sugar processing plant, and the equipment was really interesting to J, being similar to some of the equipment he used to work with at his job. Some of the placards had English translations and he was able to fill in the gaps for us when they didn't. It was a really great history and STEM stop.

The pirate exhibit didn't turn out to be as good as the sugar production part, nothing was in English and we have no resident pirate expert.

Just goes to show you never really can tell what activities will capture your family's imagination.

The last scheduled stop was my favorite. It's a coconut farm that gives workshops on the different uses of coconut. There was some confusion at first, because the website had said the experience could be in either French or English, but the person at the door said it would be all in French and offered us a refund. I thought we should try to do it anyway, because it included a lot of demonstrations and hands-on activities so I figured we could watch and follow along. We ended up getting confused about where we were supposed to be and the person trying to help us had to find someone to help understand what we were asking. In the end, they found someone to just do the workshop in English for us so we got a private class. It was really neat. We got to see different stages of coconut palms, learn how coconut sugar is made from the nectar of the flowers, taste the coconut syrup, sugar, and candy made from it, drink water from a fresh young coconut…

…and open our own mature coconut.

First we removed the husk and learned how the fibers can be used to make rope.

Then we cracked the coconut open.

We used a Polynesian tool to grate it:

…and learned about the symbolism of the coconut in Hindu culture. (Which explained why we had seen so many families offering them to Shiva at the temple in Mauritius.)

We learned how to weave the leaves of the coconut palm.

And we learned how oil and coconut milk are extracted from the flesh. We used our grated coconut to make coconut sweets—

—and got to taste coconut milk and ice cream. One reason the coconut is so important to Hindu people is because they say every need humans have can be met by the coconut palm, and after what we learned today I believe that's true.

We probably should have called it a day after that, but I was hot, it wasn't raining, the car was going back Saturday, and I really wanted to see the lake we missed yesterday. So we went. It's not somewhere official, but somewhere local people like to hang out and swim. Actually there are three lakes, a parking lot and a trail, and some kind of half-hearted fencing to keep people out. Clearly, no one pays attention to this, but the information on finding it wasn't that clear and it was a longer walk than we thought. We met people along the way who were happy to give us directions so we were never really lost, but at one point there was a fence that you could either go under by getting in a canal, or around by climbing a rocky cliff side. J didn't want to get wet so we started up the cliff. C got upset because he was hot and tired, I didn't want to go up the cliff either, so J and S navigated that while I took C back to the canal. He really freaked out about the cold water which I thought felt great. He ended up crying and wouldn't even swim once we got there. All S wanted was a snack and J doesn't like cold water anyway, so I was the only one who swam. It gets deeper right past where you see those people standing and it's wonderfully cold.

I loved it. It was such a beautiful spot, and the water felt great. I haven't felt so good since we got to Mauritius. Finally, I wasn't hot! I would have loved to stay longer but C just wouldn't stop fussing so we left. It was getting late anyway though, and even I knew we shouldn't try walking back in the dark. I would have loved to spend a whole day and find all three lakes, but it was not to be.

Saturday was a day for S. As the youngest, he's often in his very accomplished brother's shadow, but one thing he really excels at is climbing. After seeing how much he enjoyed the lava tunnel we booked a morning at a ropes course. It was way up in the mountains so the drive was lovely, if a bit harrowing at points.

I loved the cool, fresh, pine-scented air. I didn't like the climbing much, and was the first to decide I'd had enough, but I was happy to follow on the ground taking pictures. C doesn't particularly love heights either. He did fine at the lava tunnel and had no problem making fun of me, so when he was too scared to zipline I was nice, but used it as a teachable moment regarding how we all have strengths and all have things we're afraid of, but must be respectful of each other. J originally chose the spot with S in mind, but he ended up enjoying it just as much. S was in his element, he had no fear and loved climbing, but especially ziplining. He actually ended up using most of the challenges as an opportunity to zip, simply by picking up his feet and using his harness rather than walking the bridges. He did crash into a tree doing this, but it didn't deter him at all. He did all the courses allowed for his height, then repeated one. J stayed with him, while C and I ended up watching. C was good about recognizing his brother's success graciously. S was a little impatient about having to wait for C, but was mostly supportive. All in all it was a good experience. I think climbing might be something S really gets into and a sport we'll need to look for opportunities for him to participate in long term.