Travel Preparation

Dreaming now for maybe 15 years about visiting “ La Réunion ” – in fact, since I ever heard of this small tropical island – I finally decided this year to make this dream come true.

For those who do not know: “ La Réunion “ is a small (about 70 km in diameter) tropical island in the Indian Ocean, about 800 km west of Madagascar. It is a french overseas department (“DOM”, “Département Outre-Mèr”). Time shift in La Réunion is only 2 hours ahead of German time.

Three main things had to be prepared in advance:

• The travel itself: I booked a flight from Paris (France) – Saint-Denis (La Réunion) on 5^th september and the return flight on 27^th september.
• A rental car for the whole stay
• In order to have some nice souvenirs, I provided myself with photographic equipment:
  - camera body CANON EOS 60D
  - wide-angle lenses CANON EF17-40mm f/4L USM
  - universal lenses CANON EF24-105 f/4 IS USM
  - telephoto zoom lens CANON EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
  - KENKO Converter 1.4x

Once all these things done, I was impatiently waiting for the 5th September, the day of departure, to arrive ... .

On Sunday, 4^th I packed my whole stuff. I was desperate: the total weight was about 36 kg shared between a huge and a “small” back pack. I wondered how I'd ever be able to travel across Paris from Gare de l'Est to Orly Airport, carrying the whole charge.