Monday and Tuesday were spent on tours. I started on Monday with the Saga du Rhum, just a short walk from where we’re staying. It was an interesting tour where we learned about the history of rum and that of the Ysautier family, one of the island’s three major rum-producing families. The two brothers who founded the distillery married the daughters of two landowners in order to acquire their land. They quickly specialized in producing flavored rums. If I recall correctly, the production of agricultural rum made directly from sugarcane juice accounts for only 1% of traditional rum production made from sugar. Since I have the chance to stock up during this trip, I’ll leave with a few bottles after the tasting...
Tuesday morning : Kelonia, a museum primarily dedicated to sea turtles. I missed the guided tour, but it was very interesting even without it. I watched a few educational videos, though not all of them. There’s an accessible pool with a few turtles ; the rest of the facility is the hospital where they treat about fifty turtles a year. In fact, all the turtles we see are disabled and wouldn’t survive if released back into the sea. One lost a fin that was damaged in a net ; another was hit in the eye by an arrow...

In the afternoon, I head up to the hills above Saint-Leu to visit Stella Matutina, a museum dedicated primarily to sugarcane cultivation and the sugar industry. It covers the history of sugar and slavery, and features a chilling temporary exhibition on the “engagés.” When slavery was abolished, sugar plantation owners hired “engagés” (cheaper than freed slaves). Some slave traders switched to this trade...
On the way back, I try to avoid the busy roads as I reach Saint-Pierre, but I have to push the bike twice through the sand and then even... carry it over the large pebbles at the bottom of the ravine !

Once we got past those difficulties, we saw a few fishermen on the Ravine Pond, followed by some beautiful Tamil temples.