The other neat thing about being on a tropical island almost halfway around the world is that the plant and animal species are all different. For example, the major types of trees are (a) Palms, (b) tamarinds, and (c) ferns (yeah, some of the ferns grow up to be huge palm-like trees).

And these cool succulents were growing everywhere. Still don't know what they are called (we did go to a botanical garden, but there I learned the limits of my French):



Not sure what these flowers are, either, but they were also everywhere:



As were these (Carol knew these as some sort of ornamental we can buy at the greenhouse, but I don't remember her answer):



And Reunion has almost no natural predators aside from the Papangue Hawk, so the birds are very, very friendly to people, and you could get all sorts of crazy closeups:



However, some things you don't need to get all that close to. Like this red-footed golden orb spider, which had a foot span of almost 9":