I had The Hollies in the back seat of my Citroen. Heaven only knows what they were doing on the island of Réunion, but there they were. Allan Clarke crooning away, Graham Clarke plucking at the guitar... there was even Elton John with his baby-grand blocking the rear-view mirror.

"The road is looooooooong,

With many a winding turn.

That leads us to who knows where,

Whoooooo knows where."

"Will you chaps keep it down! I'm trying to drive!"

Well, that's what I wanted to shout at the backseat, but of course there were no '60s pop icons keeping me company. No flamboyant piano-playing rocket man to take my gaze away from the sheer drop to my right; just the panicked breathing (mine, I'm afraid to say), the sound of roaring trucks and the occasional screech of brakes to provide the soundtrack on the road to Cilaos.

Cilaos, for the uninitiated, is perhaps the most isolated village on La Réunion, a volcanic spike of untamed rock cast away in the Indian Ocean.

Generally, the island is a wonderful place to explore in a hire car. The roads are in good nick, well sign-posted (even if it is in French) and a flat freeway encircles much of the island making it easy to find your way around. Perhaps the only downside is that – as an Overseas Department of France – the locals take to the accelerator like a hungry Parisian at an all-you-can-eat foie gras buffet. With gusto.

That all changes once you head inland though. Well, the local disregard for speed limits remains the same, but the road becomes a vision from Dante's inferno, except this time the only way is up.

You've hardly left the outskirts of St. Louis when you get a taste of what’s in store. The road narrows, the hills get higher and all of a sudden you realise that you're driving in the cleft carved by molten lava through the towering Cirque de Cilaos.

Thankfully that was all a few ice-ages ago, but you can't be too careful on Réunion. The island is home to the notoriously grumpy Piton de la Fournaise – one of the world's most active lava pimples which likes to throw a tantrum every now and again and send molten rock down the east coast.

The Cirque de Cilaos is, however, pushing up the proverbial daisies. Its eruption days are over and, being the home of adventurous types, some unhinged Réunion road-builder obviously decided a near-vertical volcanic crater was the ideal place to lay some tarmac. Perhaps he had a bet with Thomas Bain, because the road to Cilaos sure as hell beats anything our local stonemason managed to put down.

The road climbs from sea-level to over 2000m in under 20 kilometres, and with switchback after switchback it's a bit like driving up the world's largest parking garage. Except the views are better.

Along the way there are over 500 bends to navigate; a good few of them blind corners where your white knuckles are too busy gripping the steering wheel to pray that a bus isn't coming round the corner. Once you've got the hang of the blind corners the devious road engineers obviously decided I needed more of a challenge.

"Ah oui, let us make zem do blind corners with ze Single Lane! Ha ha… "

Blind corner, one lane, vertical drop, left-hand drive. I had them all down pat, until I came to le piece de resistance. The pinnacle of building roads so terrifying only the brave or ignorant (I was the latter) would dare attempt them.

The blind, single-lane, rock-hewn road… drum roll please… in a tunnel!

Taking courage, a few years off my life, and my insurance policy in hand there wasn't much to do except give a few pleading hoots to the God of Oncoming Traffic and hope for the best. Merde.

Until this road was built in 1936 I would have had the colonial pleasure of making the ascent in a sedan chair, no doubt with regular stops for refreshment and perhaps a little light entertainment.

Happily, I still managed to find both on my way to the top. Granted, refreshment was little more than a baguette et fromage, and the entertainment was trying to order a simple cheese sandwich while the local café owner dissolved into fits of laughter. I didn't care. As long as I wasn't behind the wheel I was happy. Ridicule or not.

But hiding behind a cheese sandwich never got anyone to the top, so it was time for one last push. Round a loop (yes, they do 360º turns on this road), through one more tunnel and finally Cilaos hove into view.

Sweating, clutch foot shaking and with the crazed look of a man who's stared death in the eye and didn't blink, I walked into the quaint Hotel Vieux Cep.

"Bonjour," said Gerald Bernardin, the charming man behind the counter. "Welcome to Cilaos."

As I filled in the guest book a pamphlet of the town's history caught my eye.

"The legends are unclear as to how Cilaos got its name, but the most common theory is from the Malagasy word 'Tsilaosais': "The place one does not leave."

With a road like that to get here, it's no surprise nobody tried to get out!

First published in The Weekender; June 2009.

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