The cirques
One dead volcano collapsed three times and left three amphitheatres arranged around the summit like petals. A three cirques helicopter flight visits all of them in thirty-six minutes — something that takes several days and two mountain roads to attempt on the ground, and that cannot be done at all in the case of Mafate.
Quick answer
A three cirques helicopter flight costs from $312 for thirty-six minutes from Saint-Pierre. It covers Mafate, Cilaos and Salazie and leaves out the volcano, which is why it is shorter and cheaper than the routes that do both. If you want the cirques and Piton de la Fournaise in one flight, take the forty-five-minute route at $375.
How three cirques happen
Mafate has no road, Cilaos has four hundred bends, Salazie has the water.
Piton des Neiges stopped erupting somewhere around twelve thousand years ago and its flanks have been giving way ever since. Three of those collapses became amphitheatres: Mafate to the north-west, Cilaos to the south, Salazie to the north-east. They share a summit and they share almost nothing else, which is why a three cirques helicopter flight feels like three different places rather than one.
Mafate is the one with no road. Around eight hundred people live in scattered ilets supplied entirely by air, and everything else about it follows from that: no cars, no street lighting, footpaths instead of streets.
Cilaos has a road, and it is famous for it — roughly four hundred bends climbing to a town at 1,200 metres, with a single-lane tunnel where drivers take turns. From the air the road is a thread drawn on the rampart.
Salazie is the wet one. It faces the trade winds, so it is green in a way the others are not, with waterfalls down every wall and the Voile de la Mariee dropping beside the road. Trou de Fer sits on the plateau above it.
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What thirty-six minutes covers
A three cirques helicopter flight is short, the island is small, and the geography does the work.
From Pierrefonds the ground rises steadily for about eight minutes before the first rampart appears.
The southern cirque, with the town on its floor and the road threading up the wall behind it. The Piton des Neiges summit stands over the far side.
The crossing between cirques takes barely a minute in the air, against a full day on foot over the Col du Taibit.
The bowl with no road, the ilets, and the Riviere des Galets draining north-west. Eleven minutes, and the part of the flight most people talk about afterwards.
Greener, wetter, with waterfalls on the ramparts and the Belouve plateau above.
The return runs along the shoreline, which is where the lagoon and the reef come into it.
On the ground, seeing all three cirques means two mountain roads, two to three days, and Mafate only from its rim. In the air it is thirty-six minutes, and Mafate is the part you fly through the middle of.
Mafate from the air→Which to book
Thirty-six for the cirques alone, forty-five to add the volcano, fifty-five for everything.
A three cirques helicopter flight of thirty-six minutes at $312 is the efficient choice if the cirques are the whole reason you are flying. Nothing on this route is spent reaching the volcano, so the proportion of the flight spent over the amphitheatres is the highest here.
Forty-five minutes at $375 is our pick for the island as a whole, because it adds Piton de la Fournaise without doubling the price. Most people who fly once want both halves, and this is the shortest route that gives them.
Fifty-five minutes at $422 adds Trou de Fer, Salazie from the plateau side, and the return down the opposite coast. It is the lowest cost per minute of any helicopter here and it carries the most reviews on this site.
Every three cirques helicopter flight above departs Saint-Pierre. If you are staying on the west coast, the Excellence circuit from Saint-Gilles at $422 covers the same cirques from the other direction and saves you the drive.
Common questions
Mafate, Cilaos and Salazie — three amphitheatres left by the collapsing flanks of Piton des Neiges, which at 3,070 metres is the highest point in the Indian Ocean. A three cirques helicopter flight covers all of them in one circuit.
From $312 for thirty-six minutes from Saint-Pierre. Routes that add the volcano start at $375.
To two of them. Cilaos and Salazie each have a road; Mafate has none, which is the reason a three cirques helicopter flight exists at all.
Mafate, for most people, because it is the one with nothing in it but footpaths and villages with no road. Salazie is the greenest and Cilaos has the most dramatic road.
About a minute in the air over the summit ridge, which is why a three cirques helicopter flight fits into thirty-six minutes. On foot the same crossing is a full day.
No. A three cirques helicopter flight crosses them. Landings inside Mafate are run as a supply and transfer service for the residents.
Go deeper
From $196 to $422, and what a minute in the air is worth.
The verdictOne recommendation for each town, and why.
No roadFourteen kilometres by seven, and not one road into it.
The chasmWaterfalls in a hole in the forest, reached no other way.
The volcanoTwo thousand six hundred metres of active crater.
The townsFour towns, and what each one puts under you first.
Saint-Pierre: Helicopter Flight over the Volcano and Cirques
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