Mauritius was a pretty laid back port. For any of you who have never heard of the place, it’s a small island nation (consisting of the two islands of Rodriguez and Maurice) east of Madagascar. Its culture is a mix of Indian, Africans, and French. It is also the former home of the extinct Dodo bird.
I went into Mauritius with no set plans as I knew that there wasn’t too much to do there and that it was famous for its beaches. Mark Twain has been quoted as saying “Mauritius was created first and heaven was modeled after it.” It was an interesting three days and it got off to a pretty bad start, but it got a lot better from there. Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures as I didn’t have my camera with me for 2 days, however im working on getting pictures from other people that were traveling with me.
Day1: We arrived in Port Louis four hours late because of rough seas the entire way from Cape Town. After getting off the ship, Slava and I began walking around the city, along the waterfront and inland to the Chinese market and Chinatown. Probably about two hours after I left the ship I noticed that my wallet was missing, I had been pick pocketed. So much of the next few hours was spent dealing with that situation, calling home to have my atm card canceled, and then heading back to the ship to deal with my lack of a ship ID. It eventually worked out, I got a new ID and my atm card canceled (thanks mom). Admist all of this, Slava and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do for the next two days because Port Luis wasn’t a very exciting place.
Fast forward to about 6pm, we returned to the ship after going back into the city and found a lot of people we knew hanging out in front of the ship. They were headed to flic en flac, one of the famous beaches, to stay in villas for the next two nights. We were invited along and packed and left in a matter of about 5 minutes. We found a place to stay with some new friends (Sammy, Dustin, Ryan, Erika, Claire, Julie, and Jenny) in a really nice condo, for very cheap.
We went to another villa complex where a lot of SAS kids were staying and had some fun there for a while.
Day 2: After cooking up some breakfast, we all headed to the beach for the day, stopping on the way to book a catamaran for day 3. We stayed at the beach til 5pm or so, then came back to the villa and some 3 or 4 of us cooked for the house. That night we went to some local bars and clubs.
Day 3: We woke up early to catch our transportation to our catamaran. What a deal we found. The nine of us had a forty foot catamaran to ourselves, with a four person crew. The deal included lunch, drinks, snorkeling in coral reefs, visit to an island, bbq onboard, and transportation back to the ship, all for around $60 American.
We had a great day and I think we all agreed that Mauritius just makes you love life a little bit more. That and the beaches and water around the island are absolute paradise. We couldn’t have imagined a better day, it was relaxing, fun, and we got to see a lot of great things. Snorkeling in the coral reefs was amazing because the water was crystal clear and the reefs were filled with tropical fish. Oh, and the water was probably about 80 degrees. I really don’t miss York, ME water that much
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