Exciting Mauritius

After the heat, poverty, and just plain old stress of India, everyone was looking forward to Mauritius as a place to relax and re-charge our mental batteries.  You could tell that the students were excited.  There are a few of us that are morning people, and we've gotten to know each other while we watch sunrises and share breakfasts.

We also like to watch as we enter new ports and this port, in spite of a drizzle, was beckoning us with its promise of beaches and more beaches. So, the tugs came out, hooked up and cozied us into a berth.  This was not our permanent berth, but a temporary one where we would take on fuel (bunker).  You could see the tour buses over at the other berth, thrown off by our change in plans, scurrying to change locations to pick up the trips.  Immigration went really quickly, and in this port, we only had to carry a copy of our passport, and it was never inspected after we left the ship.  The weather was blustery, and the Semester at Sea flag which is flown in ports, stood straight out.

Kids had all kind of plans from beaches to SAS trips to scuba diving to mountain hikes or just shopping. Nancy and I were traveling with a group of faculty/staff, and it's harder to get a group moving than when you are traveling alone.  We finally got on the water taxi with a bunch of excited students to head to the main part of Port Louis.  I was pretty sure that the life buoy that looked like a peace symbol was a good omen.

Some of the kids who had beaten us to land were already trying out exotic concoctions of fruit juices with dazzling colors. Mauritius is a big sugar cane producer, so the fruit drinks were really sweet. (The Cokes tasted sweeter since they were made with sugar instead of corn syrup) We spent a little time exchanging Indian rupees for Mauritian rupees and trying to get an ATM to take our cards, and then grabbed an early lunch dosa and samoosa at Masala Dosa while we waited for our rental car.

Our plans were to take the rental car and head south with one group staying in a nice place up in the hill country of Chamarel, and the other group staying in an apartment in the little town of La Gaulette on the bay.  The drive was the most exciting part of the day since a faculty friend was driving on the left hand side of the road for the first time.  There were six of us with 4 people crammed into the back seat doing their impression of "how many SAS faculty/staff can you get in a rental car".  The roads drop off into a 2 ft. gutter in most places with no guard rails, and I'm pretty sure we had half the tire over the edge several times.  Nevertheless, we got 3 folks dropped off, and I drove the short distance to our place.  We had 2 big rooms, kitchen, bath and veranda overlooking a bay.

One goal for me was to get to try out my snorkeling gear that I had  bought back in Hawaii which seemed like a long time ago.  Nancy and I got in the car and headed for a public beach.  I had shaved off my mustache in the morning so I could get a good seal on my face mask.  The beach was uncrowded, and I put the mask on , stuck the snorkel in my  mouth, and I was off.  It was really neat seeing various stuff on the bottom and lots of different fishes swimming around.  One little yellow fish came right up and peered into my mask.  Although only an hour long and in only 4 feet of water, this was definitely the highlight of the Mauritius experience for me.  Other SAS folks were on snorkeling trips on boats and saw lots of coral and other cool stuff, but this was just right for my first time.

We headed back and watched the sun go down from our veranda while drinking a local beer.  The looming rock mountains provided a nice backdrop.









Dinner was at a local restaurant where we three represented half of the diners.   I had a shrimp dish with a local sauce that was delicious.

Then for dessert, we had what I called "faux pas".  Theresa speaks fluent French, and the Mauritians speak mostly Creole and English.  We ordered bananas flambe for dessert, and it was delivered to our table standing in a nice syrup.  So, we started to eat it, and the waitress came running over with matches telling us to wait.  We forget that they coat it with rum and then light it.  We go that treatment, and it was even better.

 Then we waddled back to our apartment and settled under our mosquito net for a good night's sleep. But, everybody in this town owns a dog, and they all started barking and howling at about 11pm.  I didn't really mind, because my dogs do the same thing, and it made me feel right at home.