Out and About in Mauritius Part 2

General Observations

I'll start off this post with some general observations about Mauritius. There were really sometimes that it reminded me of home. I suppose there are some threads of small island life that will be similar wherever you go. For instance,  I don't know if this is an island people thing or what, but Mauritians sure seem to love their KFC. Just like in JA, they dot the landscape.

Maurituius is an interesting place. From what I observed, there is quite a dynamic racial mix, with Indian ancestry far and away being most dominant. However, the mix is such that on more than one occasion, I was assumed to be Mauritian and addressed in the creole. Speaking of Indian descent, as a side note, I did spend some time thinking about the money I could possibly make exporting hair back home from there. With so many women of Indian descent, it's a bit of a weave lover's paradise. Hey, hair is big business in Jamaica, it could work. lol . The people are also multi-cultural and have multiple faiths. I saw lots of women walking around in traditional Indian garb ( Kurtas, Salwar, Sari etc) and Hindu temples, Churches and Mosques alike all over.

Almost everyone that I encountered was multi-lingual. French, English and the local French- based creole are the dominant languages. In fact, I think it would be a little difficult to properly navigate life there without at least some basic knowledge of  both French and English. When you drive along, billboards, road signs etc are either in French or English. Supermarket labels tended to be French. I noticed that people would most likely address you in French first. I hadn't actually practised speaking any of the French I picked up while living in Bordeaux for the longest while, but I was happy to note that I remembered far more than I thought I did, which was very helpful.

Diving day - Trou Aux again and Grand Baie

The next day took me back to Trou Aux Biches; the Negril like beach I mentioned. By the way, there is actually work related to this trip guys, I promise that's coming up :). My bunkmate and a couple of the engineers wanted to try out diving. Of the five of us that set out (including Tiphaine), only one had ever gone diving before, and I was the only one who was licensed. The others were complete novices.

This time we took public transportation to get to the beach.

Bus Time!

Out and About in Mauritius Part 1

Out and about in Mauritius

The evening of my arrival, I was told by one of my roommates that there was to be an excursion the next day. The only details I got were that it involved an island off the coast of Mauritius. I decided to jump on it; at least I would get to see a bit more of Mauritius than the port!

Ile Aux Cerfs

After a bus ride of a little over an hour and hammering out some detail with the tour operator, we took a speedboat en route to the Ile Aux Cerfs, which as I mentioned,  is an island off the Eastern coast of Mauritius and a popular tourist spot. 

The boat captain first took us as part of our tour to a waterfall, which was pretty neat. 

On the way back out the channel, we noticed some Macaques chilling in the trees on one bank. The captain asked if we had any fruit and someone turned up some apples. I offered mine and she gladly accepted. Here's the shot to prove it...

Getting to Mauritius

In 2014, I was selected by the International Seabed Authority for a training programme aboard a Chinese research vessel in the Indian Ocean. The ship departed from Mauritus in March 2015 and returned to same at the end of April . These next few blog posts chronicle my time in Mauritius as well as my 6 week stint at sea.

Getting There

So for those of you who had been following my previous blog ( Ren In Europe ),  you may have noticed that I almost never have what could be considered a normal trip. Somewhere along the way, the bizarre usually creeps in. Luckily enough on this trip we can get it out of the way early, right off the bat. A woman was arrested on my flight to London. I kid you not. Apparently she had been creating quite the disturbance which included a strip show as well as some indecent exposure).  Based on where I was sitting I didn't realize half of what was going on around there, but if you would like to read further, you're in luck, my lady made the news.