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...

I noticed some familiar beats in the background. But see yah!.. dancehall music was playing! The captain noticed  that I had noticed and turned it up for me. Even on the beach that day, there was reggae music all day. Surprisingly, not just the same over -worked Bob Marley songs, but some nice oldies tunes. At one point I was hit by  "I born as a bedroom bully" from one of the other speedboats.... I swear. People all over the world enjoy and make money off our vibe and yet still we are the last to appreciate it. 

As usual I received some special treatment in Mauritius just by virtue of being Jamaican. This is now something that I have actually come to expect in my travels, having happened so often. Special treatment ranging from being treated extra nicely, special insights and advice, discounts and even as we Jamaicans term it "freenis".

Then we finally got to Ile Aux cerfs. It has a nice stretch of beach, extensive lagoon area and they seem to have outfitted it as some sort of central adventure activity spot for the region.

Most of the others went para sailing, but for some reason I wasn't feeling it. Uncharacteristically, I just felt to keep quiet. So I spent the time swimming, walking around a bit and snapping some pics. After the activities, we re- grouped and were then taken over to another islet for a beach BBQ of sorts.

Under some thatch - type tents, several long tables were set out. Servers then came around with plates of grilled chicken, fish and sausage, rice, Coke and beer! It  wasn't quite all you can eat, but we were able to get some more food. They eventually cut off our table from beer though....

One of the servers  favoured Michael Jackson more than Michael Jackson. The resemblance was uncanny.  And don't ask if he didn't already know it. The aviator shades and Michael's 80's haircut gave it away!

We then headed back to the mainland and on to Port Louis. Once we got back to town we stopped at the supermarket. I'll come back to this point.

Trou Aux Beach

I was told that evening that yet another trip was planned for the next day. This time to the beach and you know already who didn't say no! Trou Aux beach reminded me a lot of Negril. The same long stretch of white sand; calm ,shallow water that you can walk out very far into etc.

One thing about French tourists I've noticed, bikinis for everybody dem seh! Regardless of age, size or shape. Not to mention none of those swim trunks for the men. Only speedos or some short swim shorts would do. I kind of like that attitude actually. You're on vacation, why the heck not? Granted I'm sure more than a few of them would have no problem going commando given the opportunity, based on what I observed when I was living in France.

We had a pretty regular beach day. I even managed to get some snorkelling in.

On the way back into town we stopped at the supermarket again, which was in a mall complex.

Tour around Mauritius

Now this was pretty awesome day. I didn't really know where we were going or what we were doing to be honest, but I was asked to go and so I went. This time we headed up into the mountains. It was great seeing another side apart from the coast.

Our first real stop was at a park of sorts called 7 Coloured Earth. The main claim to fame of this spot are some multi-coloured dunes. Before we got to that though, there was a cool waterfall; the highest in Mauritius I believe.  Then we continued along the trail and ended up by the dunes. You can walk around them a little and there is even a little section with some tortoises.

We went back to our mountain road and the next stop was at a lookout point by a canyon in a nature reserve. This was a truly spectacular vista.

After that, we continued on to a large Hindu temple. It was quite interesting for me as I'd never been to one before.

Statue of Shiva

Part of the temple complex

Pundit conducting a ceremony

Then it was on to lunch. Organised by the travel agency for a group of Chinese people (myself excluded of course), lunch was at a Chinese restaurant... how original. It was interesting eating at a Chinese restaurant with actual Chinese people. Trust me, we're doing it all wrong, and I'm not just talking about chopsticks!

We were then taken to the factory shop for a model ship building company. Apparently that's a thing here in Mauritius. I had no idea. We had a small "tour" first which then of course ended in the obligatory gift shop.  Didn't see that coming right? lol. They did get a few sales off our group though. 

We were then taken down the road  to a diamond store.... eh? Anyway, I stayed on the bus for that one. I was feeling a bit tired, and I knew that I definitely was not in the market for any diamonds so I didn't mind passing.

Since we had gotten to the shopping part, I had figured that the trip was over. Lo and behold, we had one more stop. This time we stopped at an old volcanic crater, which now had a lake. The surroundings had also been turned into a little park, with benches and a jogging trail. There was also a great panoramic  view of Port Louis from up there.

Crater Lake

View of Port Louis and Environs

The bus driver then informed us that he was going to take us somewhere for souvenir shopping, but the group took a decision to opt out and use that time at the supermarket instead. I'd been noticing over the last few days that everybody had been stocking up on a lot of milk powder in particular, and I mean a lot... I had the mystery cleared up for me soon enough. Apparently milk powder is pretty expensive in China right now (what with the milk powder recall the other day and all), so they were actually stocking up to take it back home rather than for use on the ship. I'm glad that was cleared up because I had seriously begun to wonder if I was missing something!

Oh by the way, did I mention that this trip (bus, entry fees, lunch etc)  was paid for by the ship? Yes! *happy dance*. They had also paid for transport to the beach the day before.

When we got back, we learned that the only other foreigner (non-Chinese) to be on board, a French woman named Tiphaine had arrived in our absence.  She's a PhD student from Brest, and her study interests relate to microbiology.

Stay tuned for Part 2