Mauritius

In looking at the places on the itinerary, Mauritius is the awkward two-day country. Apparently previous participants of SAS did not behave very well while on the island, therefore we were only allowed to stop for two days and one night, hardly more time than it takes to refuel. So here we were on a teensy but beautiful island in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar. The island was a weird mixture of Indian, African, and Western cultures; I saw samosas and McDonalds and people of all different colors. We learned how Mauritius is a great example of how governments can work—it gained its independence in the 60’s and has since turned into a strong economy, first through sugarcane, then textiles, then information technology. Mauritius is clean, relatively ordered, and safe, and is a major tourist destination for many Europeans.

 

Many people planned on spending the duration of the voyage on the beach, but when we woke up in Mauritius we all realized it was raining. I headed off with eight friends to the bus station to take us to a town near a volcano crater.

 

By the time we arrived to the town it was around lunchtime so we stopped in to a bakery to get treats for lunch. As we finally made our way to start to hike, a couple of the people we were with got sidetracked at another bakery. However, at this bakery they met a local, Prama Mungur, who we soon discovered was a retired rocket scientist. He was five feet tall, with a shiny bald head, glasses, and a very congenial attitude. He had taught physics in Universities in the US, Germany, France, England, and had grandchildren living in Ohio. Whenever we would ask him where he was from, he would just laugh and say that he was from the world.

 

Mr. Mungur offered to drive us in his car to the crater. Since there were so many of us three people sat in the trunk of the station wagon. At first when we arrived at the crater all of the mountains around were covered in clouds, but we could still look into the crater and see the trees and then a small pond at the bottom. Mr. Mungur told us that this volcano was what started the island of Mauritius 8 million years ago. After hanging around for awhile, the clouds cleared so we could see the other mountains on the island and the ocean behind them. The mountain forms there are abrupt and bizarre - some are very close to the ocean and shoot up in weird shapes. He told us that one in particular looked like inverted udders of a cow and I had to agree.

 

After seeing the crater and taking in the great views at the lookout point, Mr. Mungur took us to his house. It was under renovation and the fridge had lost power over the night, but even still it was a very nice place with a fantastic view on the third floor and lots of windows letting in light. We hung out for awhile at his house, and he told us how to say “I love you” in the French Creole language of Mauritius: "mo content toi", which I think translates to something like "we are content together". French people, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Mr. Mungur dropped us off at a bus stop, which we took to another town. Some people left from there to get back to Port Louis early, but my friend Aleeza and I still hungered for some hiking so we split off. We saw a mountain not too far away so just walked in that direction. We went up one street and ran into some scary guard dogs, and rerouted to another road that led to an open park. We relaxed at the park for awhile until we realized that a path continued up the mountain, so with this discovery we headed onward.

 

The path was well-traveled, not by tourists but rather by people in the neighborhood who used the hike as exercise. We saw one man go up and down the mountain three times while we meandered along. At the top we found amazing views of both the surprising mountains and the cities below.

 

We retraced our steps and when we had gotten back to the road the man we had seen exercising caught up to us. He was a native Mauritian living in London who was visiting his mother for vacation. When we told him that we were only here for two days he said incredulously, “Two days and you come here?!?” clearly not understanding the way that we travel with limited ability to research without internet and everything. He was a nice guy though, and showed us the way to the bus station where we took a bus back to Port Louis.

 

The second day nine of us hired a driver through the SAS tour contact which we unfortunately ended up waiting for over an hour to arrive. We still got to the beach before 11 and were able to get on a boat to go snorkeling right away. The reef was nothing like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, but I still enjoyed swimming and trying to keep up with the schools of fish. In many places it looked like the coral had been bleached, and I wondered how long the reef would last. Mauritius is surrounded by a circle of reefs, and unquestionably relies on them for storm control and tourism.

 

I got mouth-watering samosas from a man on a bicycle at the beach, and enjoyed the time in the sun. Two families from the ship were at the same beach so we played with their kids, throwing them in the ocean and burying them in sand. We headed back to Port Louis around two, giving us enough time to explore the markets and waterfront area before returning to the ship. I cut it close, and only just made it back on board before getting penalized for being late with dock time.