Saturday, November 13, 2010
Mauritius
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged on this page, so let me bring the blog up to speed with events so far in 2010…
Back in the Spring, I went on holiday to Mauritius with my wife. As I was still out of work, we used up all of our combined air miles with BA and got a free (except for taxes) flights. I booked a nice
looking 3-star hotel online, and off we went.
We had fabulous views of the island as we came in to land, and after a 90-minute drive from coast to coast, we made it to our bedroom for the next two weeks. We stayed in a small village called Pereybere, just north of Grand Bay, on the north-west of the island. Grand Bay is about an hours bus ride from the Mauritian capital Port Louis.
We had fabulous views of the island as we came in to land, and after a 90-minute drive from coast to coast, we made it to our bedroom for the next two weeks. We stayed in a small village called Pereybere, just north of Grand Bay, on the north-west of the island. Grand Bay is about an hours bus ride from the Mauritian capital Port Louis.
The hotel was comfortable, without being at all grand, and sat on the main road with the beach area across the thoroughfare. Pereybere had a few small restaurants, to service its small but clean beach, but not much else, and soon we were heading for Grand Bay in the evenings, and even to Port Louis (by bus) during the day to break up the inevitable time on the beach doing nothing.
Our bus journeys into and back from Port Louis were great; with many buses ploughing the route, the drivers took great heart in the knowledge that they were the fastest, so we had a few exhilarating drives, swinging around corners and using the brakes and accelerator to the full. It was also a pretty cheap way to travel, with the hour journey costing less than a pound. Port Louis didn’t have a lot going for it if truth be told, but is had some nice statues, and a few shops, though it didn’t take us long to head for the harbour area and grab a beer or two.
We took a trip to the north of the island and a boat ride – courtesy of a fisherman – out to Coin De Mere, a small rock protruding out of the ocean a mile or so offshore (top pic). This was fun, and it was made better when the boat swung around to a small bay and we were able to snorkel on the reef looking at multi-coloured fish of many different types.
After a few days, we decided to try another beach, other than the one at Pereybere, and caught the bus down to Mont Choisy; we had seen other people going there when on the bus to PL, so we knew how to get there and where to get off. A cheap sun lounger for the day, a beautiful beach and sea (left), plus a few stalls selling lunchtime food, and we were set. One day though, our lunchtime lounging at Mont Choisy was cut short by a large storm which blew over from inland; we huddled under the sun umbrella, but that had leaks, so we all dived in the sea thinking that if we were going to get wet, we might as well sit in the warm sea. When the rain nearly stopped, we came out, but we couldn’t get dry, and then the rain came back heavier again. It wasn’t pouring down now, but it was just incessant, so we packed up and walked back to catch a bus home. Sadly, we had to wait longer than at any other time while on the island (about 20 minutes) as most buses were full of school kids just finished for the day. We eventually boarded a bus dripping wet and soaked through. I went to sit down next to someone and they inched away from me so I didn’t drip on them. It was very embarrassing! Twenty minutes later, we were in our room stripping off the soaked clothes and diving in the shower to warm up!
Later on the holiday, we caught a couple of buses down to the south interior of the island, and did a six-mile hike along the Black River gorge. It was a lovely hot day, and luckily we only had to go downhill most of the way. When we reached the far end visitor centre, we luckily met some Italians who once they understood what we wanted, gave us a lift to the nearest bus stop (another five miles along the road), from where we started our journey home along the coast.One wet day, we ventured to the botanical gardens at Pamplemousse (left). These were the best gardens I think I’ve been to in quite some time, and we had fun tramping around them in the light rain. There was one huge lily pond, and rumour has it the lily pads are strong enough to hold a man’s weight. While we took photos, a small boy slipped his mothers gaze and tried this out, promptly falling into the pond and getting soaked. His mother was not happy to have to drag him out I can tell you!
We were also taken out on a free excursion – courtesy of our hotel – to Isles aux Cerfs, on the east coast. Here we wandered along coral beaches (below) and tried not to get sunburnt or cut from the sharp coral, before being given a locally caught and cooked fish for lunch. I didn’t take to this food, and soon after getting back to the hotel that evening, I had to make several dashes to the toilet. Sadly, that problem followed me for our last couple of days, and by the time we were taken to the airport I was lucky if I could last much more than an hour holding anything in. I was actually quite worried that I may be refused boarding of the airplane if I had to dash off while in any of the check-in or security queues, but I did make it. At the gate, we were upgraded by BA to Economy Plus which was nice, and great really as it placed us right next to a loo, of which I made use six times in the first six hours of the flight home!Mauritius will never be remembered as one of our best holidays, but we did relax, and enjoy it as much as we could.
