3 Days of Mauritius + Sea Olympics

October 15-17
Mauritius Days 1, 2, 3

First off, sorry this post is so late. I can’t give you a good excuse except that I’ve been really lazy lately. That said, I did get a chance to go to an internet cafe and post some more pictures of Ghana. When I get to India in 2 days, I’ll try posting more photos I selected from other countries on the Photobucket site.
We arrived at Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, on the Oct. 15. This was our shortest stay in a country- we only stayed 2 nights in port. Mauritius is famous for the Dodo bird which went extinct in the 17th century. The island, located east of Madagascar, was originally settled by the Dutch and later the French and English. Today, it produces a lot of sugar cane and is a huge tourist destination (not as bad as Hawaii but similar). Most of the people there were of Indian descent but there were also a large mixture of Africans as well. 52% of the island is Hindu, but there are still many Christians and Muslims. Many people speak French here (English being the official language) but most speak Creole. Mauritius also has a Chinatown. It also has a form of music called Sega. For more information on Mauritius, just go to the Wikipedia page.
The first day I was signed up for the City Orientation field trip. The first stop of this was a botanical garden called Pamplemousses Garden. There was a monument to the first Mauritian Prime Minister, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. Among all the plant life, there were giant water lilies (“large enough to hold a baby”), a palm tree that blooms after 60 years then dies, and also large exotic fruits. There were also giant tortoises and deer (enclosed) in the garden. We then drove around the city, seeing Hindu temples, a Chinese pagoda and the city center area. We then drove up a hill on the edge of the city which had a British fort on it. From up there, we could see a horse raceway which is the oldest race course in the Indian Ocean (about 200 years), the downtown area as well as the nearby waterfront area and the rest of the port. We then drove through the city again and back to the ship. However, we got back an hour and a half before we were supposed to (they later gave us a partial refund) and they then gave us a ride to the waterfront. My roommate and my other friend and I went to the craft market and had lunch at an English pub located by the water. My roommate and I then went to an internet cafe and after that walked around the rest of the waterfront. We then went through the central market and then into the mall. It rained off and on throughout the afternoon. During one of the breaks in rain, we walked 20 mins. back to the ship (getting lost in the port area). The rest of the evening I spent back on the ship.
The next day I had nothing planned but I was desperate to get out of the city so I went on a field trip to the nearby mountains to hike the second highest peak in Mauritius. We drove about 20 minutes into the countryside (it takes one hour to travel across Mauritius) where there were lots of sugar cane fields. We drove down a road through one of them and found the trail that led up the mountain. A few minutes after we arrived at the trailhead, a busload of mostly French tourists (all decked out in hiking spandex and hiking poles) arrived. We all started around the same time and I told the rest of our group (there were about 12 of us total) that we had to beat the (bloody) French to the top and prove America’s superiority in Mauritius. We all started as one mass but eventually the SAS group emerged in the front. The hike up wasn’t too bad but I still a good challenge. On the way up I would turn around and look at the view of the surrounding area. I could see almost to the other side of the island (only halfway up the mtn.). I realized how much Mauritius resembled Hawaii in terms of the similar rural regions, plant life, and also the heavy tourism in both places. When we got to the top (before the French who turned around halfway up the mountain) we could see that we were actually on a caldera of an old volcano. We could also see all of Port Louis (including our ship) as well as some nearby mountains, one of which has an enormous bolder perched precariously on its peak and looks very awkward. After resting at the top, we headed down and made it back to the buses fairly quick. Towards the end of the trail, one of our guides went ahead with a machete and cut a stock of sugar cane which he cut up for us to eat. We then had an amazing lunch (Indian curry and rice) at a colonial house whose backyard was a deep gorge with a river at the bottom. We changed into our swim suits and then went to the (apparently) famous beach Flic en Flac which means “Free and Flat Land”. The beach looked like something you’d see on the front of a postcard and later I did see postcards with the beach on it. We hung around on the beach for an hour and the got back on the bus and went back to the ship.
That night, my roommate and I went to the casino at the waterfront via water taxi (several boats taxied students from across the port where the ship was to the waterfront) and got 500 rupees to gamble with. We played only slots (we couldn’t do tables because I was wearing shorts) and we both won a few jackpots but that was after losing a good deal. In the end my roommate lost all his rupees and I turned in my remainder for half of what originally started with. We walked around the waterfront the rest of the night and found a live concert with Indian music and dancers that celebrated the Hindu holiday called Diwali (the next day). Across the bay there were 4 large silo-looking structures which at night become the projection screens for a sort of light show that goes on throughout the night (they usually have animations of whales, dolphins, and fish swimming). We went back to the water taxi dock and took the boat 5 minutes back to the ship.
The third day was our last day on the island and we left later that night. I was signed up for a catamaran snorkel trip which turned out to be amazing. There were a lot of people signed up for this trip and we had to take several buses. We drove about thirty five minutes to the docks where the catamarans were waiting. There were about 20 people on each catamaran and we had about 5-7 total. Our armada of catamarans sailed over as a group to a point further down the coast. While sailing, we began to enter deeper waters and a little later we spotted whales. They were most likely humpback whales. We sailed with them for about 30 minutes and then lost them. While sailing back they surfaced again very close to us. There were 2 massive ones and one small one. After seeing them for a while we went back up the coast to a reef where we snorkeled. It was an average snorkeling area: we saw schools of fish, angelfish, and urchins among many other fish. After snorkeling for 45 minutes we got back on the boat and had a nice BBQ lunch. We sailed a little down the coast to a different area where we tied up with another catamaran and anchored (we lost our anchor but the water wasn’t too deep so we got it back). We hung out on the deck for a while and a couple of us went back in to snorkel. One of the other snorkelers was a Marine Bio major and showed us some feather-duster worms (if you clap in front of them they hide away) and also spotted an eel. He tried showing me where it was and when I dove down to the spot on the rock where he was pointing, I failed to see the eel but out of a nearby hole, something emerged that changed from white to black. It was a small octopus I found by accident. We also saw brain coral and a sea slug. We got back on the ship and hung out for an hour and talked about how we were still in school somehow. We sailed back to the docks and got back on the buses. It took us about an hour to get back to the ship (traffic). During the ride I saw more of the outskirts of the city. For the most part it was average, but there were also some very nice homes and a couple slums (not many though). Tourism has really helped the island out and the 1.2 million residents of the island live fairly well. When we arrived on the ship we still had an hour before the time we had to be back on and I wanted to go back to the waterfront for postcards, but I decided I didn’t want to risk dock time. We left Mauritius around 9:00 that night. Mauritius was a very nice country, but it didn’t really have anything I had not seen before (it was a paradise if you were into the nightlife- imagine Hawaii with no drinking age). Still, I thought it was a great experience going there and had lots of fun.
A few days later at sea, we had what’s called the Sea Olympics. At the beginning of the voyage we were split into different teams and given names of seas (ours was Arabian Sea) as team names. The winner of the Olympics would be the first off the ship in San Diego. The events lasted all day and were mostly nonsensical events. I was supposed to do the pie-eating contest but that was later turned into a popcorn eating contest (popcorn is cheaper than whipped cream) and I and 3 other teammates had to eat popcorn which we all almost choked on. Also, someone had the great idea of further salting the popcorn so it was the saltiest popcorn I’d ever had and later I think I got kinda dehydrated (I had a bad headache for a while). I also did the first leg of a relay so that was fun. I’m pretty sure our team came in dead last overall but it was still pretty fun to participate in (my team spirit is awful). That evening we had a BBQ outside on the seventh deck. On the horizon was by far the coolest looking sunset I’ve ever seen. The pictures I took of it would not do it justice. Also, there was ice cream that night for desert which is rare (as is Taco Day) and so I took full advantage of that.
I’m interested to see how India will be. I keep hearing warnings from people who have been there before. When I get there, I hope to find an internet cafe and upload some more photos of the trip thus far.