Paradise Island

Port #10: Port Louis, Mauritius

“Mauritius was made first, and then Heaven,

 and that Heaven was copied after Mauritius.”

      --Mark Twain

If Heaven looks like Mauritius, than I can die now and live in paradise with God….

What a gorgeous, magnificent place!  The island had everything to offer: mountains and forests, beaches with clear green waters, smaller islands offshore, a complete ring of coral reef surrounding Mauritius for great scuba diving, and much more.  Two days was not nearly enough time to experience it all.  Not even two days; we had only 32 hours in this port. Depressing. But I made sure to take full advantage of those 32 hours in one of the most beautiful places on the face of this Earth. 

 

Day 1:

    Today I did a trip through Semester at Sea called “Adventure Park and Beach”.  Didn’t really know what to expect at this Adventure Park but I signed up for it because 8 of my friends were doing it as well.  So… this adventure park wasn’t anything like what we would think of as “adventure parks” in USA with roller coasters and fun attractions.  This place was high up in the mountains in a forest and the “adventure” part was crossing wobbly bridges and participating in a rope obstacle course.  It was really fun but surprisingly difficult.  There were two rope courses.  The first course was made up of 7 wire bridges with wooden planks and you attach your carabineer as a precaution in case you fall off the bridge. All of the bridges had wire on either side to hold onto except for one.  Those bridges were fun because I was compelled to jump and shake the bridges and scare the other people on the bridges with me. (hm… I wonder where I got that evil spirit from… Poppy? Dad? Haha) But karma came back to get me because I still managed to slip and fall between the planks in one of the bridges.  Luckily I caught myself and luckily I was wearing the carabineer.  I scraped up my leg but there was so much mud from the rain that morning that the mud was a protector from the wood cutting my leg open enough to draw blood so all I have is a bruise. Then the second course was a lot harder. It was an obstacle course rather than only bridges. One was a rope wall that was really wobbly and flimsy that you had to crawl along. Another was similar to this but with two rope walls parallel to each other. Those were kind of tiring because they demanded mainly upper body strength.  And I have been lifting on the ship occasionally, so I applaud those who have no upper body strength and got through it. Another was a line of wooden cylinders, each separated by 2 feet and at different heights. You had to step from one to another, but it was hard because the blocks swung and it was so muddy people kept slipping off of them.  The last one was two parallel ropes below another set of parallel ropes above them: two for your feet and two for your hands. These were really wobbly because the ropes were so long. That was the last one and by far the hardest.  As soon as I lost my concentration I fell and caught myself on the lower ropes. I was just sitting there for awhile. So many people fell off of this one.  I actually videotaped my friend falling off and trying to get back up. I edited it and added with music so I am going to show it on a SeaTV production in a few nights, it will be funny.  This course also included a zip line which was really cool.  This entire course was pretty individual. Occasionally there was an instructor supervising.  So we attached our carabineers all by ourselves and then released ourselves.  The zip line was funny because at the bottom there was a huge blue pad which we had to run into to stop ourselves.  Kind of hurt.  And the pad was covered in mud from people’s feet so my white shirt was brown by the time I was done. All of it was really really fun.  A day full of physical activity and laughter…my favorite! The only negative to this fun outing we all the mosquitoes.  They warned us, but I think all of us underestimated how bad it was going to actually be. I eventually smeared mud all over my legs which I think helped.  I walked away with maybe 60 bites. Some girls had at least 100 on each leg.  And of course the doctor told us to stop our malaria medication for Mauritius. HA!  Hopefully those mosquitoes don’t carry malaria, or else… we are screwed.  After that we went to flic en flac, one of the famous beaches on the island. it was pretty. Becca, Sally, Toree and I went swimming together. The water was so clear!

      That night we got a van taxi to take 14 of us to our hotel on the other side of the island.   We got 2 hotel rooms for all of us. One room had one queen bed and the other room had 1 king and 2 twins.  Unfortunately, the floor was marble so the rest of us couldn’t even sleep there.  Well, the lady at the front desk caught on pretty quickly and patrolled the area to make sure we weren’t sneaking more than 4 people in to these 2 rooms we paid for.  Ha.  Well, Toree, Becca, Sally and I were able to make it to the smaller room fine without getting caught.  But I guess the lady caught all the others and only let two people go back to the 3-bed room which didn’t make much sense.  In order to allow one other person to sleep in the third bed in the room they had to pay $60 extra.  So…two hotel rooms; 14 people; ended up as 3 people in 3 beds in the larger room; Sally, Becca, Toree and I sharing the queen size bed, and the rest slept on the beach that night.  Luckily it is legal to sleep on the beaches in Mauritius.  Apparently that is what a lot of the semester at sea students ended up doing.  So that night ended interestingly.

Day 2:      

       The next morning we woke up early to find the catamaran place which wasn’t too far from our hotel. We got there really early and hung out with some of the locals working there. They were pretty cool.  When the catamaran came there were 18 students from Semester at Sea, a French couple, and another group of about 8 from France.  We were slightly hesitant at first how it would work with a bunch of us young kids sharing this 40 ft boat with group of adults from another country.  Boy were we wrong. It was a blast! They were very friendly and fun.  We had dance parties, went snorkeling together, had water fights…haha.  So, this catamaran took us three hours north along the eastern coast of Mauritius to an island.  Along the way we stopped to see a waterfall and snorkel.  For the waterfall we had to get off the catamaran and take 2 smaller motorboats to get closer to the fall.  This was where the French and Americans engaged in a water war.  I laugh just thinking about it.  I have a funny video of the boat with the French people on it trying to splash us with buckets of water (keep in mind, the adults started this water fight…haha).  And then for some reason my guy friends took on a pirate accent as they were trying to fight back and fill up buckets to sink their ship. It was hilarious.

       It was now 4pm as we neared Blue Bay shore on the southeastern side of Mauritius.  Two hours until on ship time.  A minute past 18:00 and we would get “dock time” for South Africa, something which none of us could afford because of our schedules.  We all knew that 2 hours would even be pushing it because it would take an hour to drive to the northwestern coast.  And here is where the race and adventure began…..

       We had two taxi vans waiting for us at the dock in Blue Bay.  We jumped in and told our taxi driver that we would give him a large tip if he got us to the boat by 5:15.  Well, this man never spoke to us; he just followed behind the other taxi.  Sure enough, we got separated from the other driver and from that point on our driver was texting and smoking while driving.  We could tell he was lost so we kept showing him the address of the port and asking if he knew where to go; but still no reply from him.  Finally we made him pull over to ask for directions and the man helping us told him to turn around.  Our driver made a U-turn at the next intersection where a cop was directing the heavy traffic from rush-hour.  After we made the U-turn, we got pulled over.  So who knows if it was illegal or not… but the cop came up and grabbed our driver’s papers.  Now the 10 of us were freaking out and practically begging the cop to let the driver go so we could reach the ship in time because it was already 5.  The cop counted all of us and told us in broken English that our driver doesn’t have a license to drive us.  “WHAT?” We grabbed our money and got out of his car so quickly and literally, started running.  I knew which direction to go so I lead the procession of 10 young Americans running down the median of a very busy 4-lane road.  Everyone was staring if not yelling and laughing.  We ran about a mile and found another cop directing traffic to ask for directions to the ship. However, somehow this man didn’t know either.  Again we were pointed in the general direction so we continued running.  We eventually came across a sign for a water taxi which we figured would be able to take us close enough to our boat.  The man driving the boat refused to leave until we paid the money up front. So eager to get going, we over paid the man giving him all the money from the taxi ride.  And the man made that clear as we were sailing through the port because each time we said past a ship with people in it, this man would whistle and make a hand gesture and all the people would cheer for him. In other words, he was boasting at his huge profit.  Anyway, the story is not over yet.  This motor boat was the slowest motor boat I have ever seen in my entire life.  It was now 5:40…20 minutes to be through security and on the ship.  Our MV Explorer was finally in sight and boy it was a huge sigh of relief to see it.  However, when we got off the motor boat on the dock we saw a huge line of other students.  I thought we were doomed after all that work trying to get to the ship.  Then, as we were waiting in line, one of the taxi drivers found us at the dock and called us over.  He claimed that the students in the other taxi never paid him.  At this point our friends were already on the ship so we couldn’t ask them.  We paid the $40 for them but $10 flew into the water.  Things seemed to be so difficult for some reason.  We made it through security and I swiped my card to check in with 5 minutes to spare…phew!  Didn’t think it would be possible after such a struggle of just getting to the ship.  Now that I look back at it, if we didn’t run that mile or so, than we would not have made it back in time.  I seriously felt like I was on the Amazing Race: a show which I have always wanted to be on.  (Side not about The Amazing Race- a few seasons ago a team won who were both Semester at Sea alums! I thought that was cool!  Steven, we need to apply as soon as I graduate from college!)

    My 36 hours in Mauritius was jammed packed with all kinds of activities.  It felt great to be back on the ship after all that chaos of trying to make it back in time.  The best part was, I had a package from my family waiting for me when I got back.  I opened it and saw that it has plastic Easter eggs, candy, a card, and a gift.  I am saving the card and gift to open on Easter.  And I was SO excited about the eggs because that was one thing I was very sad I had forgotten to bring with me for an Easter egg hunt. Now I can with my friends around the ship! Haha that will be fun!  Happy (pre) Easter everyone!!!! Just one more week! And it is Steven’s 24^th birthday the same day so be sure to wish him a happy birthday!! J