Beautiful Mauritius
I am a red lobster. The Mauritian sun is very strong, and I am going to have one hell of a tan when this sunburn goes away. You might as well start calling me George Hamilton right now, because I am going to be nice and gold after this painful takeover of my skin. Anyways, a sunburn is a small price to pay for three days on one of the most gorgeous islands I have ever spent my time on. I have never been to Hawaii, but every picture I have seen resembles this island. Speaking of pictures, my digital camera broke the last day I was in South Africa. The lens is jammed out, and it turns on, then shuts off. I tried to find a place in Mauritius to fix it or buy a new one, but I had trouble finding even a legit store. All around is run down stores or Indian markets. So most of my pictures will be from the people I spent the three days with, and hopefully I can find a camera in India. Finally, I will write a short journal entry this time. With three days on an island filled with beaches, you can guess what I did, and you can guess there is not a whole lot to write about. So this short entry is for you J.C. ;-)
Mauritius is a place I had never heard of before Semester at Sea. This port was originally supposed to be Kenya, which was canceled due to terrorism and piracy. Mauritius was what replaced Kenya, and I remember having to pull out a map to find the little island in the Indian Ocean. It lies just east of Madagascar, and most of its imports are from South Africa, although the culture is very Indian. The island is very popular among Europeans because it is a hotspot for vacations. This brought a lot of anger from SAS students because it was not a comparable port to Kenya. Kenya is a fascinating African country with much native history and culture, and Mauritius is…..an island full of beaches and resorts. Well the thing is, there is much more culture and history than any of us ever expected to find in Mauritius, and I for one am very happy I was able to visit such an interesting country.
The night before pulling into Mauritius, a group of about 8 of us decided to rent a beach house for the 3 days we would be there. Pretty much every SAS student was planning on doing this. The problem was that my friends and I did not want to go to a complex or beach area that was filled with SAS’ers, and we did a great job of that. I talked to tons of people and got a sense of where everyone was staying. They were pretty much all staying in Flic en Flac, a beach town with many bungalows and hotels you can stay at. I then got on the internet and found a place about 30 minutes from there right next to a town called Grand Baie. We called up the place (Seapoint Beach Bungalows) in the morning when we arrived in Mauritius, and we rented 2 bungalows on the beach. We really weren’t sure what the place was like, other than what we had seen on the internet. The ship was docked in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. When the ship was cleared, around 9:30am, we set out into the market of Port Louis. The culture in Mauritius is very interesting. Everyone here is Indian, but they all speak French. We walked around the markets, and it definitely gave us a taste of what India will be like. Most of them sold knockoff clothes like Hugo Boss, Von Dutch, etc. After the markets, which didn’t exactly smell like an Elizabeth Taylor perfume fragrance (AKA it smelled bad because of the sewer, dead fish laying out for sale, and tons of people in a small area), we headed back to the ship. I did not buy anything in the markets because I figured that everything there I can get in India for cheaper, and there will be even more stuff. Ryan of course bought a ton of crap, and like I said, we headed back to the ship after that. We ate lunch on the ship, then Ryan, Mark, Grant, Morgan, Liz, and I all set out for our bungalow. The rest of the people who were going to stay with us had some field programs through SAS that they signed up for, and they were going to meet us later in the day. We grabbed a cab and took the 30 minute drive to the north side of the island, right next to Grand Baie. Grand Baie is a little tourist spot with shops and restaurant, and our bungalow was about a 5 minute drive down the road. Our place was right on the beach, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The bungalow wasn’t the nicest thing in the world, but for $40 US per person for 2 nights, you can’t beat that. The water was a bright turquoise color, and it was accented with a white sand beach and palm trees. I was in heaven. The first thing we did was run to the supermarket to get some food. We thought since it was such a short drive from Grand Baie that it wouldn’t take long to walk, but we were wrong. It was about 85 degrees out, and we had to dodge mopeds, wild dogs, and crazy cab drivers as we walked 45 minutes through little villages to get to the supermarket. When we finally got there, we spent nearly two hours there. It was amazing to see actual food. You don’t understand how precious some little things are to us, like crackers, pizza, candy, ice cream, etc. We never see this type of stuff on the ship, so it is like heaven when we see it. At one point I looked at our cart and all it was filled with was alcohol, fireworks, and a blender. I brought this to the attention of my friends, and we laughed at how stupid and American we are. At that point I remembered we would probably need food, and we then hatched our dinner plan. There was a barbecue at the bungalow, so we got some chicken, teriyaki sauce, rice, buns, and chips, and we got out of the supermarket. When we got back to the bungalow, Grant and I wasted no time in getting our snorkeling gear on. We grabbed our masks and flippers and set out for the beach. The coral was gorgeous, and the fish spectacular. It was good snorkeling there, but it never got deeper than 3 or 4 feet, and it became tough to navigate around the coral and rocks without touching it. After that, we spent the night barbecuing, drinking wine or mixed drinks, swimming in the pool, and listening to music. The rest of the group had shown up around 7pm, and we now had 11 people staying in our 2 bungalows. In my bungalow was me, Grant, Quinn, Leah, and Jess. We sat on the balcony for hours and talked about social issues, world issues, politics, religion, and our personal lives. I seriously travel around the world with the most amazing people, and we have the most intelligent and beautiful conversations between ourselves. I absolutely love it. So, we talked until about 11pm, and then a really fat French guy in a speedo from the bungalow next to us started yelling at us because we were too loud. He had gotten the night watchmen of the complex to come over with him, and since neither of them spoke English, they looked pretty hilarious making gestures at us to try to get us to go to sleep. Even though we were just talking in normal voices and barely making any noise, we decided to take it inside. Grant, Jess, and I were in the same room so we talked until early in the morning about everything, and it was a lot of fun.
In the morning, the French guy was trying to yell at us some more and explain to us that the beer we drink is going to make us fat, and I pointed to his gut and the wine he was drinking with his breakfast, and inquired about that. He didn’t have an answer. I talked to the night watchmen who said we were no problem, and that the fat French guy had been complaining about the Norwegians and Italians who were in the bungalows on the other side of him too. So if you can catch my drift, the French guy and us did not get along. Maybe he was just frustrated because his gut was squeezing his speedo too tight…
Anyways, the second day….lazy day! Mauritius was kind of like our spring break, and I decided that I was not going to do any hardcore traveling around this island (there isn’t much to see anyways), and that I was going to just chill out and enjoy the gorgeous beaches. Half of the group went to go travel to hike some waterfalls, and half the group went to the beach. I decided to go to the beach. We wanted to go to a different beach than the one in front of our hotel for a change, so we walked about 3 minutes down the road to Mont Choisy beach. It was all sand and it was beautiful. We swam, laid out in the sun, and got ice cream from a guy in a musical ice cream truck. Of course, me and Grant snorkeled a ton too. It was lots of fun, but then it started to rain. It had rained about 3 times that day, but it only rains for about 5 minutes then it passes over. So after the beach we went back to the bungalow and then back to the supermarket. We bought, wine, cheese, crackers, and bread and had an outstanding lunch. We then just hung around in the sun under the palm trees by the pool until the other group got back from the hiking trip. We then all got dressed into some nice casual clothes and went into Grand Baie for some dinner. We ate at a Chinese place, which was stupid to me because I thought we should be eating Indian food since that is the culture, but whatever. I was full from the bread, cheese, and crackers, so I only ordered desert. After dinner, some of our group went to a bar, but I was exhausted and didn’t want to spend any money on alcohol, and everyone from our bungalow felt the same, so we just went back. We once again talked for a while and then went to sleep around 1am.
The next morning we got up early, around 730, and we had booked a catamaran excursion through the place we were staying at. We were picked up at 830 and driven to a pier where we boarded the catamaran. We sailed out to Flat Island, and it was hilarious. We all sat on the front of the catamaran, and there were two nets in the very front that you could sit in and look down at the water. Mark and Morgan each sat on one of the nets. We were laughing so hard because once we got out of the sheltered bay and into the open water they were getting soaked. It didn’t last for long because eventually the swells got so big we were getting slammed and soaked by waves as well. It was a great time and we laughed and held on to dear life as we crashed into wave after wave. We eventually made it out to Flat Island, and we jumped in the water and snorkeled. The water was clear, and I could see straight down to the bottom from about 30 feet up. It was a beautiful bright blue color. We snorkeled in towards the shore and swam above coral and brightly colored fish just a few feet below us. Everyone except Mark, Grant, and I headed back to the catamaran about halfway through my little tour I was leading, so we snorkeled for a really long time by ourselves and saw a ton of cool things. Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean is very different. It is more southern than the Caribbean for example, and for some reason that makes you more buoyant in the water. The body is very buoyant in saltwater anyways, but I never once got tired, and all I was wearing were fins, a mask and snorkel, and my suit. I just floated at the top of the water and kicked my fins lightly to move through it. It was so relaxing. When we got back to the catamaran, the two guys running it barbecued us lunch. After lunch pretty much everyone felt seasick because we were rocking quite a bit where we were anchored. Mark was the only one that puked, but I was close to it. We pulled up anchor and went to a beach. We pulled into a bay that was as smooth as glass, and we swam around the catamaran or to the beach and just hung out for about 2 hours. After that we were ready to go back, but the engines on the catamaran didn’t start. There wasn’t enough wind to sail out of there, so they called one of their friends who came up in a boat an hour later and gave them a new battery. The engines worked and we got back out into the blue ocean. Then the engines shut down again. They eventually got one engine working and we half sailed and half motor boated the way in. We eventually got back to the dock around 530pm, and then we went back to the bungalow. We grabbed our stuff and then headed back to the ship.
It was about a half an hour cab ride back to the ship, and once I was back on I immediately jumped in the shower. I was so full of salt and sweat, and it felt so good to get clean. After my refreshing shower, I called my parents, and then made some calls to a few friends. I made the decision that this would be the port where I call people, since it is almost halfway through. Wow, almost halfway through this voyage, I don’t even want to think about that! Anyways, after my phone calls, I hung out with some people on the pool deck and we pulled out of port early at 10pm instead of 11 because everyone was on the ship before 9pm (on ship time).
Mauritius was wonderful. It was very interesting to see the Indian culture mixed with South African, French, Creole, and all kinds of other things. The island is about half the size of Rhode Island, so it is small. There really aren’t many roads, there about two that run throughout the whole island. Even though it is small, the landscapes are very different throughout the island, and it was interesting to view the variances in landscapes in such short distances. It definitely was a precursor of India, and we get there in 7 days. There is a break between classes; we have the sea Olympics on one of the days. Every hallway is divided into a “sea” on the ship, and I am in the Arabian Sea. All the seas compete in the sea Olympics in all kinds of crazy games. The sea who wins the Olympics gets to get off the ship first in San Diego. I am kind of hoping my sea does not win, that way I do not have to say goodbye as quickly to all the amazing people I have met. Anyways, I can not wait for India, I have heard that it is the most far removed and different culture that anyone will ever experience. It is supposed to be a port that will change the way you look at the lives and culture of people. So that is my entry on Mauritius, and as I promised, it was short this time. That wont last for long though, expect a nice long one for India! I will surely write an update after the sea olympics, so until then, goodbye!
P.S. – I have 4 Buffett concerts planned so far for this summer: Pittsburgh, Camden, and 2 in Boston. I already have someone coming with me to Pittsburgh, but if you are interested in any of the others, keep it in mind and get with me when I get back. Oh and there will most likely be more dates, which means more shows….
P.P.S. - The internet the past few weeks here has been ridiculous, and I am having an extrememly difficult time getting photos up and checking my email. So, if there are no photos, or I dont respond to your emails, or if this blog is updated late, that is the reason why. It is very frustrating and hopefully whatever is wrong will be fixed. So just give me time, it will all be up soon.
Mauritius is a place I had never heard of before Semester at Sea. This port was originally supposed to be Kenya, which was canceled due to terrorism and piracy. Mauritius was what replaced Kenya, and I remember having to pull out a map to find the little island in the Indian Ocean. It lies just east of Madagascar, and most of its imports are from South Africa, although the culture is very Indian. The island is very popular among Europeans because it is a hotspot for vacations. This brought a lot of anger from SAS students because it was not a comparable port to Kenya. Kenya is a fascinating African country with much native history and culture, and Mauritius is…..an island full of beaches and resorts. Well the thing is, there is much more culture and history than any of us ever expected to find in Mauritius, and I for one am very happy I was able to visit such an interesting country.
The night before pulling into Mauritius, a group of about 8 of us decided to rent a beach house for the 3 days we would be there. Pretty much every SAS student was planning on doing this. The problem was that my friends and I did not want to go to a complex or beach area that was filled with SAS’ers, and we did a great job of that. I talked to tons of people and got a sense of where everyone was staying. They were pretty much all staying in Flic en Flac, a beach town with many bungalows and hotels you can stay at. I then got on the internet and found a place about 30 minutes from there right next to a town called Grand Baie. We called up the place (Seapoint Beach Bungalows) in the morning when we arrived in Mauritius, and we rented 2 bungalows on the beach. We really weren’t sure what the place was like, other than what we had seen on the internet. The ship was docked in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. When the ship was cleared, around 9:30am, we set out into the market of Port Louis. The culture in Mauritius is very interesting. Everyone here is Indian, but they all speak French. We walked around the markets, and it definitely gave us a taste of what India will be like. Most of them sold knockoff clothes like Hugo Boss, Von Dutch, etc. After the markets, which didn’t exactly smell like an Elizabeth Taylor perfume fragrance (AKA it smelled bad because of the sewer, dead fish laying out for sale, and tons of people in a small area), we headed back to the ship. I did not buy anything in the markets because I figured that everything there I can get in India for cheaper, and there will be even more stuff. Ryan of course bought a ton of crap, and like I said, we headed back to the ship after that. We ate lunch on the ship, then Ryan, Mark, Grant, Morgan, Liz, and I all set out for our bungalow. The rest of the people who were going to stay with us had some field programs through SAS that they signed up for, and they were going to meet us later in the day. We grabbed a cab and took the 30 minute drive to the north side of the island, right next to Grand Baie. Grand Baie is a little tourist spot with shops and restaurant, and our bungalow was about a 5 minute drive down the road. Our place was right on the beach, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The bungalow wasn’t the nicest thing in the world, but for $40 US per person for 2 nights, you can’t beat that. The water was a bright turquoise color, and it was accented with a white sand beach and palm trees. I was in heaven. The first thing we did was run to the supermarket to get some food. We thought since it was such a short drive from Grand Baie that it wouldn’t take long to walk, but we were wrong. It was about 85 degrees out, and we had to dodge mopeds, wild dogs, and crazy cab drivers as we walked 45 minutes through little villages to get to the supermarket. When we finally got there, we spent nearly two hours there. It was amazing to see actual food. You don’t understand how precious some little things are to us, like crackers, pizza, candy, ice cream, etc. We never see this type of stuff on the ship, so it is like heaven when we see it. At one point I looked at our cart and all it was filled with was alcohol, fireworks, and a blender. I brought this to the attention of my friends, and we laughed at how stupid and American we are. At that point I remembered we would probably need food, and we then hatched our dinner plan. There was a barbecue at the bungalow, so we got some chicken, teriyaki sauce, rice, buns, and chips, and we got out of the supermarket. When we got back to the bungalow, Grant and I wasted no time in getting our snorkeling gear on. We grabbed our masks and flippers and set out for the beach. The coral was gorgeous, and the fish spectacular. It was good snorkeling there, but it never got deeper than 3 or 4 feet, and it became tough to navigate around the coral and rocks without touching it. After that, we spent the night barbecuing, drinking wine or mixed drinks, swimming in the pool, and listening to music. The rest of the group had shown up around 7pm, and we now had 11 people staying in our 2 bungalows. In my bungalow was me, Grant, Quinn, Leah, and Jess. We sat on the balcony for hours and talked about social issues, world issues, politics, religion, and our personal lives. I seriously travel around the world with the most amazing people, and we have the most intelligent and beautiful conversations between ourselves. I absolutely love it. So, we talked until about 11pm, and then a really fat French guy in a speedo from the bungalow next to us started yelling at us because we were too loud. He had gotten the night watchmen of the complex to come over with him, and since neither of them spoke English, they looked pretty hilarious making gestures at us to try to get us to go to sleep. Even though we were just talking in normal voices and barely making any noise, we decided to take it inside. Grant, Jess, and I were in the same room so we talked until early in the morning about everything, and it was a lot of fun.
In the morning, the French guy was trying to yell at us some more and explain to us that the beer we drink is going to make us fat, and I pointed to his gut and the wine he was drinking with his breakfast, and inquired about that. He didn’t have an answer. I talked to the night watchmen who said we were no problem, and that the fat French guy had been complaining about the Norwegians and Italians who were in the bungalows on the other side of him too. So if you can catch my drift, the French guy and us did not get along. Maybe he was just frustrated because his gut was squeezing his speedo too tight…
Anyways, the second day….lazy day! Mauritius was kind of like our spring break, and I decided that I was not going to do any hardcore traveling around this island (there isn’t much to see anyways), and that I was going to just chill out and enjoy the gorgeous beaches. Half of the group went to go travel to hike some waterfalls, and half the group went to the beach. I decided to go to the beach. We wanted to go to a different beach than the one in front of our hotel for a change, so we walked about 3 minutes down the road to Mont Choisy beach. It was all sand and it was beautiful. We swam, laid out in the sun, and got ice cream from a guy in a musical ice cream truck. Of course, me and Grant snorkeled a ton too. It was lots of fun, but then it started to rain. It had rained about 3 times that day, but it only rains for about 5 minutes then it passes over. So after the beach we went back to the bungalow and then back to the supermarket. We bought, wine, cheese, crackers, and bread and had an outstanding lunch. We then just hung around in the sun under the palm trees by the pool until the other group got back from the hiking trip. We then all got dressed into some nice casual clothes and went into Grand Baie for some dinner. We ate at a Chinese place, which was stupid to me because I thought we should be eating Indian food since that is the culture, but whatever. I was full from the bread, cheese, and crackers, so I only ordered desert. After dinner, some of our group went to a bar, but I was exhausted and didn’t want to spend any money on alcohol, and everyone from our bungalow felt the same, so we just went back. We once again talked for a while and then went to sleep around 1am.
The next morning we got up early, around 730, and we had booked a catamaran excursion through the place we were staying at. We were picked up at 830 and driven to a pier where we boarded the catamaran. We sailed out to Flat Island, and it was hilarious. We all sat on the front of the catamaran, and there were two nets in the very front that you could sit in and look down at the water. Mark and Morgan each sat on one of the nets. We were laughing so hard because once we got out of the sheltered bay and into the open water they were getting soaked. It didn’t last for long because eventually the swells got so big we were getting slammed and soaked by waves as well. It was a great time and we laughed and held on to dear life as we crashed into wave after wave. We eventually made it out to Flat Island, and we jumped in the water and snorkeled. The water was clear, and I could see straight down to the bottom from about 30 feet up. It was a beautiful bright blue color. We snorkeled in towards the shore and swam above coral and brightly colored fish just a few feet below us. Everyone except Mark, Grant, and I headed back to the catamaran about halfway through my little tour I was leading, so we snorkeled for a really long time by ourselves and saw a ton of cool things. Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean is very different. It is more southern than the Caribbean for example, and for some reason that makes you more buoyant in the water. The body is very buoyant in saltwater anyways, but I never once got tired, and all I was wearing were fins, a mask and snorkel, and my suit. I just floated at the top of the water and kicked my fins lightly to move through it. It was so relaxing. When we got back to the catamaran, the two guys running it barbecued us lunch. After lunch pretty much everyone felt seasick because we were rocking quite a bit where we were anchored. Mark was the only one that puked, but I was close to it. We pulled up anchor and went to a beach. We pulled into a bay that was as smooth as glass, and we swam around the catamaran or to the beach and just hung out for about 2 hours. After that we were ready to go back, but the engines on the catamaran didn’t start. There wasn’t enough wind to sail out of there, so they called one of their friends who came up in a boat an hour later and gave them a new battery. The engines worked and we got back out into the blue ocean. Then the engines shut down again. They eventually got one engine working and we half sailed and half motor boated the way in. We eventually got back to the dock around 530pm, and then we went back to the bungalow. We grabbed our stuff and then headed back to the ship.
It was about a half an hour cab ride back to the ship, and once I was back on I immediately jumped in the shower. I was so full of salt and sweat, and it felt so good to get clean. After my refreshing shower, I called my parents, and then made some calls to a few friends. I made the decision that this would be the port where I call people, since it is almost halfway through. Wow, almost halfway through this voyage, I don’t even want to think about that! Anyways, after my phone calls, I hung out with some people on the pool deck and we pulled out of port early at 10pm instead of 11 because everyone was on the ship before 9pm (on ship time).
Mauritius was wonderful. It was very interesting to see the Indian culture mixed with South African, French, Creole, and all kinds of other things. The island is about half the size of Rhode Island, so it is small. There really aren’t many roads, there about two that run throughout the whole island. Even though it is small, the landscapes are very different throughout the island, and it was interesting to view the variances in landscapes in such short distances. It definitely was a precursor of India, and we get there in 7 days. There is a break between classes; we have the sea Olympics on one of the days. Every hallway is divided into a “sea” on the ship, and I am in the Arabian Sea. All the seas compete in the sea Olympics in all kinds of crazy games. The sea who wins the Olympics gets to get off the ship first in San Diego. I am kind of hoping my sea does not win, that way I do not have to say goodbye as quickly to all the amazing people I have met. Anyways, I can not wait for India, I have heard that it is the most far removed and different culture that anyone will ever experience. It is supposed to be a port that will change the way you look at the lives and culture of people. So that is my entry on Mauritius, and as I promised, it was short this time. That wont last for long though, expect a nice long one for India! I will surely write an update after the sea olympics, so until then, goodbye!
P.S. – I have 4 Buffett concerts planned so far for this summer: Pittsburgh, Camden, and 2 in Boston. I already have someone coming with me to Pittsburgh, but if you are interested in any of the others, keep it in mind and get with me when I get back. Oh and there will most likely be more dates, which means more shows….
P.P.S. - The internet the past few weeks here has been ridiculous, and I am having an extrememly difficult time getting photos up and checking my email. So, if there are no photos, or I dont respond to your emails, or if this blog is updated late, that is the reason why. It is very frustrating and hopefully whatever is wrong will be fixed. So just give me time, it will all be up soon.
posted by Mike Gilbert at 1:54 AM
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