Port Louis,
Mauritius
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The winds were too rough, so we did not pull into port until after noon. We were originally supposed to arrive at 8:00am, just like every other port, and then 4pm, so I was satisfied with around noon. However, I was frustrated because the only service visit I have scheduled for this entire trip had to be canceled because of our late arrival time. Everyone wants to do the service visits, but SAS only schedules the minimum number they can, so they're all quite competitive. I signed up for seven up through India, and received zero. Because of the high demand, however, SAS combined an orientation trip with a type of service visit, a visit to a school, in Mauritius. I didn't mind getting in late until I realized it meant I would be missing my only chance at a service project on this trip. But...considering my present location I still can't complain too much. At least it's a complaint about not getting to help the communities we visit, so I don't feel as bad about it. I woke up late, got ready and ate lunch before we pulled into the port. Today we weren't as fast about getting down to the gangway before everyone else so we had to wait about a half hour before getting off. To get from our ship to the rest of the island, you have to take a ferry over to the mainland. They call it a water taxi, and it was my first adventure of the day. Not the water taxi, necessarily, but climbing over the bridge that's anchored to the ground but extends over the water and back down onto the dock. Basically, you're climbing and descending stairs that are floating in the water; you're moving back and forth and up and down while you're trying to go up and down on the stairs. It's a little bit disorienting, and requires the utmost balance. After turning my hand purple from gripping the railing so hard, I made it into the water taxi to head to mainland Port Louis. Once there, our first stop was the ATM. We have to walk through an area of shops, past some restaurants and a stand that sells freshly squeezed juice that I cannot wait to try before we can get out of the pier area, and then underneath the street. We stood in line for the ATM for a little while before heading to the market to shop. The market was only a couple of blocks away, but we got to experience a little bit of the city even on the short trip there. Port Louis is like a third-world version of Manhattan. People are everywhere, crowding the sidewalks and the streets, and street vendors sell everything from food to T-shirts that they lay out in the gutters to batteries to packets of Q-tips. Anything you need, you'll find on the street. Need a toothbrush? It's in the basket next to the Indian woman with a prosthetic leg. Or how about some dog food? In the barrel right next to the rice and beans. This place is insane. Crazy, but somehow exciting. You never know what you're going to see. Dogs roam everywhere, but cats do even more so throughout the streets and the indoor meat markets. Men standing at the counter to purchase their freshly butchered cow were greeted by a cat sniffing the pieces of flesh already laid out on the counter. I suppose after knowing that a cat has probably licked your dinner a fly doesn't seem so bad. I had trouble stomaching this, and Victor's a vegan so I don't know how he managed to stay as calm as he did. The main market was a little bit cleaner, and so incredibly awesome. I am obsessed with Whole Foods, with all of the fresh produce, so of course this place thrilled me. Walk through a gate and into a huge open space and you see the entire first floor filled to capacity with fruit and vegetable vendors at their countless stands and people lined up to purchase the goods. Make your way through the aisles stocked with everything you could ever want towards the escalator that leads you to the second story, where the fun shopping begins. Upstairs reminded me a lot of Brazil. It had a swap meet feel to it, with lots of spaces filled with the same goods sold by different people. Cloth, shoes, clothes from H&M, spices, and wooden carvings were the most popular items being sold. I bought some tea and spices, as well as a couple of wooden bowls with a pair of salad tongs that had animal prints on them, and tried on a pair of Magic Pants that you tied on yourself like a diaper. They were actually pretty fun, but I never would have worn them so I had Lauren take a picture instead. The girls wanted to buy black pearls and we heard that the fish market was the place to get them, so we tried going back but had no luck, so we went back to the vegetable/swap meet market for a little while longer before heading back to the pier area and enjoying a local beer and some fries at a place right on the water before meeting up with Becca and Matt to go to Chinatown for dinner. We walked the ten minutes to Chinatown, which would have taken a lot longer during normal business hours because of the congestion in the streets but everything closes at 5pm so we didn't have any trouble getting there. We made our way through the masses of cardboard crates and cats and cockroaches in the streets and finally found a restaurant that looked decent. Most everything in the city-restaurants, grocery stores, souvenir shops- is all set up in rundown buildings that look like if you blew on them they'd topple right over. And when the bars are down, the city's a little bit creepy. I've heard so many people in South Africa say that we were incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to come here, but as far as I'd seen, this place was a dump. But apparently the beaches and areas outside of Port Louis are just incredible, which I did get the chance to see when we went out to the North Shore later to hang out at the Banana Bar, but I'll get there. We found a Chinese joint that wasn't falling down and was actually quite clean. No one was in there, so we got ourselves a table in the back and pigged out on food. The six of us polished off two chow meins, fried rice, steamed rice, sweet and sour pork and chicken, and garlic shrimp, and then we ordered another plate of chow mein and a second sweet and sour chicken. Stuffed to the max, we walked back to the pier and Katie called her brother while the rest of us did a little bit of shopping in the one store that was open before we took the water taxi back to the ship. I was exhausted by this point, so I fell asleep pretty soon after getting back to the room. I ignored three phone calls, finally picking up the fourth, and was instructed to get ready because we were going out. Up until the last hour, I was regretting ignoring my instinct that I just wanted to stay in. We took a half-hour cab ride to the north part of the island where the clubs were, and settled into a table at a place called the Banana Bar. We sampled two amazing shots, one called a Bob Marley with Baileys, Crème de Menthe, and grenadine, and a B52, which didn't taste very good but they light it on fire before you suck it down with a straw, so that was exciting. We were six of about ten SASers at the bar for quite awhile, so we sat around the table just relaxing and chatting before the DJ starting playing good dance music. It was later in the evening at this point, so more SAS kids were starting to show up, but I spent the rest of my evening speaking broken French to two Parisians. I got pretty tired again pretty fast, so I was ready to go about an hour before we left. I kept telling myself that I could sleep anytime, that we only had a few nights in Mauritius so I should just relax and enjoy myself. Unfortunately, though, when I get that tired I can't even convince myself to do anything. I bid farewell to the Frenchmen and rounded up the crew to get a taxi back, but someone had mentioned skinny dipping in the ocean earlier in the evening. I couldn't take a cab alone, so I followed after the others, getting crankier by the moment until we found the coconut trees. After that, skinny dipping went out the window and my night turned completely around. Matt climbed the to get a coconut for each of us, but Lauren wanted her own so as she climbed the tree to pick her coconut Becca and I threw ours at the rocks trying to break it open. We decided, though, that we should keep them intact and try to get them back onto the ship. After Lauren got down, we sat out on the sand, just listening to the ocean crash against the beach and looking at the millions of stars between the fronds of the trees. Just the time spent staring at the stars was worth going out tonight. We were about ten minutes away from the main road so there was very little light. It reminded me a lot of the bioilluminescent bay trip, which pleased me immensely because I'd loved it so much. A couple security guards came to check on us so we had to go, but this time I was the one who didn't want to leave. I still love my stars, and under them on a clear night with the sound of waves is bliss for me. We walked back to the bar to catch a cab and Lauren let me sit shotgun so I could roll the window down and continue my stargazing. The cab driver had us back in about twenty minutes because he took the roundabouts at full speed and passed every single car that was in front of him, very nearly hitting a biker on one occasion. After making it back safely and having injured no one, we walked back to the ship, coconuts in our arms. The security guard that goes through all of our things as we board the boat gave me a very funny look, similar to the one I received when I was nine years old and took an eight-pound rock I'd picked up at the beach on California through security with me, and asked me what it was. I told her it was a coconut, that we'd worked really hard to get them and we wanted to bring them home with us. She asked me if I was sure about that, and assuring her we were, we got on board with our coconuts. I tell you, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of childs play to wake you up and change your mood. When I get off the ship in San Diego, I'll be carrying a three-pound coconut in my arms.
