Mauritius
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2002
1
100
157
Trip End
Ongoing
Port Louis,
Mauritius
Friday, April 4, 2008
Mauritius Friday 4th April 2008
Had a good flight from Dubai. We were given exit seats again which always makes for a much more comfortable flight. We were both just ready for a nice sleep when breakfast was given out!! That is the trouble with flying over night. It was a good job we had arranged to be picked up from the airport and driven to our hotel without having the usual haggling with the taxi driver with a currency you haven't seen before let alone being able to work out it's value to the £.
Alas it wasn't all plain sailing as when we got to the front of the immigration queue they did not seem very keen on the fact that our onward ticket was out of East Africa and not Mauritius like every other package tourist on our flight.
Blue bay
We told them about our plan to fly onto Madagascar and then on to East Africa, but that we had had trouble with the web site and so could not book the tickets before our arrival. Many eye brows raised and faces frowned when word soon spread along the line of immigration desks as we stood eagerly awaiting our fate. We were then told to sit at the back of the immigration hall and wait.......... It was just like being sent to sit outside the headmasters office as a child at school. Meanwhile another massive plane load of people had landed and joined the already bursting immigration hall. 'Here we go' we thought, they (the powers that be) are going make us wait until everyone has been stamped and allowed through. All those goody goodies with their onward tickets......To our surprise we waited probably 10 minutes and then a man appeared to take us to the Air Mauritius booking desk so we could book our flight to Madagascar. How easy was that? It was more of a trail going through security and screening to get to the departures hall in order to book these flights. Each security person was told our story, yet more raised eye brows and frowning ensued.......
Once the tickets were booked and paid for it was back through security, back to immigration where they put us through a special desk with no queue (the naughty peoples desk, we thought) and gave 60 day visa instead of the standard 30 days
Boabub tree seeds
. "Have a great holiday" was their parting words.We were really dead on our feet by this time and so pleased to see our names written on a piece of paper by our taxi driver Sailesh (arranged with where we were staying).
Chante au Vent which literally means 'sing in the wind' is situated at Blue Bay.
Being just 10 minutes away it was soon very apparent that we were directly under the flight path!!!! Talk about jet blasting? With only 3 or 4 flights a day (that we noticed) it wasn't too hard to get used to. The first flight would sometimes come in about 7.30am.
Our room was huge (for 1900Rs a night which works out to be about £35 a night) with its own kitchenette and fantastic view from our own balcony of a turquoise clear blue sea.
The rest of the afternoon we spent in bed and 'slept for England.' We came to paradise and just slept, how spoilt is that?
We woke up just in time to go to the local restaurant for our first taste of Mauritian food. Chicken with a hot chilli Creole sauce and rice, Mmm very delicious.
Over the next few days we took it all very leisurely getting into the real Mauritian way of life. We went snorkelling in Blue Bay Marine Park. Only 8 years old this marine park has some beautiful coral gardens but is distinctly lacking in fish life. Maybe we just went on a quiet day who knows? We did have plans to go scuba diving but dive companies where not taking their boats to the outside of the reef as the sea was so rough.
We arranged to do a tour with Sailesh in his car of the sights of the south
Botanical gardens in Pamplemous
. We started off by driving up through the hills to the tea factory. But because it was a Hindu festival day it was shut. L So we headed off further up the visiting a huge Hindu temple on the way. It was very busy with people praying and giving offerings. A very tall Shiva statue made of bronze stood guard over the whole area.From there we drove to a viewpoint next to the Chamarel waterfall which plunges more than a 100m down. The view of the coast way below us was worth a visit. From there was a little drive to Chameral coloured earths. For 75Rs each we entered an area of landscape which had at least 7 different shades of earth. The colours themselves are believed to be the result of the uneven cooling of molten rock. There was also an area here to see 4 or 5 giant tortoises. But not as giant as the ones we saw in the Galapagos Islands.
We visited the Black River Gorge National Park where we were treated to another amazing viewpoint through the gorge to the coast.
On our way back to Blue Bay we stopped off on the coast of Souillac. We stood on top of the rugged cliff face watching the fishermen cast their lines out into the turquoise blue sea. Another beautiful sight to see.
Flic En Flac 8th to 13th April
After our 4 nights in Blue Bay is was time to move on. We decided to relocate to the west coast in hope that the sea outside the reef area would be calmer and then we could dive. We found a lovely place to stay called La Desirade. For 1200Rs (£25) per night we had a very nice little apartment with everything you could need for self catering and comfort. We could sit on our own veranda which looked out on to a well established jungle of a garden. Facing west it afforded views of the sunset every evening
Coloured earth
.We stayed here for 5 nights. We managed to get our act together to actually go diving! After 10 months it was great, diving on a wreck called Tug II we have never seen so many Lion Fish on one site. There was over 100 of them. The wreck was only 20mtrs long and you had to be very careful not to bump into these things as they are very poisonous at the slightest touch.
The rest of our time was spent chilling out at the beach and going for long walks along the water line. We did make it for a snack lunch at the Hilton. It was a convenient stop to cool down and read their English newspapers too. But with rip off prices for their Hilton club sandwich (It wasn't all that good either) we won't be hurrying to order that again!! You have to try these things.....
With only a few options of restaurants in Flic en Flac we soon exhausted them. Although we have to say the local food dishes were excellent and much cheaper than Blue Bay too.
Trou aux Biches 13th to 18th April
Time to relocate again. We soon get itchy feet. We said our goodbyes to La Disirade and would definitely recommended them to others wanting to stay in Flic en Flac.
Now further up the west coast to yet another beach area called Trou aux Biches
Flic and Flac beach on the west coast
.We checked into a very newly built hotel type guest house called Villas Krissen. Again we had a very nice apartment on the top floor of 3 this time with A/C. We haven't felt the need to have rooms with A/C but as it was included in the price of Rs 1200 (£25) we couldn't help but use it. Unlike our last place where we were shaded by the jungle garden this time we were open to all the sunshine so it was actually quite necessary.
There was a swimming pool here also which made a pleasant change if you did not want to take the 2 minute walk to the beautiful beach.
We frequented the local restaurants as well as catering for ourselves. We found a dive shop (Dream Divers) and arranged to go on a dive. We were pleasantly surprised by the good quality of coral off the Trou aux Biches area. With great formations and a range of variety we enjoyed our first dive very much.
Our second dive we made on a wreck called Stella Mau. The ship lay at 24m down with chimney/funnels still in tact (one housed a HUGE Moray eel) and the engine house that you could look inside was home to loads of the usual kinds of fish you find in tropical waters. It was great just looking in all the different holes, shinning your torch to see what you could find. We really enjoyed both the dives we did with Dream Divers
Giant Amazonian water lilys at the Botanic gardens
.We did not have much time left for more dives as we needed to dry our dive equipment ready to leave Mauritius on Friday 18th to go to Madagascar.
On Thursday we took the local bus (only 10mins) further north to Grand Baie. This area is full of hotels resorts and spas. The harbour/bay area was very busy with boats and catamarans which take tourists out on trips to the northern islands for snorkelling, swimming and fishing etc. We did see one person learning to water ski. This sight was made all the more amusing as he had to negotiate learning to ski around the numerous boats dotted about the area. Needless to say we sat ourselves at a water front café drinking coffee, eating French pastries and crying with laughter!!
We walked about the numerous shops and boutiques not feeling the need to buy anything other than some postcards and stamps, so our next plan was to take the local bus to the Botanical Garden at Pamplemousses.
Some 40 minutes later we were now further inland and walking through the main entrance of some very ornate white wrought iron gates (sent from Crystal Palace England, supposedly) which lead to some beautiful landscaped gardens.
