The graveyard of the forgotten dead
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2007
1
152
401
Trip End
Ongoing
Flic En Flac,
Mauritius
Saturday, November 3, 2007
We walk back to our apartment. Passing by, what Dr T calls, 'my graveyard'. I call it; 'the graveyard of the forgotten dead.'. Which is probably not fair. I guess people do not have the money to buy a tombstone. Neither to put flowers on the grave. But, it did look so insolated, so unloved. And no, it is not polite to take pictures of a graveyard. I did not want to be disrespectful. It is my honor to the people buried here.
We spend hours on internet and on the phone and finally come up with something. It is half an hour of the place we wanted to be and has no internet but it is or looks like a nice villa.
http://www.7south.net/English/Hotel%20English/bel_ombre_holi day_villas.htm
Where ever we go, we hear: 'yes, BUT it is high season there'. I just cannot believe that.
Our diving is included and we will be picked up.
We did not yet manage to book a hotel in Mauritius. We stay a night here on our way to Madagascar. The tourist info site says: there are no airport hotels!
And: Madagascar is another story all together! You cannot rent a car without a chauffeur. Driving 200 kms takes more than a day. The average yearly income is 300 Euro. What did we get ourselves into?
We have to look at that one night in Mauritius and Madagascar a bit more.
I want a steak in the evening. The first restaurant we enter, everybody is waiting for their food and after 15 minutes, nobody showed up to ask us if we want a drink. We leave and go to 'Chez Pepe'. OK, it is Italian but has a nice selection of steak. We got our wine, garlic bread and salad and waited ... 2 hours. Two hours for a steak. A BLUE steak. When it finally arrived, I was so fed up, I did not eat a bite!
Murder mystery at home and a bottle of wine.
Next morning diving!
We WALK to the diving side from the shop, wetsuits half on. You will see the Indian dressed lady on the side. This is a familiar view in Mauritius.
Our diving boat. It IS a bit primitive.
Hubby says: 'his and hers fins'. We use toothpaste to prevent our mask from fogging. Does it help? We think so. If not: Dr T says the mask smells nice.
Two good dives with Ben. The first dive starts with through a cave and be eye to eye with a huge snapper.
In the evening: NO more eating out. The scampies are not so bad.
So nothing left but pack the next day and take a night flight to the Seychelles. We have to empty our rum. Dr T puts my MP3 player on and I have a good flight, despite the screaming children.
We land on the main island of the Seychelles: Mahé and stay in a nice beach town: Beau Vallon, or better close to it in Bel Ombre. And indeed, we are picked up. And brought to our bungalow, where the lady of the house Debra (like zebra but with a d) waits for us. We have no water, coffee, coke or beer. She takes us to a night shop to collect it. But they do not have coffee, so she takes us to our house and gives us coffee. I do not think there is ANY real coffee on the whole island. Nescafe. But we are grateful. With a big hug and a 'see you tomorrow' she leaves us. Our bungalow is big, a bit primitive and has no A/C (I know what we promised ourselves in Mexico: not without A/C anymore. I mean: we DID have a Tarantula in Guatemala but there was A/C) but I am jumping with joy, until, ..., until, I bumped into a moth, a worm and a couple of ... cockroaches. In 1 minute. IN OUR BEDROOM. I can handle spiders, snakes, mice, rats but no cockroaches.
This is a 'poor Tony' story really. I jumped on a chair (stone naked) and Tony killed the beasts. And moves the sheets to a different bedroom. While I was still standing on that chair. Then, when all was clear, he reached out his hand, saying it was safe and all I could think of to say was: 'no, I am fine.' My brain knew this was BS, what is that; standing on a little chair, in the middle of the night (no kidding it was 3 in the morning), saying I was FINE??? So, I did come down and went to bed. Waking up SCREAMING in the middle of the night. Of course, in my dreams, those 'things' were crawling over me. When Tony tried to comfort me: I jumped up. I was not a good night.
Welcome to the Seychelles, have a nice day.
To the credit of Dr T, he was not only my hero but also managed NOT to laugh at me, standing on that chair in the bedroom. He already deserves a statue for that. Did I mention I was also screaming: I get out of here tomorrow morning???
But tomorrow morning: you will meet the Seychelles.
