Mauritius

We arrived on Saturday, March 1^st on a small island off the coast of Madagascar, called Mauritius. Basically it is the summer vacation destination for the British and French. Much like Hawaii is for us in SoCal, but, much better.

It was beautiful! The clearest water I have ever seen and the whitest beaches that I have ever laid my eyes upon. The picturesque beaches reminded me much of Fanning Island in the Kiribati, and the lush green mountains overlooking the city resembled Kauai, Hawaii.

So what did I do while I was on the island?

March 1: I paid for a submarine trip through semester at sea with a group of students on the ship. It was a lot of fun, although the submarine seemed quite old, and tarnished. What happened was that we boarded a small boat to get to another boat then hopped in the submarine. I was in the small sub, with only 4 other students and our guide. We traveled 114 feet under the sea. It was fantastic! I saw all sorts of different colored coral and fish, including, my favorite, the puffer fish. We were also able to see a sunken ship called the “Star Hope” which was hit by a cyclone 10 years ago which was awesome.

I felt like I was in the Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland, but again, the real thing.

We also ended up stopping by a cashmere factory. Supposedly Mauritius is one of the largest exporters of Burberry, Lacoste, Ralf Lauren, Hilfiger and Cashmere to Europe and the United States. I bought this really light, detail printed, Indian type of skirt from the Factory for a cheap price which was great!

The next day some of us went to the beach to hang out. That’s pretty much all we did that day, but it was relaxing to get away from the midterms on the ship and instead sunbathe on the white sandy beach and swim in the 85 degree clear blue Indian Ocean.

The third day was our strenuous day to hike up 2,661 feet to Le Puce (thumb mountain)…I’m still sore from it, but the view was more than worth it! Skylar, Ryan and I hiked this trail which I really don’t think was a trail, but we ended up making it to the top in less than 2 hours. Despite my 26 bug bites I received while climbing the mountain, the view definitely made up for it. It was breathtaking. On our way back down the mountain, we ended up walking through a local Hindu neighborhood. It is amazing how Hindu’s are so active and religious with their faith. In Mauritius there are posters of Vishnu on each corner, and graffiti on the walls that say “Hindu community” or “I love Vishnu”. It’s astonishing to see. The Hindu’s are extremely friendly to us Americans too, but not so much towards the Islamic community. There is still a lot of segregation between the Muslims and Hindus within Mauritius. Anyways, as we were walking through the community, we over heard children’s singing voices and stumbled upon a temple where the voices were coming from. It looked as if the children were singing in a small Hindu “youth group” within the ornate temple. It was just neat to hear the children’s voices. There are also colorful meditation areas in the most discrete, random places, for the Hindu’s to pray. They are all filled with offerings, such as food, incense and small gifts.

Then finally, the last day was filled with leisure time and shopping. The streets were jampacked with people haggling you to buy there product…it’s insane. I didn’t buy anything but it was fun to watch Ryan barder for a couple cheap cheap lacoste shirts. They can cost from 100-300 dollars in the states, but take a flight to Mauritius and you can get them for a little over 10 dollars.