Mauritius was a short stop for us, just two nights in this island paradise. We arrived at the port in the early morning and were greeted with spectacular view of this mountainous island.
Mauritius, Africa’s wealthiest country on a per capita income basis, is a honeymooner’s paradise, primarily for Europeans and South Africans. The population is half Hindu (from India) with a mix of other groups (Chinese, French, etc) making up the balance. As a result there is a mix of food, language and culture that is unique to the island. Along with the growing tourist trade, the Mauritians main industries are sugar cane harvesting and palm oil.
We ended up staying at a beautiful resort, where the boys could play unsupervised in the calm surf of the pristine beach. The ocean was so calm here that it took us a couple of days to realize that there was no sound you typically associate with a beach resort – no surf sound. We built sand castles, strolled the beach, chased crabs, swam and kayaked. Christy even got to take a few turns on skis – water skis of course!
The highlight of our visit was the afternoon with Greg and Veronique, close friends of Christy’s friend from YPO. We had a wonderful Indian lunch at their home on the beach and enjoyed letting the boys run around while we had great conversation about life in Mauritius. We finished the day at Greg and Veronique’s bar, Banana Beach Club, where a jazz band was playing. This club is the party place of Mauritius and as the night went on, we found ourselves hanging out with more and more students from the ship. Although many offered to buy us a beer (as a “reward” for actually making it out to party!), we managed to head home by 1 am, about 3 hours before the students shut the place down!
A second highlight was our mini-submarine trip. We managed to end up in our own submarine for five and took it down to about 110 feet. We saw lots of fish, some less than spectacular coral and a really cool octopus. We also did some snorkeling so the next step with be to take the boys scuba diving!
We enjoyed our time in Mauritius – a nice beach holiday between Africa and India.
