Mauritius

Mauritius was very interesting. When the Europeans founded this small island, there were no natives. When they wanted to grow sugarcane (slavery was already abolished by this point) they got indentured servants from India. Now, 60% of Mauritius’s inhabitants have roots in India. I guess you could say it was a preview to what India will be like. By the morning that we arrived in port I still didn’t have plans. I like to keep my plans open and just do whatever feels right but I was starting to think I cut it too close. When we were clear to disembark, I was planning on going to a villa with a friend so I left with him to meet his friends. They seemed okay, but I didn’t want to commit to spending the next 4 days with them so I found some other friends that were just gonna walk around and we got hustled for the first taxi we got. They charged us $5 each. I’m starting to realize that no matter what, the first couple things you do in each country, you are bound to get hustled. That taxi should have been $1 each person (which is what we paid later) but of course we just paid it because we had no choice. So we went into town and got some money out of the bank. The exchange rate is 27.6 Rupees to 1 dollar. Try doing that conversion I your head when you’re trying to barter with a merchant. Pretty difficult. Then we went back to the boat where I met up with Mal and Nel and the rest of my Pitt friends and we decided to look for some hiking and waterfalls. If you traveled from the north to the south of Mauritius, it would only take 2.5 hours, so we decided to take a bus and just drive around to find something cool. Port Louis is in the north western part of the island and we headed south east to find something cool. The bus was super inexpensive especially when compared to the taxis here. An hour bus ride was slightly over one dollar. I took the bus for the majority of my stay here. So we were on our way to what we thought was hiking and waterfalls in Curepipe. Anytime we had no idea where were going, we would just ask any local and they were very willing to help us to our destination. So we got to the main terminal in a town where we thought the hiking was. Turns out, we were in the middle of the island and all of the mountains are around the perimeter. Eventho we couldn’t really explain what we wanted to anyone at the bus station, we got directions to a crater, trou aux cerfs, that was about 15 minutes away. The bus stops were very random. They were just like in someone’s backyard or whatever and people would be waiting there and some people would get off. We were joking around saying we’d never get off at a stop like that because we would never know how to get back. So I turned to the woman next to me and asked her where to get off for the crater that we were now looking for. She pointed ahead and said the next stop, then make a right. It was the exact same kinda stop that we said we would never get off at. When the bus stopped, we were looking around at everyone and they were all pointing and telling us to get off here. We did. We had no idea where we were, but we made a right and started walking. We got there and it was beautiful. From what I understand it was an old volcano that isn’t active anymore. We took some pictures together at the crater and took in the view. We talked to some locals that were there and they sorta explained how to get to another bus station. We stopped in a little store to get drinks on the way back and found it very easily. Two of the girls went home from that bus so they could go on a SAS trip and the rest of us went to find the waterfall. We took another bus to a little town that was out of the way we got there at 5:50 and asked when the bus left for Curepipe. The man said it left in 10 minutes. Some local quickly walked us to a viewing point for the waterfalls and we ran back to the bus so we didn’t have to stay in that small town for the night. We got there in plenty of time. On the way back some man left his name and phone number on our seat so he could show us around. Then the guy on the bus that collected our money asked us where we were staying so he could hang out. I guess Americans are a hit with Mauritians.

The next day I was still unsure what to do. A friend that is in one of my classes asked me to go to a villa with him and his friends. Most of the semester at sea kids got villas at a beach called Flick n Flack but from what I heard it wasn’t as pretty as this place in the north called Grand Bay. I also heard Flick n Flack has more petty crime because that is where most of the tourists stay. Davis and his friends were staying at Grand Bay, so I went there with them. There were 5 of us going to the villa at the same time, then everyone else (like 10 additional people) were going to meet us there later. The other three girls going with us brought clothes to wash so they took a taxi. Davis and I travel light so we took the bus. It was much much less expensive and it didn’t take much longer. We got off the bus at a spot that looked familiar and were going to walk the rest of the way. As we were walking, we were bragging about how much cheaper our ride was and how it was such a good idea. Unfortunately, it took us like 25 minutes to find the place we were staying. Then when we did find it, the other girls weren’t there and we were locked out. We sat at the beach for about an hour figuring the other girls had left and looked for some food. When we got back, there was a pink post it on the fence saying there was no one to let us in and we should go to this other hotel that the travel agent put us up in. It was slightly aggravating because we had no idea how to get in contact with the other people that were coming up later that night. We called and left some messages at the boat and were on our way to the hotel. The hotel was soooo nice. There was a private beach about 25 feet behind our back porch. After we all settled down a little from the day’s events, we ordered pizza hut and swam in the Indian Ocean. It was beautiful. No waves, but you could swim out 100 yards and still be able to stand. Mauritius is almost entirely surrounded by unbroken coral reefs. (I didn’t go scuba diving or anything, but I heard it’s beautiful.) The next morning we woke up for the sun rise, then again at 9 to go to the villa we were originally supposed to stay in. The travel agency sent a taxi to pick us up and of course the taxi was running on Mauritius time and didn’t get there till like 11. Casa del sol was just as beautiful as the hotel we were staying in the night before. It was huge, it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, a dining room, kitchen, living room, and laundry room downstairs. It was nicely decorated and there were only 5 of us staying there. After we put our stuff down we decided to call the other people in our group to see if we could find them. We took my lappy and Davis’s skype and looked for some internet. As we were walking to the main road, we saw one of the kids that was in the other group! It was a freak accident. He just happened to be walking when we were walking. I love these new friends of mine. They are defiantly some people I will visit when I come back. We had a good time together. We went to the beach that day and what not. The next day, a couple of us had to go back to the boat in the early hours so we could go on a trip. We woke up on time and got back to the boat with an hour to eat and take a shower. It worked out perfectly. That day, I had a trip planed called medicine in Mauritius. It had pretty good potential, they practice natural medicine rather than taking pills of chemicals, they use natural things from the island and from India to cure any problems they have. Even things like obesity and high blood pressure. (Rannie, you should look into this stuff. This doctor was talking about taking a pill of bark from a tree to cure stomach problems or something like that. I got his card so I can email him questions so we can get your life back on track. I know you like natural things over processed things anyways) The trip kinda sucked, it could have been much better but we did have lunch at a delicious restaurant. A family converted their house into a restaurant. The restrooms were the actual bathrooms in the house. You even had to walk thru a bedroom to get to the ladies room. Very cute. The food is traditionally served as a celebration for a wedding or a ceremony so it was super nice and super delicious. We ate on an elephant leaf cut into a square. The servers came around with a metal pot that had one type of food in it. First, they served potatoes, then spinach, then punkin, salmon, a curry dish, white beans, and something that I was not familiar with. They also served bread that you ate your food with. The coolest part was that there was no silverware. We just ate with our hands. Imagine a bunch of piles of mush on an elephant leaf that we’re all eating with our fingers. So fun. I slept on the way home, tried to get a phone card but realized how expensive they were. I went back to the boat and fell asleep for 14 hours. (o: Didn’t even wake up for dinner. While I was at Grand Bay in my villa with my new friends, Matea and our friend Christine had gone to their hostel. They planned on going running every day (that’s why I didn’t go with them) they were swimming in the ocean on the second day we were in port and a jellyfish from 100 miles away stung Christine. She said it didn’t hurt too much but the sting started getting worse so our friend Alex (there are two guys both named alex. One has hair and one doesn’t have hair. This was the one with hair) to ease her pain, peed on her arm where the jelly fish stung her!! Hahahaha that’s hilarious to me. You always hear that on tv and it’s funny that they actually did it. She said there was less pain but her body started freaking out from the sting. She said her back started cramping up and her heart was beating very fast. They asked locals on the beach if she was going to be okay and they said she was fine. They went back to the boat but she didn’t get any better. Then Matea and Christine went to the hospital where Christine was in critical condition for the night. She got a couple shots and some IVs and she ended up being okay. I wish I could have been there because Matea was basically there by herself while her bff was in critical condition. It ended up okay, but it was still very scary. Everything is alright and now we’re on our way to India. I’m excited about India. I am doing a work project and a home stay. I can’t wait for my home stay, its going to open my eyes. We watched a presentation today about how it’s socially unacceptable to have baby girls. All families prefer to have boys because when they are married off, they receive a dowry rather than having to pay the money. There are a large number of female fetus abortions. Families celebrate when a boy is born. If a daughter is born, the wife is sometimes beaten, sometimes divorced, and even killed. Very sad. Never the less, I’m excited about being in Chennai and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. (o: Love you all very much. Keep the email and mail coming. *kisses*