First few days in Mauritius

So after the worst start to holidays EVER I ended up in Mauritius! Leaving Mexico I got sick because of the difference in temperature and my day and a half in Holland did not make it better. With a sore throat and cough I went to the airport Thursday morning to meet my sister after 6 months! We proceeded to our gate to board the plane. However nothing was happening still and there was no line. We assumed there was a delay in the flight so we just waited. A few minutes before our flight was supposed to leave I asked again what gate it was. Turned out we were literally 1 gate next to the gate we were supposed to be at!!!! We ran as fast as we could to the gate that was 10 seconds away and the plane was still there. However the ladies told us we were like 1 minute too late and they had called us many times (total lie). Many tears and a 985 euro new plane ticket later we had 30 hours to kill at the airport. Probably finished all the testers available and I experienced an airport from morning to morning. At night it was completely empty and cold. I tried to sleep next to a cafeteria but I did not close an eye because every 5 minutes a speaker sounded ‘watch out for pickpockets’ and I saw various mice running around. Counting the minutes till the boarding time I received a lovely e-mail saying the flight was delayed with 3 hours. So we continued walking and eating our left over chocolate while I finally slept a little on a chair like a cat. So 45 hours later we arrived in Johannesburg where our parents were waiting for us. We also came 6 minutes ‘too early’ to receive a huge compensation for the delay….
Anyhow, we drove home where we had around 3 hours to sleep and shower before we went back to the airport again. This time flying to this beautiful destination of Mauritius! An island 4 hours from Johannesburg on the east side of Africa. We will stay here for 1 week and spend Christmas here.

So a little bit about this island; their main languages are French and English however they all speak Creole between them. They also say that they speak Creole, write English and read French (or something like that). It has around 1 million inhabitants and they have to import almost everything but sugar because they have a huge sugarcane plantation. The population is very mixed as there are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Catholics. You really notice that everybody is so tolerant and open which is such a nice thing to see. We spoke to several people with different backgrounds and beliefs but they all speak so positive and equal about each other. Some beliefs even share churches, how cool is that?!

We are staying at this really nice hotel on the beach with a lot of nature surrounding us. The hotel is very exotic and open. During the day people relax by the pool or beach and you can also take the paddle board, kayak, catamaran, glass bottom boat etc. so there is lots to do! At night the hotel has a lot of activities planned. It is really nice to hang around and talk to other people while live music is playing, people are dancing or games are being played.

Furthermore we took some tours to get to know the country better. Mauritius is very green and has a beautiful national park. Another thing I could not help but notice were the mountains. Almost at every point that you stand you can see the mountains with really high and weird shaped peaks surrounding the island, really beautiful! In the national park we saw a 100 meter waterfall falling down. It was like a small lake in the middle of this huge forest with a really high waterfall on the side.
Then we continued to one of the spots we were all looking forward to; 7 coloured sand. It is crazy! You see a forest next to a few hills existent of these amazing purple/pink/orange colours. You can walk around the small ‘park’ and see the different colours by looking at it from different angles. It is not sand but it isn’t ’normal’ earth either. I was so impressive to look at it that I just had to take a hundred pictures of the same thing. There were also some tortoises and they were gigantic! Crazy fact; their shells are their most sensitive part.

We went to the capital city Port Louis which is protected by various mountains which means it is twice as hot there! Walking through the shopping centre by the waterfront made me think of a mix of Cape Town or another quite fancy city. There were really pretty buildings that reflected the colour of the blue sky and water. We had some Indian lunch and walked through the crafts market to buy some souvenirs. The Dodo is the national bird or spirit animal here as it was once home to Mauritius but animals started eating the bird’s eggs and people started eating the bird until a Dutchman ate the last Dodo alive, sorry!

I still have some days left so I will enjoy them a looooot and keep you posted!