darling what else is left to do, but sit back and enjoy my presidential view

“Mauritius was made first, and then

Heaven, and that Heaven was copied

after Mauritius.”

Mark Twain

 

Mark Twain really hit the nail on the head with this one. I’m still looking at my Mauritius pictures in awe of how beautiful that paradise really is. I want to have a house there someday or at least go back and visit from time to time. We had a minor bump in our trip, but besides that I absolutely loved the Island, the beaches and water, and the people.

There was a group of 9 of us but two were meeting us later on, so we started off with 7 of us. We all got off the ship together in the morning and got two cabs to take us to our hotel we had booked for the night. We had directions to the hotel and it took the cab drivers forever to figure out where this place was. We stopped like 3 times and finally he called the place and said it was closed. So, two of us ventured to check out another place. It was pretty nice but then we found out that we could go to our original place. So we trekked over to our original place we had reservations at and all got out and checked it out. We came to a consensus that we liked the place we had originally stopped at that we didn’t make a reservation at from the start. Our places (we got 3 rooms, not by choice) were literally on the beach and we had balconies in our room that over looked the beach and crystal clear ocean. It was beautiful.

After we got settled in we were pretty hungry so we decided to hit up the ATM (a common theme in my blogs) so we could get local currency for a place for lunch. There was a place directly across from where our hotel was that we decided to eat at. It was real nice and the food was good but kind of small portioned. I had prawns in a tomato sauce which was really good. We all enjoyed our lunch but needed to hurry a little because we had a snorkeling trip planned at I think it was 2:00.

Our meal was complete and we got in a van that took us to the beach where we got a glass bottom boat (pretty awesome seeing as the water is crystal clear) that took us out to a snorkeling area. It was okay snorkeling, not the best I’ve ever done but it was still beautiful. I think there are better areas to snorkel there but they don’t really like taking tourists there. In fact I don’t think the locals like that the tourists come there at all really. They love the money they get but not the destruction. I would definitely compare it to be the Hawaii for the Europeans.

After our snorkeling we weren’t done swimming so we asked the boat to drop us off at a beach, so he did. We hung out at this beach for like 2 hours. We met some other SAS kids there that are cool and kind of hung around them too. Once we were done swimming and hanging around the beach we walked back to the hotel and got ready for the night.

Side note: we had been hanging around this guy Ku who we eventually found out works at the restaurant we ate at for lunch. He went snorkeling with us and to the beach. He had told us once we got back to our hotel that the place across the street where we had lunch was throwing us a party and special dinner, so we thought, why not, let’s just go. So we get over there and no food was ordered for us. It was just brought to us, and not very much of it either. So we ate and met up with the other 2 people from our group. They brought us our dinner bill and it was $400.00...that’s US dollars. We talked back and forth with everyone there and couldn’t agree on anything so Me, Steph, and Kelcie and a little of Lauren’s money ended up paying for the entire bill.

We had enough and everyone started fighting and yelling. A French woman even came outside and asked what the yelling was about and another SAS kid said we were being typical SASsholes. (sas has a bad reputation in Mauritius). That’s when Me, Steph, and Kelcie decided to leave the chaos and go to a bar called Bananas that lots of SAS kids were going to. We were happy to be there and away from all the yelling and we ended up having a great night there.

The next morning we got up and got some FREE breakfast at the place across the street again. We also went to try to settle the bill. We talked and talked about it and went over it item by item. We concluded that they overcharged us by 6000 Mauritian rupees. This would equal to about $170  US. Ku claims his boss wasn’t in and there was no money around to be given back yadda yadda. Basically we were screwed. Next we had to pay our hotel bill. This is when it hit me that Ku was a fraud.

Lauren and I had totaled our entire hotel bill including snorkeling. We figured it out with the hotel guy and Ku kept saying he needed some of the money for taking us around or something. And the man who works at the hotel asked us why we were paying anything to this guy, he’s just a cook that works across the street. That is when is dawned on me. The only money Ku would get is if we ordered something from his restaurant.

We paid the right price for our rooms and Ku kept insisting we give him 1000rupees. Finally we did what was right and said no and started to walk away. He then threatened us with using our passport numbers and calling the police. We weren’t worried about it so we just walked away calmly and decided to walk along the beach to calm everyone’s nerves.

This immediately changed our moods and calmed us. The beach is so beautiful. It seriously looks like a postcard or a desktop background on your computer. We kept walking along the beach and Liz got thirsty so I and she stopped at this beach bar along the way that looked super nice and modern. We got her water and everyone decided we should just stay there and get some lunch. This place was called the beach house and it was AMAZING. While we waited for our food we literally walked down 3 coral steps and into the sand down to the beach. It was seriously what you imagine a tropical paradise to be. The food was amazing (they had really good pizza) and they had good drinks too. Some of us took like an hour break to go shopping in town (obviously I was one of them) and then after that we came back into the bar and hung out there until we needed to leave back to Port Louis (30min away) where our ship was docked.

Mauritius was definitely our “spring break” (I put it in quotes because let's get real, I’ve been on spring break since January 17^th) but it was a great time to relax completely. I will most definitely be coming back here no matter what. I still can’t get out of my head how beautiful it is there.

Also, currently I’m sailing to Cape Town (like in the last blog). We are so close that we are following the shore line 6 miles away. It’s like a tease. I can see it but I can’t go out and experience it! It's SO weird typing this knowing im looking at Africa typing to people in Colorado or the US. Such a strange thought.

Not tomorrow but the next day we will be there and I’ll literally be swimming with the great white sharks. I’m scared a little but I know well be safe. Who would have ever thought I would cage dive with great white sharks!

 

xx

 

on the note of thinking its strange im writing to people back in the US while i'm staring at Africa. Well, I got on facebook and I guess it must have been a decent time back in the States cause people were online and I decided to chat a couple. But it was too overwhelming for me. I don't even know why. Just the thought that I was in the middle of the ocean somewhere and talking to someone back in Durango was way too weird of a thought for me. I can't imagine how Im going to feel after I'm actually back in the States. It's going to be bitter sweet and as of right now I think it will be more on the bitter side.