Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean with a population of 1.35 million people that speak English and Creole. The size of the island is 2040 square kilometers with Port Louis as the capital. There are about 140,000 residents in this city. And that is our destination today…..Port Louis.
When you think of sapphire/blue waters, powdery white sand beaches, and luxury resorts, you may not come up with Mauritius. This small island country provides the most beautiful views, wonderful services, pampering spas, and much sought-after water sports. Diving and snorkeling in their shallow waters and coral reefs is a must. If the water activities are not your thing, then there is hiking, horseback riding, as well as many golf courses.
This island was famous for the now-extinct dodo bird that thrived here without any natural predators. A plump flightless bird, the dodo was named by the first European sailors that arrived here centuries ago. Because they were such easy prey to be caught for food, the sailors called them dodo meaning stupid. Within a short time, these birds were extinct with the last sighting in the 1660's. Their story lives on in the form of drawings, carvings, and t-shirts for example.
Food here is mainly fish, prawns and octopus. It is served in salads or cooked with saffron or curry. Beef is imported from South Africa, but there are homemade sausages with Creole sauce. Street foods include lentil dhal in a pancake. A communal table in a restaurant is called "table d'hote" and is part of the Mauritius culture.
The ship's tours included an island drive for 4 hours for $80 to visit a Christian missionary, a Hindu temple, a Buddhist Pagoda, and an open-air church. Colors of Mauritius is a drive for 4 hours at $100 to an extinct volcano and natural lake. If you are lucky you might see pink pigeons, kestrels, and Mauritian fodys.
We have been to the Pamplemousses Gardens where we saw grapefruit the size of volleyballs. There were the gigantic lily pads there in ponds, much the same as we saw last year while in the Amazon River area. There was a stop at a military citadel and another at the Grand Bazaar. Could not locate the price.
There was some confusion regarding where we would be docked. A few days ago, we were scheduled to dock at a commercial dock, but that was changed to docking at the new Port Louis Cruise Terminal. This worked much better since the city was providing shuttles to downtown. The Captain had predicted temperatures in the mid 80's and a chance of rain. He was correct about the heat and humidity, but if the rain fell anywhere, it wasn't here in town. Perfect…..no need to pack the umbrellas.
Although the Captain arrived early to the port, we were not docked until 8am, due to the pilot arriving late to the ship. For that reason, it was announced that we were staying ½ hour later with the all aboard at 5pm. We are sure this is to accommodate the longer tours. Sadly, we saw an ambulance with their lights flashing waiting for a guest to be taken to the hospital. On these longer cruises, it goes with the territory. We wish that person well, although we did not know who they were.
It was breakfast as usual in the Pinnacle Grill with the sun blinding us. The ship was docked starboard side today so we could bunker fuel. That went on all day, so our veranda was not the best spot to relax with the noise and the smell. Then the crew was painting the side of the ship right under our rooms. That really added to the strong smell.
There was another crew drill at 9:30am lasting about an hour. That was a good time to leave the ship at 10am. The crew were decked out in their bright green gear and could be seen on the promenade deck. It was a bit of a walk to cross the bridge to enter the cruise terminal. We saw this complex two years ago, but it was not operational yet. The terminal was spacious but also sterile-looking. There was one corner of souvenirs for sale before we left the backside of the building.
Once outside, we lined up for the shuttle bus to town. There were smaller vans to take the walkers, wheelchairs , and scooter people to town. That was a nice service for them. These shuttles were running every 10 to 20 minutes and dropped us off at Le Caudan Waterfront, about 3 kilometers away from the pier. It seemed like the driver went in circles to exit the terminal area. He used side streets and we were at the Waterfront within 10 minutes. From what we observed, there were no sidewalks on the way, and we would say it wasn't safe to walk here with the traffic.
Le Caudan Waterfront was created in the late 1990's and is an open-air mall with boutiques, markets, a hotel, and numerous eateries. They have a unique way of decorating the center of the mall walk and that is with hanging umbrellas. It sure makes it bright and whimsical as well as providing some shade in the heat of the day. There are a few mini-malls along the way and many choices of dining. We would come back here at noontime to a favorite place we discovered a few years ago.
Making our way along the end of the harbor and small boat marina, we followed the signs that led to a stairway that went down and under the main road. Once under the road, we went up another flight of stairs. We wondered how folks with walkers and wheelchairs would access this tunnel. That's when we discovered there was a ramp for the disabled to use on both ends. It was not well-marked , so we missed it two years ago. It eliminates the need to do over 30 stairs, so we used the ramp on the way back.
This tunnel brought us right into the Central Market which occupies a two century old site on Queen's Street. This market is opened every day of the year with the exception of unfavorable weather conditions. Today being Sunday, this market began shutting down around 11:30am. That was something we had not heard in Kimberly's talk. Come to think of it, we could not access her talk at all. Very frustrating. Getting these talks are a hit and miss proposition with our current TV.
The main section of this cobble-stoned floor market housed veggies and fruits as well as a plethora of spices. For a Sunday morning, it was crowded with locals getting the last of the food stuff left. On the second level was the clothing and household products. The only way up was by a staircase, although we did see an escalator on the opposite end. It was not working though. One of us was searching for pull-over dressy tops that were sold everywhere two years ago. This time, we could not locate one of them. Some tops were similar, but not the same. There were still more stalls cross the street, so there was hope yet.
The next building we entered in this old quarter was the fish and meat market. Most of the tables were cleaned of their fish except for a few butchers that were selling the last of the catch. They also sold lamb, chicken, and perhaps some beef. We saw no pork at all. Today this market was not smelly at all since it was closing shortly and scrubbed clean for the day.
Back out in the street, we walked through another souk-like section where they sold a lot of Indian items. This is where we bought three of those glittery tops two years ago for a good price. Today, we saw none at all. Go figure…… Now one of us was glad to have found just one in Phuket where we bought it. We did find one good deal with three pairs of dress socks for a grand total of $2 USD. We will send them through the laundry and see if they hold up. That was our big purchase of the day.
We back-tracked from here, and took the easy ramp down and through the tunnel and up again to the waterfront. We forgot to mention there were dozens of taxi fellows offering tours to here, there, and everywhere. A simple no thanks worked quite well with all of them. Nothing at all like Sri Lanka where we had to escape them as fast as we could.
It was time for lunch and ice cold beers sure sounded good. Checking out some of the boutiques and shops on the way back, we ended up at the Italian restaurant where they serve a great pizza. Now we hoped they were opened for business, since it was a Sunday and not all of them were opened. We were most happy when we found this venue to be opened. We were seated at a table for two where we ordered two large draft beers by the name of Thirsty Fox. Our waiter said it was locally made and we would like it. He was correct. Then we ordered a Margherita pizza with extra tomatoes on the top. The crust was a perfect combination of flours and yeast that makes it the best. We saved a little room for a dessert of Zabaglione which was a piece of art with a shortbread crust, vanilla gelato, and a lace designed chocolate basket. Almost too pretty to eat, but we did a fine job.
After a leisurely rest in the restaurant, we continued on back to the shuttle bus in the parking lot. By now many of the dining venues were full of local families and cruise guests enjoying the local cuisine. Our waiter happened to mention that a very huge ship had been in port this week and loaded the town up with 6000 guests. Great for the local businesses for sure.
We were back onboard before 2pm and cooled off working online. Normally we are able to make good use of our veranda, but as we said, work was being done like painting right below us, and the huge tanker that was bunkering fuel all day. We will have to find those earplugs we brought with us for days like today onboard. Many of our neighbors like to stay onboard instead of going to town or on a tour. They enjoy reading, but today if they were on the portside like us, they would have to seek out a quieter spot outside their room.
Captain Frank came on with his sail away talk. He said we needed to turn the ship around, not an easy task here. He was right since it took until 6pm before we were sailing out of the harbor. We passed the rows of Chinese fishing boats and once again found that the sailors were living on these boats. Almost like a village, since they were tied to each other, making access easy from boat to boat.
We are now headed towards Reunion, 140 nautical miles away. A speed of 12 knots will get us there around 6am tomorrow morning, where the ship will be docked starboard side. He predicted sun, clouds, and some rain, which about covered it all. We were able to watch the Reunion port talk, and we discovered there will be no shuttle bus to St. Denis. That might change our plans for the day.
Dinner had our favorite appetizers of breaded chicken tenders. We followed that with Caesar salads then mains of chicken marsala with linguine and one Vietnamese chicken plate with rice. Different once again, they were good and served piping hot. Desserts were one scoop of rocky road ice cream and one scoop of orange sorbet (my favorite).
There was a show of an illusionist Michael White and a contortionist Hulan. We think we qualify as contortionists with some of the buses we have boarded – ha-ha.
Bill & Mary Ann
