Mauritius October 5, 2012 Friday
Another beautiful morning though last night there was an incredible downpour! It sounded someone was spraying the roof with a fire hose! The wind was blowing, blew our towels about (they were airing out on our deck chairs), but then it cleared up and was gorgeous!
I got up early to work on lines and blogs. We are able to use the WiFi from the house next door, so if we sit out on the lawn at the edge of the sea (tough to do!!) we can access the internet and it is much faster than the internet at the hotel office. I was able to download a blog and many more pictures in a much shorter time period. Hope you are enjoying them!
After a quick breakfast, Salim picked us up for a tour of the southern part of Mauritius. Only Judy, Blue and I wanted to go, so we had the van and driver to ourselves for the entire day! The rest of the team wanted to rest and relax, get some sun, shop and help out at PAWS if needed The rest had other plans for the day.
We started out by going to the market in Goodlands. Mainly it was textiles (clothes and fabrics), though there were some foods, spices and jewelry. The ground was very uneven, broken cement, pavement, blocks, dirt… so Judy was having a difficult time walking on it. She bought a few things then went back to the van to wait for us. Blue and I were finding some neat thing and having a good time. We bought some pretty bangle bracelets to wear with our new clothes. The Indian ladies ear stacks of bracelets on their arms and these are sold in sets of two dozen. Many different styles and colors were available. At one stall we found some cotton button up shirts that we really liked. The sizes are waaaay smaller than American sizes so Blue and I had to get 2XL in shirts. (Hope she doesn’t mind me saying that, but it is important for the rest of the story!). I also wanted a skirt…2XL looked awfully tiny… so did 3XL… so I found a nice 4XL (ouch!) and it was too small!!! (Double ouch!!). So we got to laughing and asked if there was a5XL and the proprietor laughed and said “no” then we found one!! We could not stop laughing. I tried it on (OK, it fit over my bootie) but it looked like a purple sack, but we couldn’t stop laughing!! I did not buy the skirt, but the total laughter was worth the price of admission! Whew, that was fun.
We had to drive through Port Louis to get to the southern part of the island. The traffic is incredible. Lots of stop and go. About 100,000 people come into the capital daily to work. Salim said the traffic is bad all day Monday through Saturday. Sunday is a day of rest so there is very little traffic that day. Most businesses are closed; some are open, but only in the morning. Everything, including grocery stores, is closed by noon or 1:30 pm.
Our next stop was the city of Floreal to visit a model ship factory. We were taken on a tour and saw the scale models being hand made. The finished products are beautiful. Many are the old sailing ships, but ocean liners and more modern ships were available. We also made quick stops in some local shops. But the merchandise is more limited and much more expensive than from the street vendors, so we didn’t buy anything.
By then, it was coming onto lunch time. Salim took us to an Indian restaurant called Ebony Boutique. They serve Indian food that would be served at a traditional celebration, such as a wedding. The main“course” is the eight vegetables all prepared in different ways: lentils, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans (fava?), pumpkin, spinach, eggplant, a local fruit (savory) and white rice. The “bread” is a large, flat “bread”, the most similar thing we have would be a “real” flour tortilla (not the kind you bey in the store). You tear off pieces of the bread and scoop up the food to eat it. We also had curried chicken. Everything was so good, Judy was saying she had never eaten so many yummy vegetables! Oh, and it is all served on a large plate covered with a banana leaf! Dessert was a tapioca (with little bits of herbs in it) and a crispy flat bread… tasted similar to a potato chip and you break off bits and scoop up the tapioca. Very tasty. We practically had to be wheeled out, we were so stuffed!
We visited a huge Hindu temple and complex. Every March the Hindus make a pilgrimage to this site, some walking for two days to get there. 52% of the population is Hindu, the rest are Christian, Muslim (about 16%) and Chinese religions (about 2%). There are temples, mosques and churches all over Mauritius. While there, Blue and I were “blessed” and had the “third eye” painted on our foreheads. There is a small lake in the complex filled with fish including huge eel-like fish. I tried to get photos, but they are not quite clear enough to include in the blog. They were amazing to watch though!
Our final destination was the village of Chameral. The road passes into the forest plateau where the temperature cooled of considerably, though it was still quite warm. We stopped at Alexandra Falls which is supposed to be a favorite spot. You can hardly see the falls, but the panoramic view of the southeast coast is stunning. This area is part of a nature reserve and we saw several mongooses (mongeese??) and Blue saw monkeys. There are also deer.
We drove through a private estate along a narrow track that is lined with Arabica coffee plants (for which the area is known) and the “heart of palm salad trees”. Then we went to Chameral falls, now that is worth seeing. We saw it during a pretty dry period so the amount of water flowing was not that impressive, but it is impressive how it drops about 100 meters down a sheer cliff. The wettest time (and largest flow) is December to April during the heavy summer rains and cyclonic periods. (Remember, we are south of the equator, opposite seasons here!)
The last stop was at the “seven coloured earths of Chameral”. This natural phenomenon is due to decomposed basalt gullies. The hot and humid climate aids in the decomposition of the basalt into clay. The chemical breakdown of minerals by water leaves iron and aluminum oxides which makes the soils all the different colors. Apparently these are seen best in sunshine, and luckily, it was sunny when we were there!
We had a long drive back to the north end of the island. We were later than expected, and had a dinner engagement with one of the PAWS supporters. Salim took us straight to her house. Nikki was kind enough to have us to dinner in her beautiful home. We had a very nice evening then finally went back to the house for a much needed rest.
Tomorrow is our last clinic day! Good night! Need to sleep quickly! Ciao!
