Mauritius through the eyes of a non water sport lover

Hi guys,

Yes as you can see from the title I'm not a water sport lover, as a matter of fact, I'm not into anything to do with getting wet apart from taking a shower to get clean.

So there we were, wify made the bookings for us to go to the island of Mauritius and as it would have been our honeymoon I decided on letting her have her fun in doing all the arrangements, making all the decisions etc, etc.

She booked us a SAA flight through Beachcomber tours from Johannesburg, South Africa to Curepipe in Mauritius. As I have the fear of the living Lord as far as flying is concerned, she also got me pills to knock me out as soon as we stepped on board this 747 Jumbo.

The day came for this trip and my nerves were in tatters, the reason for my fear; I've been an investigator for the South African Airforce and have seen what people look like when these things make an unplanned landing - IT'S NOT PRETTY!

So, any case, we flew off into the blue yonder and I was higher than a kite with all the pills I've been swallowing uncontrollably just before boarding. I perhaps should also mention here that I washed the pills down with some decent beers, so yes, you can believe me I was a very happy chappy indeed.

The four hour flight passed uneventful but the landing was at the back of my mind all the time during the flight and we were about to land when wify told me to look out her window at the island where we'll be landing shortly.

Maybe it was the pills, maybe the beers, maybe it was just plain stupidity - I looked out!

Have you ever seen a dog or a deer or any other animals eyes in the lights of your car just before you bump into it? Have you ever seen the face of real terror? Well, you should have been there to see mine!

The "Huge" island we were about to land on passed under us with the speed of white light as the pilot did his fly by to align the plane. This of course I didn't know or realise at the time.

The sea was all around the island and our landing strip (islands tend to be in the middle of water, but for that moment it didn't form part of my thought process) and I got visions of luggage and people floating in the water with the sharks circling around us like a scene from Titanic.

She started giggling as she saw my face and this didn't help me one single bit as at the time I thought that she was also getting hysterical.

I dropped back in my seat and prayed like never before! "The Lord is my Saviour..."

My prayers were answered as we landed in one piece and on the little island - our honeymoon began.

From the airport we were bussed to La Victoria Hotel where we would spend the next two weeks.

Bliss - we could travel in a mode of transport I trusted and knew and it was safely on mother earth.

This tranquility soon changed to terror again as soon as we left the airport.

As a South African I'm used to wide open highways and secondary roads, not to mention the wide open country side all along these roads, places where you could breath and see other road users coming miles away and with at least a car's width between you.

In Mauritius this was definitely not the case.

The first on-coming traffic came at us with such a speed on this narrow track they called a highway that I nearly had to ask the driver to stop the bus so I could collect some clean under clothes. What ever it was coming at us zipped passed like a speeding bullet.

This trip from hell lasted 45 minutes and by now the beer and pills was so worked out of my system that I felt like drowning myself in the first bottle of liquor I could lay my hands on.