Nirvana?...

First real day in Mauritius Dec 12th

Got out of that hotel as fast as possible and walked around Mahberg, one of the larger towns for a while and on to Blue Bay.  Blue bay is gorgeous – all of Mauritius is gorgeous.  The most beautiful water I’ve ever seen.  Coves and white sand and coral reef and sandbars and the water breaking 100 feet in front of the beach and little bars playing music.  Mountains in the middle and the largest plushest palm trees of all variety and flowers and leeche fruit and coconuts and pineapple and markets and birds I’ve never seen and papaya and mango and fish and prawns and lobster and rum drinks.  HEAVEN really.  We got our car and drove east and then south to the other side of the island.  Mauritius is only about 30 miles wide and 50 miles long so we were able to cover the whole island.  Very cool – So glad we rented our own car!! And Steve is a super star driving on the other side of the road. Other than continuing to turn on the windshield wipers every time he tries to indicate him changing lanes, not always finding reverse and driving me crazy with his chant of  “drive on the left, drive on the left” … he’s doing a great job.  I don’t think I would be able to do it.

Ok – Neither one of us had any idea that Mauritius was basically little India.  It is 95% Hindu with colorful beautiful temples everywhere you look and in my unscientific poll I would say 95% Indian – seriously Indian.  Henna tattooed, red dotted, sari wearing, curry eating India.  WOW – totally didn’t know that.  Again, words can’t describe adequately the beauty of the beaches.  And pictures from my camera don’t do it justice.  We are having such a wonderful mix of culture and landscape and pampered vs. roughing it – we will be ready for anything once it’s all over.  I love Mauritius for the beauty but don’t think I’ve found my oasis.  And am a bit worried that my ideal place exists only in my mind…. I’m not ready for the reality of that yet so my journey continues and I’d love to bring people back here to see it but not to live.  Another interesting thing is everyone we’ve met can’t seem to believe Americans would come all this way.  It’s a tourist destination first for South Africans and for the surrounding islands, and second for Germans and other French speaking Europeans.  They don’t meet too many of our kind…. And if you remember from my other posts, French as a language and French as a culture – not really my favorite.

So many more stories... You'll have to email for more - internet connection is very few and far between and takes forever to upload so I'm shortening versions of it all.... sorry