Spring Break on Mauritius

My Spring Break started on Good Friday. We had a little over a week of break. I wrestled a lot with what I wanted to do for break. It is so much easier to see this part of the world from Kenya, so travel is a must. I had just confirmed my trip to Egypt, when Ward, Dalina and Wendy invited me to go to Mauritius with them. So I canceled my trip to Egypt and decided to go to Mauritius for a week. For those of you that have no clue where Mauritius is or have never heard of it, it is an island off the eastern coast of Madagascar. It was a four hour plane ride from Nairobi. Mauritius is an English-speaking country, but most people prefer to speak French or Creole. I got to practice my French, so that was a plus.

Before we arrived, there was a cyclone that passed to the north of Madagascar, so we didn’t have the greatest weather. We arrived on Saturday night and had an hour drive to our hotel. The island mainly survives on tourism, so the hotels are like the ones in Mexico – all inclusive (expect drinks, and MANY other things – as we later found out). Anyways, for the first 4-5 days, it rained most of the time. On Monday and Tuesday, we went on tours of the island. It is crazy how small the island is – about 30 minutes-drive across and about an hour from north to south. It’s cool to see the crater and the vast differences on the island. Most of the inhabitants are of Indian descent but French-speaking. This also meant that the main religion is Hindu. There were tons of temples and shrines to various gods. In the middle of the island, there was a huge statue of Shiva. I talked to some of our drivers about the religions, and I learned a lot. It’s also really crazy how people can really believe in the things they do.

Despite the rain, we had a good trip. We played Rook almost every night after dinner. On Thursday, the rain stopped and we had a perfect day. That was the one and only time I put on sunscreen. We spent most of the day on the beach. Friday was very similar to Thursday, but three of us decided to try to go swimming with the dolphins. After getting up early, we drove to the southern part of the island. We waited a while to hear that it was too windy and they didn’t spot the dolphins, so we stopped by another beach on our way back to the hotel.

Enjoy the pictures of the island.