Port Louis, Mauritius. Day One

A few days after Neptune Day, we arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius. Unfortunately, Ali and I couldn't go outside to take pictures the morning of our arrival because it was raining, so we slept in a little before heading to breakfast and the diplomatic briefing. Customs took the normal amount of time, and we were off the ship by about 10:30 AM. Three friends and I had plans to go to a place called Adventure Park, where you are strapped to a harness and get to go through this kind of obstacle course with all sorts of bridges, ropes and zip lines. Our reservation wasn't until 1:30, so we took some time to explore the city a little bit.

 

I got off the ship and walked into town with my friend Kelli, as we were told the walk would take us only about 15 minutes. It was raining on and off, and it was muddy and humid, but still, as we got closer to town, I couldn't help but admire the absolutely beauty of this island. Port Louis itself is very touristy, which I don't really like, but even so, the waterfront where all of the restaurants were lined up was gorgeous, the water was a deep turquois, and there were these amazing green mountains with mist floating around near their summits visible just beyond the city. Personally, I couldn't wait to head out of the city and get away from the endless gift shops and other touristy places. I've had enough of this to last me a lifetime.

 

A couple of hours later, we got a cab back to the ship so we could change into our adventuring gear, ie. sneakers, bathing suits, sun screen and a LOT of bugspray. We had bargained with our taxi driver for a price to take us around for the entire day, to and from Adventure Park, so he was waiting outside of the ship for us. We met up with him and took the hour drive out to the park, and while we sat in the car, Ben took the opportunity to practice his French with the driver, while us three girls sat in the back and enjoyed the scenery.

 

I have to say, our trip out to Adventure Park is worth it just for the drive. It was unbelieveably lush and green, and became even more beautiful when the sun would occasionally peak out from the clouds. We passed endless fields of sugar cane, which I found astounding, but that really is one of Mauritius' biggest exports, so I guess it made sense that I would see so much of it. We ended up getting to the park about 15 minutes late for our reservation, but hey, we were on island time!

 

When we got to the place, there was a huge group of SASers who had gone to Adventure Park with an SAS trip. They had just completed the course, and they looked tired and sweaty, not to mention insanely muddy. They advised us to make sure we stamped the mud out of our sneakers every once in awhile, otherwise the bridges would be extremely slippery. They also told us that if we had bug spray with us, to put it on, even if we had done that already, and once we did that, to put more bug spray on top of that, because evidently...there were mosquitos. Lots and lots o' mosquitos. So we reapplied the bugspray, paid for our harnesses, had them strapped on, and headed to the starting place with our instructor.

 

Our instructor showed us how to clip our harnesses into the wire rope that hung over each bridge, and told us that whey should remain clippsed at all times when we are on the bridges, and only three were allowed on at a time, blah blah blah, we got the point. We would be careful. Of course, I went first and within 5 minutes I fell on one of the first bridges, my leg slipping painfully between the wooden boards. After that, I was a little more cautious, and I made someone else go first.

 

Each bridge took us deeper and deeper into the forest, and it was very peaceful in there, despite the obstacles we had to go over, each one more trecherous than the one before it. As we went deeper in, I noticed too, the clouds of mosquitos gathering around my ankles. Not fun! Overall though, the park was a lot of fun, and surprisingly challenging, especially the spiderweb rope wall that we had to climb across, which absolutely killed my arms. I was sore for days after that part of the course. The zip line toward the end was hands down the best part, I felt like Indiana Jones as I went down it. Actually, I take that back, the best part was watching Ben attempt to get across the rope bridge, slipping, and dangling helplessly below it as he tried and failed to get back up. I couldn't stop laughing at him for a good 5 minutes.

 

We got through it all in one piece, looking exactly the way the other SASers did when we first got there: sweaty, muddy, and exhausted. After rinsing our legs off with a hose and clapping out our sneakers to get rid of the mud, we climbed back in our cab. Before taking us back to the ship, our driver stopped at several places for us. The first stop was a waterfall lookout, where we had the most amazing view of some very tall falls. We also saw the largest bats I have ever seen, flying around in the middle of the day, which was pretty crazy. After that, we were driving along the road when suddenly the coast became visible on our left side, revealed the most incredible view of other parts of the island, as well as the water with the afternoon sun reflecting off of it. We stopped on the side of the road here to take some pictures and admire the breath-taking view for a few minutes. Our last stop was to get food, since we were starving at this point, along with some snacks for the ship. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to be in a grocery store, since I hadn't been in one in months.

 

After returning to the ship, we each took a much needed shower and met up with the rest of our group to go out to dinner. I tried some of the local beer called Dragon, which was very tasty..so I had a few more. After dinner, I left my group with a friend to go out to Grand Bay, where a lot of other SASers were supposed to be partying at the bars. After our cab dropped us off, we met my friend Christina, who was with a group of people heading to the beach. I hadn't been to the beach yet, so my friend and I joined them and did a little night swimming...although none of us had bathing suits. Oh well, it was dark enough that this minor detail didn't really matter. The beach was completely devoid of any rocks, and the water was literally the perfect temperature, and I began to think that Mauritius truly is paradise on Earth.

 

I made it to the bars eventually, where SASers seemed to have taken over. Although it was a cool bar, it was extremely crowded so it took a long time just to get one drink, one guy was being extremely drunk and wouldn't leave me alone, PLUS I had an FDP that started at 8 in the morning, so I actually didn't end up staying long. Overall, great first day in Mauritius.