Alissa and Mauritius

Hey everyone,

It’s been a while since the last time I have written. Sorry for the delay, but after South Africa the waters were very rough and I stayed in bed most of the week. Since Chris has given a detailed look at what we did in South Africa, I will skip right to Mauritius. The day we arrived in Mauritius, we were 4 hours late due to the cyclone nearby, so I missed the excursion that I had planned for that day. I was supposed to go on a hike in the mountains and swim in waterfalls. It probably would have been a lot of fun, but instead I just walked around the port. I was happy to do this because Thursday was really the only day that I would be able to see the markets and the main city. As we went ashore, a group of us, including all of the Malottes met up with Maliga and Venkat, the parents of someone Joanne works with. We first relaxed at a hotel with them and enjoyed some conversation about Mauritius. Then we left the hotel and walked around the city. This included looking through the marketplace, going in a fish market (which smelled really bad especially since I hate fish), walking up to a fort, walking through China town, and looking at all the beautiful buildings Mauritius has to offer. Once we were done walking through the city, Maliga and Venkat left to go home and the rest of us had dinner. Joanne and Kevin ate at a Chinese restaurant, I ate at a little fast food place, and everyone else ate pizza from Pizza Hut. Once all the kids were done eating, we had to wait for Joanne and Kevin so we decided to go into a Sports Bar restaurant and have some brownie sundaes. They were delicious!!! Once we were finally done, we took a water taxi back to the ship and went to sleep.

The next morning I had a trip planned through Semester at Sea entitled Rainbow Culture and Religion. This was an all day thing and I got to see so much of Mauritius. The first stop was to a Hindu temple that was absolutely gorgeous. We were not allowed inside the temple, but we still could see and learn a lot about this religion. The next stop was to a Church, in which a service was taking place. I felt a little awkward and rude in the Church because our group was tourists taking pictures, and the people in service were trying to pray. The church was very beautiful though. After the Church, we then went to an Islamic Cultural Center. At this center, we got to learn about how Islam came to Mauritius and one of the guys who works there gave us a short presentation on the religion as well as on the purpose of the center. The next place we visited on this day was a Buddhist temple. In this temple, a woman was lighting incense. I don’t exactly know why though. Anyways, after visiting this temple, we drove up to the fort that I had seen the previous day, but I was able to see a different side of it. From the fort, you are able to see pretty much the entire port city. It was a great view! Once we left the fort, we finally went to lunch at a traditional Muslim cuisine restaurant. I ended up eating pasta because the rest of the food had cinnamon in it. The pasta I had though was very good and kind of spicy. The Muslims really know how to add tons of spices to all of their food. After quenching our hunger, we continued our journey on the island to the Eureka Colonial House, which is a house that has been left in its original form, and it demonstrates the homes that the English generally lived in on the island. I of course loved this stop because walking through any house amuses me. The next stop was at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, where we looked through a museum that explained the history of Mauritius. At this institute, we also looked through an art museum that had very interesting art. The last thing we did on this trip at this institute was watch a Hindu interpretive dance demonstration. The dancing was great and I even recorded some of it. Finally, at the end of the day we returned to the boat where I met up with Alex, Jay, Sheryl, and Kasey.

The five of us the night before had decided that we wanted to go back to the Sports Bar Restaurant because we had noticed on the menu that they had Mexican food, which we have all been craving along the entire voyage. At the restaurant, I ordered chicken enchiladas, which were very good. The interesting thing about this meal though was the rice and beans that came with the enchiladas. The rice was very plain tasting and the beans tasted like barbecue beans instead of a Mexican flavor. It was all pretty good though and helped in satisfying my need for Mexican food. Once we were done with our main course, we ordered the brownie sundaes once again since they were so delicious the night before. After finally completing our meal, about two hours later, we took a water taxi back to the ship and relaxed the rest of the night.

The next day, our final day in Mauritius, I tagged along with Alex’s family to tour the southern part of the island with Venkat and Maliga. On this tour, the first place we stopped was at a lake, which we ended up finding out that the reason for this stop was a flat tire. This was funny because as you heard from Chris we got many flat tires on our safari. In addition to the flat tire, when the driver tried to change it, the spare tire was even flatter. Due to this, the driver dropped us off at a Hindu temple, where we stayed for an hour until he returned from fixing the tire. The Hindu temple was very interesting and we saw a massive statue of Shiva, one of the major Gods in this religion. Once we left the temple, we went and saw some waterfalls in a few different locations. At one of the sites, a monkey walked up on the wall to about 4 or 5 feet from us. It was very cool and a little intimidating. After the waterfalls, we went to a restaurant that was on the same mountain that had a great view. The restaurant was good, but had very small portions. Once lunch was over, we walked down to a museum that a man created who was a very skilled woodsman. The museum contained stuff he had made. Once we finished looking through the museum, we left the mountain and continued to drive along the island. We stopped at a grocery store where I bought some snacks. It was pretty amazing, I bought three packs of cookies and 5 glass soda bottles for only like $3. I should have stocked up on more food, but with the currency exchange, it seemed a lot more expensive. In Mauritian rupees, this cost 92, which seems like a lot more than $3. Anyways after the grocery store, we continued to our last stop, which was Flic-n-Flac beach. This beach was pretty and the water was very clear. While walking along the water, we noticed some sea urchins as well as some small sand crabs. This helped dissuade me from entering the water. After about 45 minutes at the beach, it began to rain so we departed and went back to the ship. Once on the ship I just did homework for the rest of the night, just in case I would be unable to due to extreme rocking again.

The next day on the ship, we did not have classes because we had Sea Olympics, which is when each of the seas (halls) competes in different events for the prize of getting off the ship first. Unfortunately, my sea tied for last so I will most likely be one of the last people off the ship. This kind of sucks, but maybe when the day comes they will change it a little and it won’t take as long as expected. Well that’s all for me for now. We are back to calm seas, which is really nice because I can actually get work accomplished.

I love and miss you all!
Alissa