Mauritius!

As Mark Twain said once, “Mauritius was made first, and then Heaven, and that Heaven was copied after Mauritius.” This little island off the East coast of Madagascar was amazing. The views, beaches, people, and food, were amazing!
We were only in Mauritius for two days and we had to make the most of it. The first day I signed up for an Adventure Park and Beach excursion for the day. I was really excited about this because; First-gave me something to do in the day, Secondly-I was planning on doing this excursion in the first place, but opted out of it during pre-sail (so luckily someone was selling it, and I got it for way cheap). The tour was split into two groups, the first group went to the Adventure Park, had lunch, and then went to the beach in Flic-en-Flac. My group went the other way, which looking back at it was the better of the two. The first group filled up pretty quick and had a full list of 35 people and my group was only 14.
Our first stop in the day was Flic-en-Flac Beach. This place was amazing! The water was clear and flat and it was like that for as far as the eye could see down the coast. There were some small waves out in the distance (about half a kilometer or more) due to the coral reef that encompasses most of the island. We were there for a good hour or so, so I walked along the beach just taking it all in. I then proceeded to get into the water… it felt glorious!! After I got into the water the rest of my bus came in, and we started talking about our experiences so far on this trip and all that jazz. We then had to get out of the glorious water, dry off and make our way back to the bus. From there we made our way to the Adventure Park, it was about an hour drive from the beach, so we enjoyed the scenery, the tour guides explanation of the country and just hanging out with the guys on the bus. We finally got to the park and I was really excited for this. I was ready to get muddy and show off my athletic ability on this course. As we arrived the group that was before us was just now finishing the course and what a shock to see, they were covered from head to toe not just in mud but in bug bites as well!!! And me being the crazy one in the group, all I was wearing to this place was a muscle t-shirt, swim trunks, socks, shoes (white vans), bandana, and sun glasses. No DEET no nada. So after viewing the spectacle of lit up legs full of bug bites I proceeded to use other peoples DEET (100 proof and lesser proof) all over my body. Every part of my body that had open skin was sprayed thoroughly… twice, just to make sure I was not going to be some bugs main course… After I applied the bugs repellent, my group had lunch. Not too shabby of food, it was rice and chicken. After lunch we got strapped into our harnesses because we were going to be crossing some rope bridges (like in Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. Haha). The best part of this trip was that it was raining that morning so the area was muddy… now when I say muddy I mean, you are scrapping the mud off your shoes every chance you get, because it you did not you gained about two inches in you height because of the buildup on them, with that it makes it really interesting walking along the wooden bridges carefully stepping on footing, making sure you get on it and making sure you don’t slip off. So the hand to eye to foot to core had to be on high alert each time you stepped. There were about 10 bridges total throughout the course and each on got progressive more challenging and more fun. For me this course was a piece of cake compared to the other people in the group. Once we got passed the first section we made our way to the second set of bridges, these were a little bit more challenging but I took them head on and had a blast with them. they had cargo nets (one to walk on, one to scale across, one to climb through and then one (just four ropes, two for the feet and two for the hands) and then a log bridge, which was interest because they were suspended in the air, so timing, balance and guts came into play each time you went from on e to the other. Oh and there was a zip line as well, though it was a short zip it was still fun. I was one of the first to finish to I was able to clean off the dirt that I collected during the adventure. Also before I started the adventure as well as during it I told myself that I was not going to be bit and become one of the bugs main courses, and guess what happened…. Wait for it, waaaiiittt fooor iiiiiiit, wwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt foooooooorrrrr it… did not get ONE single bite on me!!! Hahaha. Where other in the group got lit up; it is all a mental game. Mind of matter (or in this case bug). After it was all said and done, and when everybody finished up we made our way back to the ship. It took us about an hour to get back. After we got back, I took a nice warm shower to get off all the dirt and DEET from the day and got ready for the night.
I was really excited for this, me and seven other found an apartment complex right across Flic-en-Flac beach. Two rooms both equipped with everything we needed to have a good night in. the only problem was that we could not find the freaking place, took us a good half hour to find it… and then once we found the place our name was not on the reservation…. Fail :’(. So after an hour trying to figure everything out we finally said screw it and we were on the hunt to find another place. Our group consisted of Austin, Abby, Natalie Rebecca and I. We stopped over at the Hilton, but that was way out of our price range, so we had to figure out again where we were going to stay. Now realize the group us have not had any food since 1200 or before and it is now roughly 2000. It was warm and we just needed to eat. So we found this place called 90 Degrees, the night was looking up; they had cold drinks and delicious food. I had an ice tea (Long Island style) and beef steak with pepper sauce. Each sip and each bite my strength and power started coming back. So after our meal we were rejuvenated. After dinner we had to find a place to sleep for the night. We eventually found a place that all five of us could sleep (well two on the books…lol). We went out for the night, we heard a group of SASers had two villas in the area, and we were invited to it, the only problem was that the direction we got from the guy were a little hard to follow, so we said screw it and found this place called Shots and stayed there for a couple of hours. So the night was fully ruined.
The next day we woke up and stayed in Flic-en-Flac for the morning, enjoyed the beach and the lovely weather. We then made our way back to Port Louis. Took us a little bit to get back because there was a traffic jam in Port Louis (and with only one highway it makes it for a fun time driving on the island… oh joy). We finally got to the port and went shopping, found a few cool items and made our way back to the ship because it was getting close to on ship time. So the second day was short and sweet, as well as a relaxing one.
Overall Mauritius was fun; though we did have a little trouble at the beginning it turned out to be a fun night. It was a nice having a little pit stop in Mauritius before we make it to South Africa. Speaking of which we are only a few days away from arriving in Cape Town, South Africa!! I am really excited for this place, especially the Safari, food, people and culture. Pretty much everything South Africa has to offer us. It is just like last time start from the last picture and goes up from there because that is the order of my adventures. More updates to come :D