Mauritius marvels with its magnificence
Liz Price
PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS
Sunday, August 19, 2007
SANDY beaches, blue seas, sunshine, coral reefs, beautiful scenery and good food. Friendly people with Indian and Chinese features, celebrating Deepavali, Thaipusam, Christmas, Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Aidil Fitri.
This describes the island of Mauritius, a multi-racial country with a population made up of Indo-Mauritians, Franco-Mauritians and Creoles of European and African descent.
This multiracial respect is reflected in the food, which plays an important role of any holidaymaker's day. There is plenty of rice, but bread also forms a large part of the diet.
Roti stalls can be found all over the island, especially at breakfast time. A favourite lunch comes from the street stalls which sell chapati stuffed with various vegetables and spices. Mmm, delicious.
The small island of Mauritius lies in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar and south of the Seychelles. It was known to the Arabs in the 10th century, and was discovered by Europeans Portuguese in the early 16th century. It was later colonised by the Dutch, French and then the British.
The name Mauritius was given by the first Dutch settlers, after Prince Maurice de Nassau. Mauritius gained independence from the British in 1968 and although English is still the official language, I found most people speak French or Creole as a matter of course. However, they are perfectly willing to switch to English.
Mauritius is beautiful and this is one of the reasons the tourist authorities say visitors should never go alone because it is too romantic not to be shared with family or friends.
Sadly, I had to break that rule as I had no one to accompany me because I visited Mauritius as a stopover from Madagascar. But I found the people very friendly, so it wasn't too much of a problem.
The island is well known for its watersports, fishing, golf and honeymoon packages and natural attractions. There are strangely shaped mountains, extinct volcanoes, waterfalls, national parks and the botanical garden.
The capital Port Louis lies in the northwest of the island, and the airport, with the imposing name of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International, is at the opposite corner in the southeast.
However, the actual distance is only about 40km, which gives some idea of how small the island is. An excellent bus service covers the whole island, so I spent some of my time doing bus tours around the island, especially to get to the interesting sights. Car rental is also available, and they drive on the left side of the road, a follow-on from the British days.
To the north of Port Louis are the main beach resorts. The three biggest beach areas are Trou aux Biches with its golf course, followed by Grand Baie and Pereybere.
Grand Baie is the boating centre, a really scenic bay packed full of yachts and on Sundays it really comes alive as people all take to the water.
Pereybere probably has a better beach, which again is packed at weekends as the locals all come to take the sun and enjoy picnics with family and friends. I spent time just sitting and watching all the surrounding activity as people relaxed and enjoyed themselves.
Apart from sailing and the usual water sports and diving, Mauritius is a paradise for deep sea and game fishing. There are various types of marlin, sharks, tuna and barracuda etc. For those not interested in fishing, you can explore the undersea world without getting wet, from glass bottomed boats, and even a glassed submarine which gives excellent views of this fishy world.
The central highlands form the centre of the island. Curepipe is the main town, and enjoys cooler weather than the lower coastal areas. Just outside the town centre is the Trou aux Cerfs, a deep crater formed from a long extinct volcano, 85 metres deep and 200 metres wide.
From here are excellent views over to the mountains on the west coast. These mountains are all strangely shaped being old volcanoes. The highest peak on the island is Piton de la Petite Riviere Noires at 828m.
From Curepipe a mountain road heads towards the Black River Gorges National Park passing Mare aux Vacoas, the largest lake on the island, a manmade reservoir.
However, the water level was incredibly low when I visited, due to a nine-month drought. No wonder the hotels asked visitors not to waste water.
Nearby is Grand Bassin with one of the island's two natural lakes resting in the crater of a volcano. It is a pilgrimage place for Hindus. There are 16 temples here and somewhere in February or March they hold the Maha Shivaratri celebrations. The Black River Gorges National Park protects much of the remaining native forests of Mauritius and has some spectacular scenery. With the casuarina and coniferous trees you could be forgiven for thinking you were in North America rather than the Indian Ocean.
Plaine Champagne is the rainiest part of the island, but the rain wasn't a problem in the drought conditions being experienced.
There are two waterfalls not to be missed, one is Alexendra Falls and the other is Riviere Noire, they were both spectacular despite the low water levels.
As we descended from the highlands I noticed forests of traveller's palm (fan palm). This is often used for ornamental purposes overseas but this was the first time I had seen whole forests of these plants hardly surprising, I suppose, as the Ravenala madagascariensis originates from Madagascar. I was interested to see the internationally known Pamplemousses Botanical Gardens have a large collection of indigenous palms, many of which looked familiar. However, the giant Victoria regia water lilies were new to me.
The coloured earths of Chamarel and the Chamarel Cascade lie on a private estate of the same name which grows Arabica coffee. The seven colours of earth are the result of uneven cooling of molten volcanic rock. The falls were stunning, three cascades falling 100m into a semicircular basin.
The west coast is very flat, but can get quite wild with rough seas in the winter conditions.
The Casela bird park is another tourist attraction, located near the beach area of Flic en Flac. Casela, I soon discovered, is home to animals from all over the world, not just those indigenous to Mauritius. So I was quite surprised to see emus, wallabies, tigers and panthers. The local inhabitants included one Mauritian monkey among the Madagascaran lemurs, and of course the famous and very rare Mauritian Pink Pigeon, one of the rarest birds in the world.
There were many giant tortoises from the nearby Aldabra islands. It is said that if Charles Darwin came to this area and seen all these giant tortoises, he might not have gone to the Galapagos.
Unlike the commercialism of Casela, La Vanilla Crocodile Park in the south of the island is a breeding centre for the huge Nile crocodiles imported from Madagascar. I didn't realise these crocs are so huge.
It is a large park with a nature walk through luxuriant forest studded with freshwater springs and streams containing carp and turtles. There are various local animals to be seen and with relevant information boards.
Again I found the giant tortoises fascinating, and I was also able to see the giant land crab, lizards, a fruit bat and the crocodile hatcheries. My only regret was that I didn't get the chance to sample a crocodile steak.
The Brunei Times
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http://www.bt.com.bn/en/en/features/2007/08/19/mauritius_marvels_with_its_magnificence
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