Mauritius

Bonjour from Mauritius!

 

Mauritius is a beautiful little country. I'm sure some of you have never even heard of it, or hadn't until I told you I was going there. Personally, I knew nothing about it, but how exciting to visit a country that isn't even on some world maps!

 

We did spend the first day at the beach. Swimming in the Indian Ocean was so fun and warm, we stayed in for hours without getting sick of it. Some of our friends decided to rent a villa for the three nights we were in port and said that we were welcome to stay there for one night. The town was quiet and they had their own private beach, and most importantly they were about half a mile away from 24 hour bumper cars, so we decided to stay. We did the bumper cars and I think it's safe to say that Mauritian people don't do bumper cars the same way Americans do. Slamming into each other at full speed while having no mercy, we eventually attracted a crowd that seemed to be fascinated with our barbaric ways. We also made a little boy cry… Ooops.

 

I finally found Nemo, when we went snorkeling the next day. This was probably my favorite part of Mauritius, you know me and fishies!

 

The third day was completely reserved for hiking in the south of the island. The national park was full of waterfalls, gorges and high mountains that made for beautiful jungle hikes.

 

On the last day, my friends, Jackie, Steph and I were invited to go out with John, the photographer on the ship, and his wife Sue. Hanging out with John and Sue is like hanging out with, John Lennon and Yoko, (If Yoko was the coolest person ever). So we were pretty stoked. We woke up at 4:30 AM to go to a sacred Hindu lake in the south where all week long Hindu's have been making a pilgrimage in order to celebrate, Maha Shivatree. This pilgrimage is the second largest gathering of Hindu's in the world, outside of India. It was extremely interesting and we were welcomed into the whole ceremony by a very friendly man who took us around and showed us every step of the worshiping process. All he wanted in return for the tour was a copy of a photo taken with John's "big camera." It was a very long but amazing day full of meeting people, learning about the Hindu religion.

 

Life is good on ship, we dock in India in five days and then we only have seven days of classes over the course of a month while we travel through Asia. Oh boy!

 

Love you all!

Sara