THE INDIAN OCEAN AND THE ISLE OF MAURITIUS 1989

Late in the year of 1989, our tour guide Deysi decided that we had, had enough work and it was time for a vacation in that part of the world. So one fine October morning, we jumped on a plane and embarked on a one week holiday in the Indian Ocean on an island called Mauritius, to be followed by an additional week on another set of islands called the Seychelles. Mauritius was located about 700 miles off of the east coast of Madagascar between there and the continent of India and about 1900 miles from Johannesburg.

We had no idea of what to expect, other than images of sun, sand, golf courses and good food. Yahoo, I’m outta here, let’s go. I will break the memory of this vacation into two parts, each dealing with a separate destination. Although relatively close together in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, other than the sun and sand, there were very little similarities between the two countries. First let’s deal with Mauritius.

We were all very excited and each of us pumped for our own thing. For me it was golf, swimming, fishing and food. For Ange it was playing, playing, swimming and then playing, all with her big sister’s undivided attention. Deysi looked forward to sunbathing, touring and shopping. While Ron, now 10 years old wanted to do big girls things like, sleeping in, posing for interminable photos for dad, touring the island, listening to dad talk and playing 24/7’s with her little sister. Well the sleeping in part was at least true.

Armed, each, with their own dreams, we made a six hour flight into the unknown. On arrival and after fighting off another idiot, with about ten stamps, who wanted to finish off the remaining pages of our passports, we had arrived. We were met by the Hotel shuttle and whisked off to the north west coast of the Island to our hotel the PLM Azur Hotel Mont Choisy. This was a beautiful resort, right on the ocean with a white sand beach, crystal clear water and bounded by a coral reef which protected the resort and the beach from wind and waves.

We had landed in paradise. Now let’s pick up our rental car and let the touring begin. Oh wow they have given us the Mini Moke to drive. It looked like the “mini me” of jeeps or like a lawnmower that had a passenger compartment tied onto the top of it. I loved, loved, loved it. Ron hated, hated, hated it. There were basically no windows or doors, you just jumped in and it was you, the road, and fresh air.

There is no way Ron is going to ride in “that”. She said “dad can’t we afford a real car”? However there were no other choices, this was the rental car type on the island. When I climbed aboard I looked something like a bear making out with a football. Once Ron realized that we weren’t the only ones looking foolish in these baby cars, she got over her disdain and climbed onboard to start the fun. The open air car turned out not to be an issue as the speed limit was 30 miles per hour all over the island. Ange and her mom didn’t say much, they couldn’t stop grinning in anticipation of the fun to come.

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Next morning I’m up bright and early to go fishing on a charter that Deysi had hired. It was a small (20 foot boat) with a crew of two, myself and Desyi. We were going hunting for sail fish, tuna, and barracuda. That was the plan, but after 4 hours what we had for the dinner table was a 12 pound dorado, a couple of bonito and a barracuda too small to keep. In this part of the world we would call this fish Mahi Mahi (the Hawaiian name). Dorado is the name of the same fish in Spanish.

It is a very beautiful fish and comes to the boat a deep gold color. Once on board it turns to a fluorescent blue and then fades to grey. The meat is white, light in flavour and delicious. We know because we took it to the hotel and they cooked it for mine and Deysi’s dinner. Would the girls have a bite of my $400 fish? Nope, “yeccchhh, gag, gag” they would much rather have ground up pig entrails and call it a hotdog, yummy.

After the fishing trip we jumped in our yellow rocket and went on a tour across the middle of Mauritius to the other side of the island. We drove thru vast fields of sugar cane plantations, and other than the tractors (which replaced indentured labor), these plantations had not changed for hundreds of years. The population of the island country was about 1,000,000 people, at that time, consisting of about 70% descendant from indentured Indian labour from the 1700’s. Along with about 25% descendants of African slaves, 3% Chinese and 2% European that completed the demographic profile of Mauritius.

The island was surrounded by sand beaches and anywhere we stopped we were offered paradise within reach. It was beautiful, hot and peaceful. The size of the island is about 45 miles east to west and about 65 miles north to south, about the same size as Guam, Samoa and Grenada (and about 1/3 the size of Vancouver Island). For the girls our touring had, by now, boiled down to visiting a beach, eating lunch and souvenir shopping. For me it was shooting video of anyone who would allow it.

We drove back thru the capital Port Louie which at that time had a population a little in excess of 110,000 people. Port Louis was not of interest to us. We found it not real clean, many people seemed to be sitting around on street corners in groups and all in all it did not appear a very welcoming place. Remember this was 1989 and much may have changed by now. We did not stop in Port Louie, rather passed thru and continued back to the northwest tip of the island and our accommodations.

Most of the tourist facilities appeared to be located on the west side of the island ranging from Port Louis, along the west coast, up to the nw tip where we were located. We spent most of our time around our hotel area. The girls played on the beach and in the water, I found a local golf course across the road from the hotel. and Lilia found a perfect spot on the beach to work on her tan. We were not in high season and when I went to the golf course there was no one there, only one caddy lazing around to see if I would show up for my booked round and a little box where the green fees were to be deposited. Talk about a course to myself.

One afternoon we hired a small skiff and at low tide went out to the coral reef, looking for creatures from the sea. Ron was basically fearless and handled many weird looking specimens. Ange was less interested in making pets of spider like sea urchins. Our week was idyllic. Now on to Seychelles.