Monday 6th May, 2024
Our last day in Mauritius started slowly and deliciously again, with breakfast back at the large table under the gorgeous frangipane tree, overlooking the bay. Today’s spread included little individual mushroom frittatas, freshly sliced ruby red ripe tomatoes, toast, bananas, apricot yoghurt and a super large and delicious passionfruit, cut in two! Of course, a pot of tea was hot and waiting, as was the tropical juice which, in the interest of improving my health through Vitamin C intake, I drank two of!
The guesthouse, and the town of Albion, faces west across the Indian ocean. It has taken me the whole three days to ‘get my bearings’, possibly longer than usual due to sickness brain fog or maybe it’s just a brain getting older!
As a Sydney kid, my brain wants the ocean to be on the east coast, and for the sun to rise over any houses lucky enough to look over that water.
Mauritius has an east and west coast rivalry in the same way Sydney has for North and South of the Harbour Bridge. Each region thinks theirs is superior, and in the case of Mauritius they compete for the hard for the tourism dollar. The West Coast claims to be drier and less windy, the East Coast warmer and more beautiful. Now I’m not one for weighing in on an argument, but it did seem proper that we should at least see the east coast while we were here!
And so, close to the check-out time of 10am, we packed the car, farewelled our lovely hosts and their particularly lovely old golden lab, and headed east.
The roads were better than I expected.
Not to say they were all good, but we had read that they generally were in poor condition, and while some of them were pretty poor, many, including the larger highways were as good, if not better, than many in Australia.
The drivers on the other hand, well, were ahem… shall I use the word ‘average’? As the rain stated to come down heavily within 15 minutes of us leaving the guest house, I assumed the drivers would slow down and take a little more care. But alas, not so!
Overtaking without knowing what was coming the other way seems very common practice. I did try to take a few videos to share with you (from the passenger seat) but each time I was filming I ended up turning my head the other way at the last minute, because I couldn’t watch – and so I missed the action on the camera! On the plus side, no one drives too fast on the smaller roads. It is VERY common for cars just to pull up, or even park, on roads that can barely fit two cars passing each other, let alone have room for someone to park. Horn use is surprisingly rare, and I guess that’s where Mauritian islanders and Pacific (e.g. Fiji) islanders may have something in common. What I think all people who have been to Fiji love is the slow pace of life and the ‘don’t stress, be happy’ approach the locals take to all they do. Perhaps there is a little of that here too? In the vast majority of cases, we have found the locals here to be polite, friendly and unhurried, but not quite in that same ‘Fiji time’ and never-ending smile way that the Pacific Island nations do!
On the highways, some drivers do drive quite quickly. The issue we observed was that while some do, some don’t, and those dawdling cars, plus underpowered motorbikes, are often nearly knocked over as faster cars and buses whizz by in an attempt to overtake slow vehicles! Sometimes they just casually merge into the next lane, and nearly push motorbikes and cycles into the sugarcane crop, which comes right up to the side of the road in many spots.
The town of Mahebourg is quite close to Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport (no surprises that the signage just calls it SSR Airport!). We refuelled the hire car not long before we took the turn into Mahebourg where we were hoping to find an old railway station which had long since been abandoned. Dave likes to photograph abandoned railway sites so had researched this spot. By now the heavy rain was easing, although the muddy roads and a town centre packed with people visiting the weekly markets made finding a park a little tricky. We did manage to find a spot, and remarkably found the rail site within about 200 metres! Pictures taken… what better to do next on Market Day, but to visit the markets! Mostly there was just a very large number of stalls selling all things useless, but there was also a good fresh food market that in a similar way to the one we saw in Port Louis, had an incredibly diverse selection of fruit and vegetables. Prices were good (estimate 50% of what we would pay in Australia) and again everything was fresh, colourful and nicely presented.
The search for a previously researched restaurant and a Naval Museum that allegedly housed an old Coast Guard patrol boat failed, and we ended up in a shopping mall to grab a bit to eat in time to get the hire car back and check-in on time for our 4:30pm flight back to Johannesburg.
It’s a 4.5 hour flight, but with the time change we should land into Joburg around 7pm. We are staying at the same airport hotel we stayed in a few days ago – this time I might actually get to visit the Irish Bar for a bevvie before bed. I am glad to report that while I’m a long way off 100%, I am feeling up to a drink. Little Vodka and Tomato Juice perhaps? Bloody Marys just feel like holidays to me 😊
Tomorrow morning Will and Emma arrive from Hong Kong and we fly to Victoria Falls. Excited? You betcha!