Learning about Mauritius in the Cultural Pre-Port and in Global Studies was great. It seemed like the perfect place for us to continue our voyage. It is the epitome of a cross-cultural nation. The island of Mauritius (or Ile Maurice, as they call it there) was an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean until it was discovered by Dutch explorers. It was a lush and tropical place with few native animals. The most notable native species was the famous Dodo Bird. It was a large animal that was not particularly intelligent. It flourished on the island because it had no natural predators. Then the Dutch brought monkeys and other animals, and they hunted the Dodos and by the beginning of the 1600’s, the Dodo… well.. you know the old expression. “It went the way of the Dodo Bird.” It’s astounding how much industry and tourism dollars this small island nation eeks out of a bird that died out almost 400 years ago. The damned bird is on everything. Every cheap ashtray, beach towel, glass mug and t-shirt had a Dodo bird plastered all over it. If I were Dodo Bird, I would feel pretty exploited.
So, as I was saying… the Dutch colonized Mauritius and they brought a number of African slaves to the island, mostly from Mozambique and Southern Africa. Once the Dutch left, the island was taken over by the Portuguese, the English, and the French. It was an important stop for ships sailing around the southern horn of Africa on their way to India and the rest of Asia. The island was also renown for piracy, as the ships that stopped along their trade route made for easy targets. The pirates added to the cultural mix of the island and brought new animals and crafts to the island nation. Once the Suez Canal opened, and ships began to sail the northern route, Mauritius became less important as a trade stop. At this point sugar production became a main industry. When the English abolished slavery the colonists in Mauritius hired and imported indentured servants from India to work on the sugar plantations. The Indian population became a dominant cultural group as the country matured, and eventually became independent in 1968. The fact that there no cultural group that is native to Mauritius is fascinating. Every culture that is represented in the population is alien to the island, and as each new culture arrived, it blended into the existing melting pot. In many ways, Mauritius represents the antithesis of what we encountered in South Africa. Everything we came across on the island reinforced this concept of a “rainbow culture.” The currency (the Mauritian Rupee) has different governmental officials from the past in Mauritius. Each bill had a different gentleman, one was Indian, one was Dutch, one was African, and one of them even had a name that sounded Spanish, and he looked latino. How crazy is that? The entire week leading up to Mauritius, the students had a ton of exams, and everyone was really wiped out after a mentally and physically exhausting (yet exhilarating and wonderful) time in Cape Town. Everyone was looking at Mauritius as the “Spring Break” port. Kovila, our interport student, made a point of saying time and time again “Mauritius is more than just beaches.” I was hoping that our students would really take that to heart and have some wonderful cultural experiences on the island. However, it became increasingly more apparent as we got closer to the country that this was not to be the case. The vast majority of the students rented villas in the various beach communities and planned to party like rockstars for their time in port. Because tourism is now one of the main industries in Mauritius, it was all too easy to find cheap beach villas for the students to share. Because of very (very very) rough seas, our arrival in port was almost delayed by an entire day, and it seemed that every single student on board was bemoaning the loss of one of their two precious villa nights. In the end, Captain Jeremy was able to make up lost time, and we arrived in Port Louis by about noon, and the ship was cleared by about 1:30 or so. Then the students made a mad dash for cabs and were off to their rentals. Pulling into Port Louis was interesting. We haven’t arrived into a port in the middle of the day before. We’ve typically arrived in the early morning hours as dawn was breaking. In this case, we could clearly see the mountains of the island. Mauritius is a volcanic island, and in that respect it is a very young island. All along the landscape, there are jagged peaks and some intense rock formations looming over the port city. The other interesting thing about it is that the mountains, everything for that matter, was covered in green growth. Unlike Cape Town, which was a big city nestled at the base of Table Mountain, Port Louis, was not a very large city. Also, Cape Town opened up and welcomes us with a beautiful waterfront and adventure everywhere. My first impression of Port Louis, was that it seemed industrial and not very welcoming at all. That might have had something to do with the French Warship that was parked right in front of us. Go figure.
I decided to stick close to the ship for the port, and things were blessedly quiet, for the most part. That first afternoon, a bunch of the RDs decided to go for a walk and see Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. The docks in Port Louis are arranged in a strange way. Large ships, like ours, are forced to dock on the far side of the port. Even though all the commercial and touristy areas were only 100 yards away across the water, there was no easy way to access them. We would have had to walk 45 minutes to get there because the bay weaves around. (I have one word for the port authority: bridge). Luckily the port area had a system of water taxis in place that brought us from the industrial side of the port to the commercial side for the nice fee of $1 (US). This seemed very convenient at first, but got to be pretty annoying b/c everyone is trying to save our dollar bills for India and Vietnam. In addition, the taxis were filthy, billowed thick black exhaust, and the people running the service kept moving the dock on us. You would leave the ship, and have to wander in search of the place where they pick-up and deliver passengers on the industrial side. Plus, the industrial side of the port was poorly lit, had many roaming stray dogs, and was crawling with some of the biggest cockroaches known to man. I also heard stories from many of the women on the ship who were “accidentally” groped by the water taxi drivers. But, they have a monopoly, so we all sort of put up with it. But I digress… So the RD’s decided to go for a walk in Port Louis. We got off the water taxi and consulted our guide books. We saw that the main market place was located nearby and we started to walk through the port city. We quickly came to realize that Port Louis was not the tourism center for this nation that bills itself as an island paradise. The city was filthy, looked extremely run down, and there were people selling random things everywhere. The most popular items seemed to be candles, Q-tips, and the asian equivalent of “Hello Kitty” items. Even though the signs all over the area were in French, and Hindi, and occasionally other languages, I was constantly reminded of Nogales and Tijuana Mexico. As we continued to wander, that image was only strengthened by what I saw. We eventually found the market, and walked among the stalls. The market was fun despite the heat and humidity. However, the people selling their wares were extremely pushy. I tried my polite lines, like “you have beautiful things to sell, but I am not buying today.” But these lines didn’t work, the vendors would just try to convince me to shop at their cousin/uncle/brother’s stall instead, or worse, follow me for a few minutes trying to put their item into my hands. It got frustrating. The interesting thing about the market is that I could find nothing that seemed unique to Mauritius, except for the ubiquitous Dodo Bird paraphernalia. Everything seemed to originate from China, India, or South Africa. They were selling curries, and pashminas, and African masks, and saris, and an assortment of things we all knew we would be seeing, perhaps more authentically, in the countries left to visit on our itinerary. I didn’t end up buying a single souvenirs in Mauritius, in fact I wasn’t even successful at purchasing postcards, so I warn friends and family that you shouldn’t be expecting any cards from Mauritius (my humblest apologies).We wandered through the produce market, and that was really awesome. I wish I lived in a place with a huge open air produce market. However, when we walked through the meat market, I alternated between holding my breath and gagging on the odor of rotting meat flesh. Blech! We didn’t stick around there too long, but even despite the odor, it was interesting to see the animals being sold, and some even slaughtered right there in the market. Yikes!
We continued our stroll through Port Louis and walked through China Town, which was pretty darn small. On other side of China Town we discovered the Jummah Mosque, which is the second largest and oldest mosque in Mauritius. It was fascinating being there as it was my first visit to a mosque. The clerics were welcoming and allowed us to wander through portions of the building once we had removed our shoes. This surprised us, since we were wearing shorts, and some of the women had bare shoulders. We were a bit early for afternoon prayers, and decided to press on. We circled back through the sad streets of Port Louis and came upon a Hindu Shrine/Temple complex. It was ornate and beautiful, and we stopped and took some pictures (once again, after removing our shoes). The shrine had a fire walking pit/area that had fresh coals. I was envisioning a rite of passage ceremony, and hoping there would be a ceremony during our stay, and better yet, that we would be allowed to participate. We spoke with the man looking over the shrine, and he informed us that we were a week too late. The big fire walking ceremony had taken place one week prior, and that we would, indeed, have been able to participate. The next ceremony would not be held for almost another year. Just my luck. In my quest to try new things on this voyage around the world, how cool would it have been to add fire-walking to the list? On well, maybe in India!
As we walked back to the ship from the Hindu shrine, I noticed that all the buildings seemed to be made of concrete. I asked around and learned that almost every building in Mauritius is constructed from concrete because of the huge Cyclones that barrel through the region fairly regularly. Evidently a really bad one struck the island in the late 60’s and 70% of the island was under water, and it was about a month until electricity was restored. I suppose if that was my reality I would build out of concrete as well. We passed some folks putting up a building, and they were literally just pouring concrete into a mold. No hammers, no nails… nothing but wet cement and steel bar reinforcement. While this technique might make for strong buildings, they certainly didn’t look very appealing. None of the guidebooks I read were that kind to Port Louis and I was beginning to understand why. Many of the people I spoke with were clear in telling me that in order to enjoy Mauritius, I had to get out of Port Louis. I made a decision not to spend more time than necessary in the city. Once we got back to the waterfront, we learned that the one nice/touristy area in Port Louis was the commercial area across from the ship. The area is under the sweep of urban renewal as the city tries to pull in more of the tourist dollar (or rupee in this case). The new mall/hotel/casino complex was called the Caudan Waterfront and was very clean and western in nature. It was a relief after the rest of Port Louis. I felt a little guilty wanting to be in a resorty area. Being in comfortable spaces is not why I came on Semester at Sea, but I had really been expecting Mauritius to feel like a vacation getaway, and Port Louis was more like an assault on my senses. So, the waterfront was a welcome respite. The food court was most interesting. As I mentioned, Ile Maurice is a blend of the many cultures that have colonized the island, or been brought there for labor. This is also evident in the cuisine. We asked our interport student what was a native Mauritian dish and she laughed b/c there really isn’t a uniquely Mauritian dish. She said her favorite foods were Chinese and Indian. I spoke with some of the other S@S’ers and consulted my guidebooks and learned about 2 awesome restaurants, one Chinese and one Indian, and planned to do dinner at them both, but for a late lunch snack, I enjoyed a nice falafel. Yep, Mediterranean food in the south Indian Ocean. A little geographically inappropriate, but what the hey!After my late lunch with the RD’s we headed back to the ship to wipe away the sweat of the afternoon. Later that evening, I returned to the waterfront and had dinner with RD Matt, Nurse Practitioner Brenda, Mental Health Pro. Arnie, Lifelong Learner Gary, and Professor Judyie. We were a varied group, but it was a lot of fun. We went to a nice Chinese restaurant, called Grand Ocean City, and ate lots of good food including some of the largest prawns I’ve ever seen. I drank so much Jasmine tea I thought I was going to burst, but I couldn’t help myself b/c it was so good. After dinner, we al strolled leisurely back to the water taxi. I decided to make it an early night and enjoyed the peace and calm of the nearly empty ship.
The next morning I joined RD’s Lesley, Matt, and Dan, for an S@S trip to the Southern part of the island. The whole island is only about 1870 square miles. It’s something like 65 miles long and about 45 miles wide (at their widest and longest points), so not a huge place to begin with, but you’d never know that when driving around because it seemed to take forever to travel around the island. Because of the big and sharp volcano mountains in the middle, all roads going in a huge circle around the island. Also, none of the sites to visit were near one another. But it did afford the chance to enjoy the breezes and see all the sugar plantations. We did eventually get to the interior area in the South to enjoy a day of adventure at a 30 acre forest preserve in the heart of the island. The preserve was located in an area called Chamarel and had stunning views. The volcanic mountain peaks are dramatic and jagged and the lush greenery crawls right up the sides. There were also bright green fields carved into the landscape. We learned that these were more of the ever-present sugar plantations that we saw literally all over the island, but there were also farms for some other local crops. There were a number of fires burning across the valley below us as well. We were told that the locals sometimes burn their trash, but more than likely they were burning their fields since the main harvests had already occurred. In the distance we could see where the valley descended to the water on the far side of the island. The main point of our trip to the South was to do an adventure challenge course complete with zip lines, suspension bridges, nets, and beams. It was a lot of fun, and actually pretty darn strenuous. I got separated from my fellow RDs but got to complete the course with Ron and Jane Wisner (Ron is “the Voice” on the ship and his wife Jane is the Dependant Children Coordinator). They are both fun and we laughed our way through the challenging course. I turned one of the implements into a zipline when it wasn’t meant to be and ended up caught, tangled in the ropes, hanging upside down, and bleeding. Fear not, my uncoordinated dangling booty was laughing the whole time. Many of the students with us got pictures of me hanging there flopping uselessly. I did manage to get untangled, but felt vindicated with Jane ended up the same predicament. Now Ron and Jane are not large people. So Ron flew down the zipline like a bullet, and I will admit I had a moment of terror. For a second there we all thought he might fly off the end of it and straight through the treeline and into the forest. Luckily, he held on tight and we all got out alive, though we were all filthy and covered with little scrapes and blisters. Lunch was a smoked marlin sandwich (unexpectedly yummy) and then we were off for an afternoon at the beach.
Lesley, Dan, Matt, and I played Hearts all the way to Flic en Flac beach (I learned I’m pretty rusty at Hearts). Flic en Flac wins the award for the funniest name town on the trip so far. It is actually a French bastardization of a Dutch name for the town which translates to Free and Flat Land. Flic en Flac is supposed to be a famous Mauritian beach area, but in recent years it has become run down and full of cheapo apartment/condo complexes and touristy bars and clubs. This is the place where most of our students rented villas for our weekend stay, which was immediately evident when we stepped off the bus and into a crowd of many of our S@S students. They were really only just getting out to the beach (at 1:45pm) because they had all been up late the previous night drinking, partying, and cavorting around. Grrrr. We RDs managed to ignore the students and enjoyed the water for a couple hours. While many parts of Mauritius did not impress me, I have to say that the beaches were lovely. The sand is clear and white and the water was some of the most amazing shades of icey blue. The water was also the perfect temperature, was refreshing and cool. Sadly, because of the recent cyclone that passed nearby, the water was still a bit churned up and supposedly not good for snorkeling. I borrowed Lesley’s snorkel, and eventually I found a huge patch of coral off the shore and swam among the fish for a good 30 minutes. I felt like I was inside of a huge tropical aquarium, and have never been so close to so many different species of fish before. They were swimming all around me and even seemed to nip at me on the places where I was scraped from the adventure course (piranhas??) The fish were some amazing colors and shapes and sizes. I even swam over one patch and caught sight of a huge eel. I moved away quickly and found a giant abalone shell opening and closing. There were bunches of sea urchins and others amazingly beautiful sites down there. And they said it wasn’t good snorkeling conditions! Eventually we all headed back to the ship to clean up. That night I dined with my friends Shayla, Lesley, Judyie, Brenda, and one of the professors Mary (the lady who wisked up Table Mountain). We ate amazingly good Indian food at a restaurant called Namaste. Mmmm… I am really taking a big liking to Indian cuisine, and may have to insert it into my stateside culinary rotation. We gorged on Rogan Josh, Tandoori Chicken, Tikka Masala, and other yumminess. And don’t even get me started on the rice… Mmm. After dinner we managed to roll ourselves onto the water taxi and back to the ship. I had to be back by 8pm since I was the RD-on-duty for the night. I spent the evening making my flight plans in India and checking my email. I had a blissful nights sleep and received no calls. I thought that meant everything was nice and quiet, but I was wrong. The following morning I found Dean Larry meeting with Mauritian police in Purser’s Square. I hadn’t been notified, but one our students was victimized in her beach villa and our administrative team was in the middle of responding. They did an incredible job, and again reaffirmed how glad I am to have such solid people on the voyage with me. It was not until later that I realized how serious that situation really was.Dean Larry left to continue his work, and I met up with RD Mindy for breakfast. We dined with Nurse Brenda, and Prof Bianca & her partner Sue. Bianca and Sue were going to rent a car and drive around the island. They invited us, but Mindy and I had the urge to be beachy and snorkel, so we declined. Our main goal, was just to get the heck out of Port Louis! At the last minute one of the awesome students in my many clubs, Priya, decided to tag along with us. We quickly stopped in the market before grabbing one of the cheap island busses for the town of Grand Baie. The express bus only cost about a dollar and was nice and air-conditioned, a great way to travel through the sugar cane plantations. Mindy, Priya, and I agreed that the island had a lot more charm if you don’t spend any time in Port Louis (sad, but true). Grand Baie used to be a fishing village, but now it resembles San Tropez (well, what I imagine San Tropez to look like) with hoity-toity expensive boutiques, resorty hotels, and pretentious restaurants. The bay itself is really pretty. It’s not tremendously large, but was chock full of yachts and sailboats and all sorts of expensive rigs. Mindy, Priya, and I walked around the bay and then continued along the main highway out of Grand Baie to the smaller and more local town of Peréybère. The walk was supposed to be about 2 km and started out very pretty. But then we had to leave the beach, and were forced to walk along the more industrial highway area. We managed to find a path back to the water and walked along some private beaches until we ran into some rocks we couldn’t pass. We trespassed through someone’s yard and their front gate (security systems be damned) to get back to the main road. I had my guidebook out and in front of me the whole time in case we had to play “clueless Americans” if the homeowners discovered us (which luckily they did not). Thankfully we were stealthy in our 30 second criminal caper and did not experience the inside of any Mauritian prisons. We finished our trek North and found the Peréybère Beach. It was a nice little beach that was, indeed, full of locals, and had a number of little cafés, food stands, and shops along the water. We set down our towels and I went in search of some food. As I bought myself a little curry sandwich for lunch, out popped practically half of the staff from the ship, including Bianca, Sue, and Brenda. Evidently they all rented a villa up in Peréybère in order to avoid all the students who were down South in Flic en Flac. Literally 15 or so of my favorite staff folks and professors just appeared along the beach area for the day. We all swam in the water and basked in the sun and relaxed. So much fun.
As the afternoon sun started to fade, and it began to look like rain, Mindy, Priya, and I began to look for a bus. We finally caved and hopped in a cab for the trip back to the ship. It felt like an extravagance, but it really only cost us 500 Mauritian Rupees which worked out to like 12 bucks for the 3 of us to ride 30 minutes back to the ship. Plus, our taxi driver and his wife were quite nice and took extra effort to figure out how to drive us all the way back to the ship itself. When we arrived, they couldn’t believe how big the ship was. They literally parked the cab and got out to stare, mouths wide open, at the enormity of the ship. I realized how much I take our floating campus for granted. I was thankful for their reminder. We said our goodbyes to the cabbie and ducked into the ship. I cleaned up before heading back across on a water taxi for a last meal before our trip to India. I lost my staff friends and ended up eating dinner with a couple of my favorite students, Alex & Lydia at the Mauritian equivalent of a sports bar. It started to rain as we made our way back to the ship. We had about 20-30 students who were late for on-ship time, but luckily they were all there by about 15 minutes after the deadline.It wasn’t until later that we learned that our students had caused a lot of damage in their villas. We heard reports from some of the students that they couldn’t believe how destructive their peers were. They were embarrassed at the behavior they saw, and the damage that had been caused, especially down in the Flic en Flac area where literally hundreds of our students had been staying, clubbing, and partying. We will be implementing a whole slew of new guidelines as we move on to the second half of our voyage. I guess the students really did take the Spring Break mentality into Mauritius, which I think is sad. However, despite what Kovila, the interport students said, Mauritius really did feel like it was all about the beaches. As I process my time on the island, I am not remembering Mauritius fondly. I wouldn’t call it a throw away port, but I don’t feel that traveling there has enriched my S@S experience. I don’t see it as a place I need to return, nor is it a place I would recommend for others to visit. My friend Dia, the Registrar, put it into perspective for me. She said that after being in a place like Cape Town, what port could we possibly have visited and not been extremely let down? We almost had to come to a place that allowed us all to decompress, and not feel too guilty for not exploring and really understanding the culture. In that respect Mauritius really was perfect. And my time there has really made me all the more excited for India. I can’t wait.
Love to all back at home. XOXO
-Drew
1 comment:
Mauritius is such a great place..so lovely..
Post a Comment