Mauritius - Island Paradise

        AH, this semester is going by so fast and I am having a hard time keeping on top of this whole blog thing. I am most likely not going to get back on track until after Japan, but I am writing as much as I can.

        Anyways, onward to Mauritius. I had never heard of Mauritius before I signed up for Semester at Sea. I had no idea where it was or who lived there. Come to find out, Mauritius is Europe’s Hawaii…and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We were at the point in the semester where all our exams and assignments were due. I was getting really stressed out and needing some time to relax and get away from shiplife. A few days before we arrived, I booked a private studio apartment in Bain Boeuf. I just wanted someplace to go for a night by myself and do nothing pretty much.

        When we got to port, I headed out for awhile to see Port Louis. Our ship was too big to get very close to the actual city, so we had to take a taxi or watertaxi into the city. The watertaxi was actually pretty fun, but took a long time. When I made it in, I went out into the waterfront to get some money. I walked by some restaurants and ran in to Bri, Jon, and Amanda. They were headed up to Grand Baie in a little bit which was where I was headed, so I decided to take the bus with them. I headed back to the ship and grabbed my bags then met them all back at McDonalds. We got our ritual McDonalds stop in and headed to the bus station. We luckily made it to the bus station right before the bus was taking off. There wasn’t enough room so we ended up standing the entire way to Grand Baie. It wasn’t bad, but I was trying to eat my Chicken Mac and fries at the same time. It was only a 30 minute ride.

        When we got to Grand Baie, I had to figure out how to get to my apartment. Hotels.com said that it was located near Pereybere Beach, so I asked this guy if he knew how to get there. He told me I just had to jump on a local bus and it would take me there. A lady on the bus overheard me asking how to get there. She happened to be heading there with her husband on their way back from work. She came and found me when I got off the bus and told me they would take me there. It was so weird to have people I have never seen before in my life be so nice. They drove me to Pereybere Beach and refused to take any type of money. However, I wasn’t done trying to find this place I was staying at. I walked around forever trying to find someone that knew where it was. It was called Cape Garden Residence. No one had even heard of it. I couldn’t tell if they had never heard of it before or if they just couldn’t understand my English since they speak French. I ended up just walking around for about an hour before a taxi driver found me walking on the side of the road. He told me to get in even though he didn’t sound like he knew where this place was.

        It was a correct assumption to say that he didn’t know where it was. In fact he took me all the way back to where I got off the bus. We had gone the complete wrong direction. We finally found someone that spoke English and pointed us in the right direction. We got back to Pereybere Beach and had to find another person to ask. This guy knew English really well and knew that Cape Garden in French is Jardin du Cap. All I have to say is screw Hotels.com for trying to make us happy and translate names into English. Well, after finding that out, I finally made it to my apartment. There was a nice big sign on the front gate that said Jardin du Cap.

        When I got there, I had to check-in with the guard at the gate. Once he cleared me, my taxi was escorted to my parking spot. When we pulled in, a guy opened my door for me, said “Welcome Mr. Nagaki”, and grabbed my bags for me. I was instantly creeped out. I felt as if I had known these people for years since everyone was calling me by my full name already. This guy showed me to my room, explained everything and made sure everything was ok. The apartment was so nice. It had a king sized bed, nice kitchenette, and a nice big bathroom. After I got settled in I went and walked around the property. I found the pool first and decided to go lay out by it. It was a very cool area. I layed out for awhile before I had to go get ready for dinner. I headed back to my room and cleaned up before I met Jon, Bri, Megan, and Travis for dinner. We had initially planned on meeting at my apartment and cooking dinner, but I didn’t have a full kitchen so we scratched that idea.

        We ended up at a restaurant and I had a steak with potatoes and crispy onions. I hadn’t had steak in awhile and it was really good. We hadn’t really eaten all day so we just shoveled food into our mouths. Once we were done eating, I decided to go with them for awhile. We went to Jon and Bri’s hotel to get another room for Meghan and Travis. It was the most disgusting hotel I had ever been in. It had mold all over, broken everything, and cockroaches in the ground. I don’t know how they stayed there.

        After we got them a hotel, we headed to the B52 bar. We sat around and hung out for awhile. This part of the island was supposed to be really popular and busy with all the SAS kids in town. It was actually quite dead so we decided to head to the Intercontinental Hotel. My internet was down at my apartment, so I actually had our taxi driver, Deepak, go to my apartment first and I packed up all my stuff and decided to stay the Intercontinental in an open bed. I felt bad not staying at the place that I had booked, but I planned on getting some work done on the internet and that wasn’t going to happen there.

        When we got to the Intercontinental, it was insane. The whole place was packed with SAS kids and it looked like spring break. I went straight to my friend’s room that had an open bed and didn’t leave. I didn’t want anything to do with what was going on outside, so I just connected my computer and got some stuff done. It was so nice to actually have decent internet for the first time since I left home. After I got some internet time in, I went to bed. I had the option of laying on the beach or going on a catamaran the next day, but didn’t want to decide till the morning.

        Since I had stayed up so late the night before, I decided not to go on the catamaran since it left at 7am. Instead, Gina, Annie, Eloise, and I stayed at the Intercontinental for the day and layed on the beach. It was so nice. There were barely any clouds and it was really hot. The hotel was right on the beach so it was a private beach just for the hotel guests. It was also very clean because it was on hotel property. After we layed out for the afternoon, we grabbed a few drinks at the pool and cooled off. We then dried off and headed back to Port Louis.

        When we got back to Port Louis we dropped our bags off at the ship and headed back to the city to do some last minute shopping. We all had some extra money so we found some souvenirs around the waterfront. We wanted to go to a market, but we didn’t have that much time before we had to be back at the ship. We made it back with plenty of time before on-ship time. However, tons of kids didn’t. On-ship time is 6pm. At 6pm, there was still a huge line of kids waiting to get on the ship. All of them got dock time for India. Since we only stayed in Mauritius for less than two days, everyone was cutting it close getting back to the ship. We all wanted to spend as much time as possible in port.

        While it was only a short stay in Mauritius, it was a great time. I didn’t end up spending as much time as I had wanted by myself, but it was relaxed enough for me. It was nice to get away from schoolwork and the constant bustle on the ship.

        Well, I am off to take my Global Studies exam #2. We will be in Singapore in 2 days. I will try to get my blog about India posted right after we leave from Singapore. I hope everything is going well at home. See ya!