The Tyranny of Distance

Update from Mauritius & New Pictures!!

Mauritius!

We arrived in Mauritius Thursday morning a few hours late. My friends and I rented a villa for our time here, which I was extremely excited about. Mauritius is our “spring break” since the week in between South Africa and Mauritius was HORRIBLE! I had two tests, three papers, and two journals to write so I was extremely busy. On top of that, the ocean was going INSANE. I was terribly sea sick most of the time, which made getting work done and classes terribly difficult. There was a cyclone over Mauritius the day before we got there but thankfully it missed the ship on it’s way to Madagascar.
We took an hour-long public bus ride to Tamarin Bay where our villa was. After getting terribly lost, walking through extremely sketchy neighborhoods, and not being able to call the villa, we finally made it there safely. The villa was BEAUTIFUL. There were 13 of us staying, and it was only $10 a night for a 2 floor, 2 bathroom, three bedroom house. It was really great to get away from the boat for a while. At night, I made grilled cheese for everyone, since I missed cooking so much (even though admittedly, I can only cook a few things, grilled cheese being one of them). We got to bed around 2am, and then I had to wake up at 6am to catch the bus back to the boat for a trip I had in the morning,
My trip was to this Marine Science research center, which was fun. It was a trip for my Global Environmental Politics class. After walking around the research center for a few hours we took a glass-bottom boat to this amazing private island called Isle de Deux Cocos. We had a wonderful catered lunch being going back out on the glass bottom boat to snorkel! Snorkeling was wonderful. There were an incredible amount of fish and coral reefs. After snorkeling and hanging around the beach for a while, we went back to the ship.
I was supposed to go back to the villa, but my friends and I were tired so we decided to hang around Port Lois for the night. We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner, which was so good. Oh how I missed chana masala, naan, and lassis. There is no “traditional” Mauritian food since the Dutch were the first mammals to ever be on the island (besides fruit bats). It is an amazing mixture of Indian, African, and Asian populations each living together. Even though I will be in India again in a week, we figured it would be ok to go for Indian food just once since the Indian population is the majority.
Today is the last day in Mauritius and I have just been hanging out. We were told that there was wireless Internet on the ENTIRE ISLAND, which was basically a lie. But thankfully I found this one tiny spot near the boat so I am able to update. Mauritius has been relatively uneventful, but incredibly relaxing which is just what I needed after the long week before. Next stop, Chennai, India!!

I uploaded new pictures from South Africa!! None from Mauritius since I forgot my camera yesterday ☹ I hope all is well at home! I miss everyone so much!

posted by eric @ 3:39 AM