Mauritius is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about 1,100 nautical miles off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. Given its geographic location and colonial past, the people of Mauritius are diverse in ethnicity, culture, language and faith. It is the only country in Africa where Hinduism is the most practised religion. Indo-Mauritians make up the bulk of the population with significant Creole, Sino-Mauritian and Franco-Mauritian minorities. It’s home to approximately 1.3 million people, most of them living in the capital city of Port Louis. Mauritius was originally colonized by the Portuguese and then re-colonized by the French and then re-colonized again by the British. As a result, everybody here speaks three languages – Creole, French, and English. Strangely enough, English is the official language
The island is surrounded by more than 100 miles of white sandy beaches, and the lagoons are protected from the open sea by the world's third-largest coral reef, which surrounds the island. Just off the Mauritian coast lie some 49 uninhabited islands and islets, several of which have been declared natural reserves for endangered species.
Together with Saint Brandon, Réunion, and Rodrigues, the island is part of the Mascarene Islands. These islands emerged as a result of gigantic underwater volcanic eruptions that happened thousands of kilometres to the east of the continental block made up of Africa and Madagascar. They are no longer volcanically active and the hotspot now rests under Réunion Island. Mauritius is encircled by a broken ring of mountain ranges, varying in height from 1,000 to 2,600 ft above sea level. The land rises from coastal plains to a central plateau where it reaches a height of 2,200 ft; the highest peak is in the south-west, Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire at 2,717 ft. Streams and rivers speckle the island, many formed in the cracks created by lava flows.
MICHAEL:
We had originally planned to go to a resort today and frolic in the ocean and in their pools, but Beverly wasn’t feeling well and the weather was looking to be rainy and overcast, so we canceled it. Instead, I booked the included tour that turned out to be not too bad.
Our first stop was to the Mauritius botanical gardens, which was actually quite something. It is almost all trees that are native to Africa, including Ebony, mahogany, bamboo palm, bottle trees, and many others. The garden serves a dual purpose housing the memorials of past leaders of Mauritius, so you see a bunch of trees, and then you see a bunch of graves. They also had the most magnificent display of water lilies I had ever seen. They also had three or four 80+ year old tortoises.
We next had a tour of the city, ending up at a small hill, which allowed us to take some panoramic pictures of Port Louis. From here, we travelled down to a brand new shopping mall, which was really quite nice. Among other things, they had a spice shop, with every kind of spice you could imagine out of big canisters, where you could help yourself. The aromas in there were outstanding. From here it was back to the ship for a restful rest of the day.
