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Celebrate - Reflections on Maritius



Although a new landfall for Charlie and Cathy it was a return visit for Peter. He and Jane had their honeymoon in Mauritius 16 years ago. Many of the local people we have met on the dockside had told us that a lot had changed since 1998 with greater prosperity on the island. We certainly sensed a vibrancy , or perhaps this was something to do with our visit coinciding with the Hindu festival of Diwali or 'Festival of Lights' where they celebrate victory of light over darkness.

Here is an account of Peter's a three day drive across the island rediscovering familiar places and some new ones;

We had a great honeymoon but came away feeling that all was not right in paradise, this could have been the absence of the dodo, ebony forests, or sugar cane fields totally dominating the island's landscape. It could also have been that we found one of the resort golf courses unplayable losing many golf balls in the ocean!

My second trip took me North to Grande Bai to get some diving in then later head down to the South. The center of Grande Bai had not changed and still a beautiful natural anchorage. I came across the Veranda Hotel one of our stops first time round. The views were spectacular, the staff so friendly and the diving good that I stayed two nights and used it as a base to tour the North. Like many of the places visited the outskirts of towns had changed dramatically with shopping centers, new housing and manufacturing sites (including denim, cashmere, processed food). At the heart of the island is a futuristic new Cyber City (I wonder how many of those there are in the world?) It looked like many of the world's computer and financial institutions are here. All the new and existing settlements are connected by a network of highways- so new that one through the mountains is not on the tourist maps yet!

The landscape is still dominated by sugar cane but there are now lots of other crops. The vegetable market in Port Louis was full of locally grown fresh produce. The sugar industry has also diversified producing specialist sugars,rum , bio ethanol and the waste sugar cane is burnt to generate electricity for the island.

Tourism still plays a major part but sadly much of the coastline has be lost to resorts or golf courses. fortunately there are still sections of public beach to enjoy the view.

The later stage of my trip took me South to a tea plantation a walk through the remains of an ebony forest (now mostly pine trees) and then to the historic tea plantation of St Aubin. This visit was principally for my education with an excellent museum but with the added bonus of rum tasting! The plantation dates back to 1819 with a splendid colonial house now a restaurant and I managed to get a room at the Auberge on site. Here I enjoyed the charms of a creole house dating back to 1908 and delicious cuisine eaten on the terrace.

So despite the problems associated with a growing population all is looking better in paradise.

Peter

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