Mauritius

Well, this was an interesting part of my voyage. The seas were really
rough going around the tip of Africa. It made for a fun few days on the
ship. Of course the entry before this tells my embarrassing story of
falling during this rough seas. Well, with the rough seas came a
Cyclone. With the Cyclone our captain had to reroute our path taking us
around the weather. This made it not possible for us to go to Mauritius.
The shipboard community was so sad. We had been on the ship for
days and were getting restless. The powers at be made great strives to
make the day we were supposed to be in Mauritius a great one.They
entitled this day "Maurit-ish Day" We got to have a dance party the
night before which was a blast! I think my favorite part was dancing to
older songs from the 90's; good ol' N sync and Backstreet Boys! Then the
next day we had brunch so we could all sleep in! I loved waking up at
10:30! We then had movies in many of the classrooms to watch, games, and
a later time for zumba ( which is a regular activity). It was a very
relaxing day. That night Karaoke, a BBQ dinner, and Are you Smarter than
a Dependent Child were planned.
In the middle of the day however, our Dean came over the P.A. and
told us the Captain had figured out a way to get us to India on time
with a 4 hour stop in Mauritius! You could literally hear the whole ship
cheer over the announcement. The moral on the ship had been lifted! All
of our evening activities were still on, but cut short to make time for
our pre-port meeting with the whole shipboard community. It was a great
night! I think my favorite part of the day was Karaoke night. It was
hilarious to hear us all singing old 80's and 90's songs! surprisingly
the song that was sung the loudest by the audience was "The Piano Man".
It was a great way to end the night.
The next morning we all woke up before 6am to go through personal
immigration. Immigration didn't take more than 45 minutes and so by 7am
we were able to get off the ship in Mauritius. Most places do not open
until 9:30-10am so for much of the morning I walked around downtown
Mauritius with a small group of friends. We were able to talk to some
locals and be apart of many of their morning commutes. It was so
interesting to me to see how similar their day starts compared to that
of a bigger city in America; with the exception of driving on the left
side of the road. I mean there was even a line at the local McDonald's
for breakfast. :-)
After we enjoyed just being off the ship for a while we discovered
a local fruit market. I had some of the best pineapple of my life from
this market. The top was full of souvenir type vendors while the lower
part was full of local fruits, vegetables, and spices. The people in the
market were very nice. Although, again through my classes I was faced
with the struggle of whether or not the people were being to just be
nice or if they were being nice in the hopes that the return gesture
would be us all purchasing something from them. We spent hours in this
place. It was nice to see how locals get much of their fresh produce.
Once we finished walking around the market we went back to the
Waterfront ( the pier area) to do a little shopping, like getting a
T-shirt or a shot glass. Then at about 10:45 we got back on the ship.
My small group decided instead of trying to play Russian Ru-let
with our dock time we would just board a little early. I would say in
general that this port was interesting. Although I didn't get to spend
much time in the port I got to see the country's natural beauty. It
could be somewhere that I would like to come back to to see more of the
island.
I spent the rest of the day making paper cranes with some friends
in the piano bar and then hung out with some other friends and just
relaxed before we started back up with school.
I cannot thank the ship's captain, crew, and our faculty members
enough for working so hard to make a visit to Mauritius no matter how
short it was.