From Johannesburg, I took a direct flight to Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport in Mauritius. That’s a mouthful!
I will honestly say that the inside of the MRU airport has got to be one of the coolest airports I’ve ever been in.
After a “this is the official price” / “oh, really? show me? yeah, funny that’s less than what you told me the price was” taxi negotiation, I got to my awesome guesthouse and walked along the beach for a while. Most of the pictures turned out terribly. Oops.
The next morning, I had a great breakfast at the guesthouse and then was off to catch the bus up to the departure point for tours to the protected Ile Aux Aigrettes (Island of Egrets). Unfortunately, there are no longer egrets there, and that’s why it’s become a protected park, so they can prevent other species from dying off.
The giant tortoises were awesome. They’re doing some great research projects, reintroduction of native species of animals & plants, removing and relocating invasive species brought by the colonizers, and the water was obviously gorgeous. This was a great day trip.
The guide was quite shy and was very good at her prepared speech but not so great at conversations with anyone in our group or answering questions that didn’t follow the script, so I just took pictures and tried to imagine things.
Late that night, I took a flight off to Seychelles. Not as long as I’d wanted to spend in Mauritius, but using points limited me to either staying 24hours or staying 6 days for a flight that only had availability in business class, but I wanted to save my points by flying economy. I took what was available.
Mauritius will definitely need a 2nd look, especially underwater.
This entry was posted in Africa, Mauritius
