With the promise of more warm weather, we docked at Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, at a much more civilised 8 O’clock this morning. I had chosen an all day shore excursion leaving the harbour at 10.30. I was surprised how attractive and dramatic the background was with distinctive mountains silhouetted sharply against the sky. Rain clouds swirled menacingly amongst the hills. Perhaps a spectacular thunderstorm was on the cards. Apparently, there was one, but I didn’t see it. There were occasional spots of rain later on in the tour, which was listed unimaginably as “Southern Delights”. In fact, the tour title was most appropriate. We would be taken to see several interesting places, worthy of a photograph or two, and “delights” was something of an understatement.
The tour guide gave a lengthy account of what we would be seeing, as well as details of what we were passing on both sides of the minibus. First of all, we were taken out of Port Louis along the motorway and then past a mixture of residential and commercial properties. We were driven past the homes of government ministers and other VIPs. Eventually, we came to a vantage point overlooking the Trou aux Certs crater, formed from a long since dormant volcano. Lush vegetation throughout the entire crater bore testament to how long the volcano had been dormant.
We continued to an important sacred lake where a huge Hindu festival was about to occur. The GRAND BASSIN, nestling in another volcanic crater is looked on as Mauritius’s “Ganges” and is a place of pilgrimage for “thousands”. There were several temples; we stopped briefly at one which was massive, full of brightly dressed native people, and families, and much noisy prayer. I felt very conspicuous, in my western attire and orange Cunard tour dayglo sticker attached to my shirt….along with many others on the same tour. We had a look around; I declined the opportunity to paddle in the lake.
More further fabulous views were afforded at Black River Gorges, including the biggest in Mauritius.
Buffet lunch followed in a near by restaurant, again, with fabulous views.
After lunch, and a brief walk through lovely gardens, we continued to the Charamel Waterfall and then the 7 coloured earth area, another regular site for cruise ship tourists. But, there’s also, alongside the mulicoloured soil, the loveliest of tropical gardens and a pen housing several turtles.
On the way back, we stopped one final time to photograph a panoramic vista of the Indian Ocean.
The tour guide was excellent, proud to impart as much local knowledge as she was able to. Much of her commentary, I missed, but I do feel I saw much and learned a lot in the almost six hour excursion.
One annoying thing, I left my camera phone on the ship; thus I have no pictures to illustrate today’s journey. My photographs taken on my main camera are “average to not bad”.
Shortly after 18.30hrs local time, QM2 set sail for Fremantle, a journey of over a week. Tomorrow is the first of seven days on the Indian Ocean.
I shall write again shortly.
David.
David's Cruise 