Mauritius

Our glorified pit stop in Mauritius was awesome!

 

Thanks to Pete and Aunt Debbie for awesome letters! I love the lobster note cards!!!! And Pete, thanks for all the cool India info!

 

We arrived at about 8AM and went through immigration to get another stamp in our passports!

 

I had a Semester at Sea planned trip today called Adventure Park and Beach. We headed off at 9AM and I really had no idea what to expect from the description that SAS had provided us. Our tour guide's name was Ejazz or that's what it sounded like anyways! He was a really nice guy and very sarcastic which was awesome! We went to the South East part of the island and along the way went through many little towns and villages. Mauritius is interesting because it reminded me a lot of Ghana. There are many poor areas but there are also some very rich areas where the "White Mauritian" live. These people tend to own the sugar cane plantations which is a major industry in Mauritius. The other major industries are tourism and textiles. We learned that the textile workers work 6 days a week for 11 hours a day and make around $600 USD per month.

 

As we made our way to the Adventure Park, we drove up these mountain slopes and stopped at a point where we could take pictures of the mountains and beaches below. It was an incredible view! We drove further up the mountain where we finally got to the reception area of Adventure Park. We signed our lives away and got situated into our harnesses. We were told to put on bug spray (which no one bought) and we definitely learned our lesson. I have never seen so many mosquitoes on my legs in my life. Luckily they don't itch...yet. We were also warned that Adventure Park was for people with moderate strength and exercise levels....they weren't kidding!!

 

We were in charge of our own carabineers during the entire ropes course. We had to clip two carabineers onto a safety line. The first thing we did was cross seven different suspension bridges. The first one was very close to the ground but as we got further, the bridges got further away from the ground and the wooden planks on the bridge got further apart so sometimes you would have to hop from one to the next. There were rope handrails on all of them except one. On this one I held on for dear life to the carabineers that were attached to the safety line. After each bridge we had to remember to unclip our two carabineers and reclip them to the safety line on the next bridge. It was so much fun!  

 

After that we made our way up a really steep hill to the Parcour course. This course was a little bit more difficult; requiring more strength and skill. The climb to this course just about wiped me out...and the course itself was brutal but probably one of the most fun ropes course experiences ever!

 

It consisted of seven different challenges and bridges. The first was just a rope suspension net that we had to cross. It was pretty easy but the mud made the ropes very slippery to climb on. The next was essentially the same as the suspension bridges except the planks were very far apart and we had to jump from one to the next. There were no hand ropes on this one. Instead, there were ropes hanging down from the safety line that we had to hold on to in order to balance and jump. The next one was a rope net that had a top and two sides. There was no bottom so the rope net on the sides swung around making it really difficult to balance on. I was getting quite the work out and my arms were exhausted. This obstacle basically had me doing the splits the entire way! The next one basically had logs hanging down from two ropes that were attached on either end. They swung back and forth like a swing. We had to jump from log to log like standing on the seat of a swing and jumping from one to the next. I felt like I was in a Donkey Kong game!! The next obstacle was the most strenuous. It was just a huge rope net hanging from the trees and we had to scale it to get to the other side. It required a lot of upper body strength. I literally couldn't even unclip my carabineer at the end. My arms had no strength left in them.

 

The next obstacle was the BEST. A zip line from one tree to the next. We were responsible for rigging up the pulley at the start and taking it off and clipping it back onto our harness at the finish. It was a great ride and way too short! I loved it! The final obstacle consisted of four ropes and the safety line. There were two ropes for your feet and two very loose ropes to hold on to. People were falling all over the place. I decided to forget holding on and shuffled along using the foot ropes. I held on to the safety line with both hands and balanced the whole way across, never falling once. I was proud of myself!!

 

I made my way back to reception where we were greeted with a washcloth to take all the dirt off, some water and soda, and a Mauritian meal. the lunch consisted of chicken with curry, rice, vegetables, and some kind of small round black beans that were on the rice. It tasted amazing after the strenuous exercise we had just gone through! We piled into the buses and headed to Flic en Flac beach. The sand was beautiful and so fine! There was coral everywhere and the water felt like a bathtub. It was so relaxing! After an hour or so on the beach we had to head back to the ship. The day FLEW by!

 

Here comes the scary/sad part for Semester at Sea...

Our trip was in two buses and our bus noticed that there was a boy in the other bus that looked drunk and out of it. Our tour guide went to investigate and he came back saying it was like nothing he had ever seen before. Someone found out that he had met up with some friends on the beach and most have gone to a bar to drink. They think he either did drugs or drank Petrol. On the bus ride home he was totally unresponsive and people were holding his head up. When we got to the ship there were about five guys that tried to carry him to the pier. He looked unconscious and literally almost on the verge of death...he was very white and his eyes were rolling around. It was very scary. The medical staff rushed out in a wheel chair but he was so dead weight that he couldn't even stay in it. So the man in charge of discipline on the ship, Al, and who also happened to be on our trip, picked him up and put him in one of the vans where they were going to drive him to the hospital. The hospitals in this country though, are very unreliable and we're pretty sure they don't have the things necessary to take care of him. Most likely we will leave Mauritius and him behind and he will end up going home. I just think it's so dumb of these kids to spend their 8 hours in port getting absolutely trashed to the point of near death. So many kids did all you can drink catamaran booze cruises and came back trashed. And then they get in trouble with the ship. There are so many more deserving kids that could be on this trip. The crew was saying that this is the most rowdy, rude, and drunken bunch of kids that have ever been on an SAS voyage. Hopefully kids will learn after seeing the state that this student was in...

 

Mauritius was a great day trip and I'm sure there is a bunch to see, but overall 8 hours was the perfect amount of time and I had a BLAST at Adventure Park!

 

Here are some funny things I saw in Mauritius:

 

Mauritius Post "More than just letters"

So delicious. So Mauritius.

Laughing Cow cheese advertisements were painted on buildings everywhere...

Spotted a Pepsi ad...first one I've seen since....the US? Coke is definitely winning!

Doom. -A bug spray ad that was hilarious

 

On to India!