Magical Mauritius
We flew overnight with Air Mauritius and were transferred, checked in and unpacked at the hotel before lunch. Our home for the week was the Veranda Palmar Beach Resort in Belle Mare on the East of the island. Although the Palmar is only a 3* hotel, it has excellent feedback and we had decided to try a smaller property (70 rooms) so were looking forward to a quiet, relaxing week. The hotel has lovely gardens, a pool, two bars, two restaurants, watersports facilites, kids club, a gym and a spa which is not what you get for 3* in many parts of the world!
As with many boutique style hotels, the beach frontage was also quite small but perfectly adequate for the number of residents. We didn’t have a problem with sunbeds as there were also people who preferred to stay by the pool. Whilst the beach frontage is not huge – the beach itself stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions. We walked the beach every day and it was lovely to see the local families further along on the more ‘public’ stretch in the late afternoon or the weekend with their picnic blankets and barbeques on the go. One family were very musical and they were there a couple of times with their instruments entertaining everyone.
Mauritius is a multicultural island nation and we saw many religions represented by temples, shrines and churches – some in the most unusual places! We also saw several men fishing from the beach most days and the few beach traders we did see weren't pushy - just polite and friendly.
As we were limited on time, we decided we would have to keep our island explorations to the North. The three obvious places on our list were the Pamplemousse Gardens, Port Louis and Grand Baie with the Ile aux Cerfs & the couloured sands of Chamarel in the South if we had time.
The Pamplemousse Gardens were renamed Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Gardens in 1988 but the original name seems to have stuck with tourists! We hired a car and set off – driving on the left. We eventually found the gardens – neither name in evidence on the gates! The gardens are renowned for their giant lily pads – when fully grown they can reach 4 ft in diameter and can take the weight of a person or two but we don’t put it to the test….. we also visited the giant tortoises and walked around the lake. The entrance fee is minimal but it’s well worth paying a little bit more to get a guide here as they will make the visit far more interesting.
I was disappointed with Grande Baie as it seemed to be overrun with traffic but pleasantly surprised by Port Louis which has a lovely waterfront development, interesting shopping and a thriving Chinatown. The day we visited was election day and none of the restaurants were serving beer with lunch. Apparently alcohol sales are restricted from 6pm the day before until 6pm the day after the election to minimise the risk of trouble in the towns. As tourists, we were allowed to drink inside the English pub on the waterfront. The towns & villages we passed through were decked with purple or red white and blue bunting & flags - we thought the purples would win and they did.
The afternoon we decided to go for the Ile aux Cerfs the heavens opened and we thought that this was not a good day for a boat/beach trip! In fact it rained so hard that we couldn’t see the road & stopped! This was the only rain we saw in the end – although it was cloudy at times for the couple of days we had the car.
The other thing that made navigation ‘interesting’ was the sugar cane. Sometimes it was as high as 6ft on both sides of the road so it can be difficult to find your bearings. Sugar is still a major industry with approx 49% of the island planted to sugar so at a different time of the year the inland scenery would be completely different – the next time we go will be after harvest and then maybe we’ll make it down to Chamarel too!