Immersion into Mauritius Tour (a client review)
Some comments from the trip:
Sakoa Boutique Hotel, Trois aux Biches – absolutely lovely place – location and facilities were perfect. Nothing was too much trouble for them and the food really excellent. Would certainly recommend.
Heritage Kaz’alala, Bel Ombre– this was really interesting – a bit like an upmarket hostel with buildings which house 4 bedrooms and shared kitchen and living area. They had a pool and open restaurant where you could see the cook preparing the food. Food was basic Mauritian style, noodles, curry, rice, but very tasty. There was a school party whilst we were there, so it was difficult to imagine it without a lot of teenagers!. A perfect destination for young families as it was very laid back. We had dinner one night in the Chateau on the same site, which was outstanding. Highly recommend that – top quality food and service.
La Vielle Cheminee, Chamarel. There were a number of individual houses dotted around the farm, so you got a whole house to yourself. Dinner and breakfast were delivered in advance and put into your fridge, where you could then just heat up the food, or cook breakfast as you wanted. This was simple local Mauritian food. House was lovely and it was up in the mountains so the views were spectacular. It was perfect for us as we prefer to be away from people.
Activities: Hike to Le Morne Brabant. Wow, what a hike! Very hard going, but really good fun, especially when we climbed high enough to be in the clouds and then in rain! Very steep and rocky climb, so not recommended for the feint hearted! Lovely local guide.
Electric bikes were cancelled, so we went for the quad bikes instead which (in my opinion) were much more fun. I’d recommend giving your clients a choice here if you want to, the electric bike tour or the quad bikes. The bikes were on a cycle track along the coastline, but with very little shade, so for us pale English people it could have been extremely hot!
Canyoning – this was my favourite activity by far – I’ve never abseiled before and they made it great fun, safe and a lovely day out. We had a massive thunderstorm when we reached the bottom which made the very steep climb back up the mountainside challenging. Like climbing up a muddy waterfall!! Loved every minute of it!
Food tour of Port Louis – a great guide who knew all the areas to take us to and showed us around parts of the city that we would never have explored ourselves.
Cooking with Rosamund – this was great fun, a friendly local lady in her own home who we had a lot of laughs with even though she had only a little English. And a tasty lunch as well.
Car Hire – the car was great to have – we would have been extremely stuck without it as we spent a lot of time exploring the back roads around the island. One point here, it arrived about an hour and a half late on the drop off day (Gerald did let us know), and when we dropped off at the airport they were about ¾ hour late collecting it which was a shame as we were getting hassle from the airport police to move it. They were also very difficult to get hold of, so if Gerald has alternative providers he can use it might be worth exploring for next time.
The weather was very hot, but it was overcast for some of the time which helped Andy in particular. No more cyclones thankfully!
Gerald (the host) was great throughout, plenty of recommendations and WhatsApp messages to make sure we were doing ok, even though he was in Costa Rica at the time.