Réunion to Mauritius 20 - 22 April 08

An over-developed beach paradise

20-22 April 2008. St Pierre, Réunion to Mauritius (IFR 1:22).
There were a couple of CB's with rain showers which we had to fly through on the way to Mauritius (IFR 1:22). Mauritius International was quite busy with airline traffic and, like Réunion, they have no radar. Weather was definitely IFR: wind 090/8, visibility 2 km in rain, clouds few 400, few 1200, broken 1300, broken 4500, temp 24/23, QNH 1019. So the majority of the flight was in IMC.
Apart from a short delay in finding us a parking spot, immigration, health and customs formalities went amazingly smoothly in this modern airport designed to receive jumbo-loads of tourists. A number of African head of state aircrafts were parked on the apron as a conference on the subject of combating poverty in Africa was taking place in Mauritius, and we got allocated a parking spot next to the Zambian Air Force plane.
We had originally planned to fly straight on to Rodrigues today and then spend 3 nights on Mauritius on our way back, but due to ‘operational restrictions’, the Mauritian civil aviation authorities had changed our schedule. We were to spend 2 nights on Mauritius now, then 5 nights on Rodrigues and 1 night on Mauritius on our way back to Réunion.
Although Mauritius and Rodrigues are in the same country, Mauritius, they couldn’t be more different. Ile Maurice gets much more rain than Rodrigues so it was here that the colonisers set up sugar cane plantations. When the British were in charge, they imported many Indians to work on the plantations with the result that today they outnumber the Creole population. In Rodrigues where the climate is too dry for sugar cane, the population is almost entirely Creole.
After getting our rental car, we suffered Sunday market traffic jams in Quatre Bornes, and arrived finally after about an hour in Rivière Noire on the west coast. We got installed in Les Lataniers Bleus, a b&b set in a lovely garden by the beach. In the evening we met our charming hostess Josette, and had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant.

21 April. We drove north to Flic en Flac where Flemming went diving on the 'Rempart Serpent' reef, while Angela went snorkelling. We had lunch in Pamplemousse at the Sugar Factory museum, which we visited afterwards.
We have a Danish friend, Peter, who is writing a book about Friedrich von Scholten, a Dane who sailed round the world in the early 19th century. In those days, photography didn’t exist so Friedrich had to paint the places he saw. The last time we were in Denmark, Peter presented us with photocopies of 3 of Friedrich von Scholten’s paintings, and asked us to look for those locations while in the Indian Ocean and take photos from the same locations today. One of the paintings was of a church in the village of Pamplemousse with a mountain behind, dating from about 1825. We found both the church and the 'Pic de Boeuf' mountain behind, but due to construction, and tall trees it was impossible to get the same view as 180 years ago.
On our way back to our chambre d’hôte, we stopped by Eureka, a well preserved Creole mansion built in the 1830s, set in woodland near the village of Moka. The house boasts 109 doors, a most environment-friendly way of providing air conditioning thanks to the drafts.
Back at Les Lataniers Bleus it was apéritif time with our hostess Josette and our fellow guests, who were mainly from Grenoble, followed by a delicious dinner round a long table.

22 April. After breakfast, we took the scenic route along the south coast of Mauritius to the airport – much more fun than taking the motorway inland and it only took us an extra half hour. We stopped at a little kiosk to buy some bananas to keep our tummies from rumbling on our flight to Rodrigues.