paradise babyyy

The one word that comes to mind when I think about Mauritius is: paradise.  Definitely the most tropical place I’ve ever been to, but then again I’ve only been to a few haha. I am so bummed that we only had a day and a half to spend there… I didn’t wanna leave! When we pulled into Port Louis though yesterday it was raining!!! I was really bummed about that too, but it eventually subsided and actually was kinda nice when it sprinkled throughout the day, because it was hot.  The weather though was a lot different than it was in India or Viet Nam. It was mostly dry heat without the humidity which was awesome and because of the rain there was a nice breeze; just perfect! A couple random facts I learned about Mauritius while I was there… it only takes an hour and a half max to get to anywhere from any point on the island.  That’s how small this island actually is! Also Mauritius gets about 900,000 tourists every year, but very few are Americans, which makes complete sense because of how far away it is and how much of a hassle it is to get there. I definitely wanna come back here though at some point… I definitely didn’t get to do all the things that I wanted. I just have nothing bad to say about Mauritius whatsoever.  If you ever have a chance to go, then go. Seriously!!! You’d be insane not to!

 

I had a pretty crazy time though; crazy as in it was kinda messed up haha but you’ll find out later, if you decide to read on… so as I mentioned before it was raining when we first pulled in and pretty much was cloudy with scattered showers the entire day. First thing I did when I got off the ship was actually go on a SAS trip to this adventure park where we got to zip line and maneuver through this challenge course that was set up in this forest, or jungle rather.  We got to go on everything from foot bridges to swinging logs to cargo nets and a short zip line.  It was so awesome and totally my cup of tea, I had a blast!!! I was kinda disappointed with the zip line though… hence the word “short.” It’s funny because the way the trip was advertised was that there was gonna be this long zip line through this jungle when it seriously only was 5 seconds long haha! Oh well. Just another thing to add back onto my list of things to do… here comes some bad news though: I got eaten alive… I am not exaggerating when I say that I had to have gotten over 100 mosquito bites on my legs mostly; really bad on the backs of my thighs.  I put so much bug spray on though so I was pretty baffled of how serious I got bitten. I was so pissed at myself though because I wore shorts, because it was hot out, but doing this kind of stuff before I know to wear at least three-quarter length pants. It was just awful… I got an allergic reaction to the bites or something, because my thighs swelled up like balloons. I would put a picture up of what they looked like, but then again I don’t wanna freak anyone out! Haha I’m doing SO MUCH better now, but let’s just say that I was not a happy camper for a while. Benadryl and anti-itch cream have become my new best friends.  I think I freaked everyone out on the second group that came right after us haha they were just so horrified when they saw my legs.  THANK GOD there is no risk of Malaria in Mauritius, because if there was, I would definitely have it.  Scary!!

 

After that crazy morning and afternoon I met up with some girlfriends and headed to the northern part of the island which is known as Grand Baie to meet up with more of our girlfriends! We had a fun time bar hopping and enjoying the night life and met up with a ton of kids from the ship… which is kinda what I wanted to avoid haha, especially when it’s the only people I see when we’re out at sea so when we’re actually in port I like to branch away. Whatever, we still had a fun time until we “lost” 2 of our friends.  We didn’t get too worried at first, because we figured we would eventually run into them at some point before we all headed back to the hotel.  First of all, these 2 friends of ours had the key to our hotel room… so a couple hours go by and we still haven’t seen them, so we begin to actually look for them and have no luck.  We figured maybe they had went back to the hotel to go to bed early or something, but we were wrong.  They were absolutely nowhere to be found and we were locked out of our room!!! It was miserable and to top it all off, for some reason there was no night staff at this hotel, but only these 2 security guards that were not helpful at all. Let’s just say that it was definitely not how I pictured my first and only night to be like in Mauritius haha. We had to crash on the couches in the lobby, but then again I didn’t sleep much because I was worried sick about our friends. They ended up showing up in the morning, which was a huge relief but still just very stressful. I’m just glad it’s over!!

 

We made up for the night by going out on this boat which took us offshore and we got to swim, see dolphins and snorkel around.  I felt like such a little kid because of how excited and entertained I was while I was out there lol especially when I saw the dolphin!  Definitely my first time actually seeing one that close. The girls I was with at this point, only 3 others, did this like underwater scooter scuba thing, which I was really looking forward to do, but it was also ridiculously expensive, but I still went on for the boat ride and got to just enjoy the last couple hours I had left of Mauritius.  I got to feed the zebra fish that surrounded the boat, it was so cool. Not only is Mauritius gorgeous on shore, it’s also gorgeous underwater… everything was just SO colorful!!

 

I would have liked my time in Mauritius to have gone over a little bit more smoothly, but honestly looking back on it now, I can’t help but to laugh… it’s definitely an experience and place that will be hard to forget! We left Port Louis a few hours ago and are now on our way to Cape Town, South Africa! SO excited… I think it’s gonna be one of the best ports overall, I have so much fun stuff planned!!! But, I’ll explain in better detail about my plans in my next entry… probably in a couple days! Have 6 days on the ship anyways until we actually port.

 

Enjoy the pictures, although there isn’t as many as usual, sorry about that!