Vacation Number One

I’m sure you’ve been anxiously awaiting my return. Well, after two weeks of work, we had a two week vacation. Jealous?

Week 1

Along with three other TAPIF assistants (two from the US and one from Canada), I spent most of the first week on a three-day hike in Mafate, one of the three large “cirques” (calderas) on the island. Tuesday afternoon we drove up to the start of a trail at the top of a mountain and climbed down for about two hours to the small town of La Nouvelle. Afternoons on Reunion Island are often cloudy, especially the further inland you go, so by the time we set off around 1pm we couldn’t see anything amongst all the fog and clouds. It was crazy, because we knew we were at the top of a mountain, yet we couldn’t see anything past the ledges. The hike down was otherwise pretty uneventful save for the cool Enchanted Forest we passed through (that’s what I like to call it because it really looked like an enchanted forest…)

We made it to the town of La Nouvelle with plenty of time to hang out until it was time to check into our gîte (kind of like a lodge or hostel where hikers spend the night and get fed dinner and breakfast). The town is one of the biggest in the area, but it still is only accessible by foot. Well, actually it’s also accessible by helicopter, and in fact they get helicopter deliveries of supplies several times a day.

After a nice hearty meal full of rice and meat accompanied by aromatized rum (common themes in Créole eating here) we passed out under lots of blankets to combat the mountain cold. In the morning we had a very French breakfast of baguettes, butter, jelly, and our choice of coffee or hot chocolate. Not exactly the kind of fuel American hikers gravitate towards (no eggs or protein?!) but I wasn’t about to complain.

Our second day of hiking was a doozy. Luckily we were prepared. Kristi and I had purchased matching hiking backpacks (with those water pouches that have a tube and mouthpiece so you can easily stay hydrated on the go) and matching trail running shoes (which also meant we equipped our feet with matching band-aids to prevent matching new-shoe blisters). I’d only ever done day hikes before, not multi-day ones, so I was very impressed with how my small-ish backpack not only fit all the essentials easily, but the way it redistributes the weight to your hips is soooooo nice. Very happy with my purchases (not opposed to sponsorship @Quechua and @Kalenji).

We broke up the day into 3 trails. First we went from La Nouvelle to Trois Roches where there was a river featuring large boulders (more than three, so we were confused about the name) and a terrifying waterfall into a deep abyss. Then we found a Tisanerie (herbal tea shop) a little off the path that I imagine the employees must have to hike to get to each day. Next we hiked to the town of Marla for lunch, where we gave ourselves a nice long break because part of that trail included a lot of tiring uphill climbing. And the final leg was from Marla back to La Nouvelle to stay in another gîte.

Our third and final day was just the hike back up to our parking spot on the mountain. Thankfully, it wasn’t as steep or exhausting as we thought it would be, plus we took a break in the Enchanted Forest to climb some trees. Overall, the trip was super fun and had so many amazing views I’ll just leave you with some more photos and call it a day.

Week 2

For our second week of vacation, the four of us went to Mauritius. Mauritius is a small African island nation just a little northeast of Reunion Island. It’s not big, but it is actually the most densely populated country in Africa. It was also my first time officially adding Africa to the stamps in my passport (but I do wanna hit continental Africa soon too).

Mauritius is similar to Reunion in some ways. There’s a lot of French there, they also speak Creole (a different Creole though), and their food is also a fusion of African, Indian, and Chinese cuisines. Otherwise it is pretty unique. Though the island does have mountains, it has a lot more flat land than Reunion, making it much easier to drive from one side of the island to the other. It also has smaller islands surrounding it which Reunion does not. They also do more island-y things like surfing and kite-surfing (too many sharks in Reunion), eating lots of fish and seafood (overfishing in Reunion) and boating to the cool surrounding islands (poor Reunion, island-ing solo). Oh, also it used to be a British colony so they drive on the opposite side of the road. Other than that and a fair amount of people who speak some English it doesn’t feel British in the slightest.

We stayed the first four nights on the west coast, in a town called Flic en Flac where we stayed right across the street from the beach. We arrived Friday night, had a beach day on Saturday, on Sunday we (along with a bunch of other tourists) rode a boat out to swim with dolphins, and Monday we visited some really cool Hindu Temples and statues in Grand Bassin. On Tuesday we hiked the mountain Le Morne, which involved some steep, dangerous free climbing to the top which was terrifying at first then exhilarating.

Later that day we drove to Blue Bay, where we were staying the final three nights. Wednesday we drove to Port Louis, the capital, and went to the market and Chinatown. Thursday we found a guy with a sailboat who gave us a private (unless you count his skipper) day of snorkeling, island visiting, and lobster barbecue-ing. And then Friday morning it was time to return to Reunion and prepare to return to work on Monday. Or Tuesday for me since I have Mondays off 😉

Once again, I’ll leave it to the photos to give you a better idea of our time in Mauritius:

Until next time, I will leave you with one last food picture…