or: How wearing the right clothes helps

After my first post-lockdown exploration outing, I knew to be a little more appropriately attired for this week’s adventure.

I wore jeans and flip flops. And yes, obviously a top too. Especially since it’s starting to get a little cooler here now.

So while it wasn’t shorts and closed shoes, this attire should be fine to go to the beach lookout which was the original destination for my last adventure.

The beaches are now open too so it also meant there should be no hassles in finding a bathroom to use when the need would arise.

And yes, the need did.

And the toilets were fantastic.

One of the great things about Mauritius (and one that you probably won’t read about in any tourist brochure unless I wrote it) is that most of the public toilets have attendants that keep them clean all the time. At the beach, in shopping malls, at concert venues, pretty much everywhere so it’s not often you find a badly kept toilet. You may find one without toilet paper though and a hose instead. It will still be clean.

What was still closed were the many restaurants at the tourist hotspots along the way. This shouldn’t be too surprising since there aren’t that many tourists here at the moment. It’s actually a little sad to see the small shack restaurants on the beach which would normally have people queuing, all closed and boarded up. Even some of the sit down restaurants along the main roads are closed.

What was also interesting is the area we were in doesn’t have a patisserie. I didn’t think there was anywhere in Mauritius that didn’t have a patisserie so this was a massive surprise to me and a little bit of a disappointment since I was hoping for a chausson aux pommes (apple turnover). My substitute was also pretty good – a banana flambe with vanilla icecream. I ended up in a sit down restaurant and wasn’t hungry enough for a meal. Dessert however…

Back to my outfit.

It was fine. 

While it was a very windy day and I was nearly blown away at one of the lookouts and my hair blew in more directions than would seem possible, I was both warm enough and practically dressed for the moderate rock climbing here and there that was necessary.

Mauritius is a volcanic island so the contrast of the black rocks with the white beach sand is quite spectacular. Volcanic rock sticking out in the depths of the blues and greens of the ocean is also impressive especially when waves pound it, causing a big spray of white to erupt through any holes into the sky and fall again like heavy rain. 

It’s such a beautiful country.

Naturally there was also sugar cane fields (or, as I’m now making more of an effort to learn Creole, caro canne. My accent isn’t awesome but people seem to know what I’m talking about when I say these two words, even if they have a good laugh first). It’s not a Mauritius road trip if there is no caro canne. 

And wearing the right clothes and shoes helps to enjoy it more. And a hair tie…

 

Thanks to David Bowie for the title to this post.