No Sandals Allowed

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We land in Mauritius just before 6am. We've had about two minutes sleep between us, and we feel like zombies. We wait in a long queue to go through immigration and health checks. A girl in the queue next to us faints and people rush to help her. The health officials look a bit worried, and we are now too given there were lots of questions on the immigration forms about Ebola. One of them asked us to list out all the countries we'd been to in the last six months. There were lots of them and I realise as I'm waiting that I left out the Vatican City. I wonder if I should change it. I decide not to. There was no more room on the form, and I doubt there have been too many Ebola outbreaks in the Vatican recently. On a separate form we needed to list all the countries we've visited in Africa in the last six months. I don't think too many countries have moved recently, so I'm not quite sure why they couldn't have worked this out from the first form. We're pleased to see that the girl who fainted seems to recover reasonably quickly. I don't think you'd recover quite that quickly if you had Ebola.

We've booked a car for the hour long drive to the hotel, and our driver introduces himself as Ibrahim. It seems that sugar is very important here. We drive through seemingly endless cane fields and past a sugar mill which Ibrahim says is one of five on the island. Apparently very little goes to waste. We pass a power station, which he says is powered by burning the left over cane.

The many beaches and resorts we pass look stunning. Ibrahim tells us that we don't need to worry if we go swimming here as there are no dangerous animals in the water. I remember reading about the island of Reunion, which is not very far away, being notorious for shark attacks. I wonder how the sharks know not to come to Mauritius. Ibrahim says that we also don't need to worry if we go hiking as there aren't any dangerous land animals here either. I then also remember seeing a brochure for Mauritius which showed leopards and elephants roaming around in the jungle. I wonder why Ibrahim doesn't think that these are dangerous. Maybe they were in a zoo. I hope so. If Ibrahim doesn't think that leopards and elephants are dangerous, maybe he doesn't think that sharks are dangerous either. I begin to think that maybe we shouldn't go swimming here.

We're a bit curious about Mauritius' racial and colonial history. Signs seem to be in French and English in equal proportions, and the staff at the airport seemed equally comfortable speaking either language. They drive on the left hand side of the road which would seem to suggest some degree of British influence. Most of the locals in the villages we pass through look to be of Indian origin, and we pass lots of Hindu temples, as well as a few mosques and Christian churches.

Ibrahim asks us if we're into surfing. Whilst the reef looks to be a fair distance off shore in most places, there do seem to be some good breakers closer to the shore in others. Issy comments that there don't seem to be a lot of people swimming. I'm not sure this is all that surprising; it is only 7am.

We catch our first glimpse of the steep 500 metre high Le Morne Brabant which is very close to where we'll be staying. I've read that you can hire a guide to help you climb it. Issy says she's getting her hair done that day.

We arrive at our hotel. It's only 8am. A girl from reception gives us a briefing, but we're both half asleep, and I'm sure we won't remember most of it. She tells us that they have a sister hotel next door and we can eat at restaurants at either one. She goes on to say that there's a dress code for dinner at all the hotels' restaurants, and men need to wear long trousers and closed shoes; shorts, sandals and thongs aren't allowed. Apparently ladies can wear whatever they like. Luckily I've brought a pair of shoes, but only because I thought it might be cold in England. I've been on plenty of holidays to tropical islands before where I haven't brought any shoes. I wonder why this place is seemingly so formal. I start to worry that maybe the food will all be expensive. We're told that our room won't be ready for a few hours, and we're shown to a day room. It's only got a single bed which I chivalrously cede to Issy, while I sleep on a cushion on the floor.

We awake from a long slumber and are shown to our first floor room which has a balcony overlooking the beach. The bathroom's bigger than some of the entire rooms we stayed in in Europe.

I Google the history of Mauritius. It seems it was uninhabited until the Dutch came here in 1598. This seems a bit surprising; Africa's not very far away, and the land here looks very fertile. People came to the Pacific Islands from Asia 3,000 years ago, and they needed to travel orders of magnitude further than the distance from Africa to here. The Dutch abandoned Mauritius in 1710, and a few years later the French turned up. The British then invaded in 1810 and took over from the French. The British brought a lot of indentured labourers from India to work in the cane fields, which presumably explains the apparently Indian background of a lot of the locals.

We need to be sure we comply with the dinner dress code, so I put on my shoes and long pants. I tell Issy that she should wear her bathers. She gives me the look. I was right to be worried that it might be expensive. We only have main course, dessert and a couple of drinks, and it's nearly $250. I fortunately manage to avoid fainting when I get the bill; I don't want anyone to think that I've got Ebola. I tell Issy that we need to find somewhere else to eat.

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