March 1, 2020 - Sunday

Azamara Quest Cape Town to Athens 

Cruise Day 11 - Mauritius

Pictures to follow with better internet

At 8 o’clock we slowly crept into our berth just ahead of a pair of cargo ships. This is the only port on this small island. Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, was settled by the Dutch in 1685. Later the French and then the British controlled it. In 1968 Mauritius became the Independent Republic of Mauritius. It is a democracy. The nation has a diverse population of races and religions. Each has representation in government. 

Similar to Reunion, the industry here was sugar cane. The mountains here are lower and their is more flat ground for cultivation. Slaves were first used on the plantations. Following abolition Indians and Chinese came to earn their livings. It was hard work, and many wanted to go home. But they were enterprising and realized that with hard work they could earn enough to buy the land they were working. They did this and developed a successful economy and personal wealth. Today 8% of the population is poor. 30% is wealthy. The remaining 62% are middle class.

On our tour today we will travel north from the port to the north end of the island while remaining on the west side of the mountains. Our guide commented when she said mountains, that to us they are probably hills. She was right. The tallest mountain is about 7500 feet above sea level, but it is on the south central part of the island. Here tallest looked to be about 1000 feet high.

Our first stop was to visit the botanical gardens. This beautiful area is home to hundreds of varieties of trees and not so many flowers. But it is very pretty and inviting. One feature we enjoyed was a pond of huge lily pads. We had seen these in the amazon a few years ago. They intrigued us then, and they did now We particularly enjoyed watching some fairly large birds walk across the pads.

With rain threatening we boarded the coach and drove to a sugar factory. This structure has been retired for many years and is now a museum. It is a huge building that houses the sugar cane crushers and the sugar purifiers and cookers. The first room we visited had images and items that described the sugar making process. Before we moved on we started to here a loud noise. At first we thought it was a recording of equipment running. As we moved to the next exhibit we realized that the thundering was the rain beating on the metal roof. It was fast and furious. 

We waited at the door leading out to the next building for the rain to stop. In 10 minutes the sun was out again, and we moved on. Here we saw the huge crushers and what looked like stills used in the filtering process. They produce some special sugars here. Coffee sugar is dark brown with a toasty flavor. This is achieved  by cooking it at a different temperature for a different amount of time. Another special sugar was for baking. It was very fine, very sweet and melted at a low temperature for infusing batters.

But now, the dominant use of sugar is for the making of rum. We moved to a tasting room and shop. We sampled 3 types of rum. Each was distinctively good. Of course each was for sale along with many other rums. We will look for some of these at Binny’s. No doubt that will be more expensive, but it sure will be easier to get it home.

Now we drove to a wooded grove with a beach and a red-roofed church. It was Sunday and families were picnicking and swimming. Some brightly colored boats were anchored in the shallow water. The church was pretty on the outside and very simple on the inside. There was an island a short distance away. It had more beach and snorkeling, but the bulk of the swimming was here, shoreside.

Now we went to visit a plantation mansion. This beautiful has been restored twice following severe cyclone damage. The original family still owns it. It was a family meeting decision to invest the big money needed for the restoration. We must say we are glad they did this. The house is beautiful. The rooms are spacious with marvelous air flow. The verandas wrap around the whole first and second floors. The grounds are nicely maintained. The kitchen is a very large stone building a short distance from the house as fire protection. Stunning!

We returned to the ship at 2:15. This gave us just enough time to pick up lunch in the buffet before it closed at 2:30. It seems odd that they would not keep the buffet open when a number of tours were due back for 2:00 to 2:30.

At 3:00 we caught a shuttle to the shopping mall on the other side of the port. We were there in 10 minutes. Sadly, all of the shops were closed. They closed at noon on Sunday even if a ship was in. We managed to walk the several buildings that did have shops. We found a very nice bookstore. We would have contributed to the economy here. In a dark corner of one hall we found a shop that sold models of sailing ships. There were all types: clipper ships, sailing battle ships, modern sailing racers and more. The sizes varied from bottle sized to some large enough to fill a large museum case. The quality was all over the place. Some had gleaming high gloss enamel. Others were highly varnished with beautiful rigging. then there were those that were obviously more affordable. None would fit in our suitcases. It was unfortunate that they were closed because we would have loved to get inside ands all the different boats in the many aisles. We have never seen a whole store dedicated to such exquisite ship models.

We caught the 4:30 shuttle back to Quest. In 15 minutes we were getting ready for dinner. At 8:15 we attended a performance of singing and dancing by a local group. Another fine day ends with fine entertainment.