Autumn in Mauritius

September and October aren’t normally the times of year I set off for the Mauritian sunshine but that’s how it happened this year. It was slightly odd digging through my jumpers and winter dresses to find all of my recently packed away summer clothes; coupled with our last-minute booking I had some bizarrely mismatched outfits in Mauritius that I would have never thrown on in London. But then again, it’s holiday: time to live in the moment and just go with it…

This is a slightly random assortment of photos, I’ve already told you why I was there and my thoughts so as you might expect documenting the trip and everything we saw wasn’t really first priority for me this time around. I’ve written a lot about Mauritius before (LINK SPEW), it’s a pretty amazing country with lots of tiny islands to explore and a crazy geographical range; mountains, rainforest, woodland, beach and city. People often describe Mauritius as paradise; I’m completely biased of course but I definitely agree, aside from the natural beauty of the landscape (JUST LOOK AT THE VIEW FROM OUR FLAT IN THE TOP PHOTO) it’s got an endearing charm all it’s own amongst the welcoming people and ramshackle little towns. All in a country smaller than London!

We stayed in a flat near to Port Louis (which I’ve posted about before here), the capital of Mauritius and home to a lot of my family as well as some of the most evocative buildings I think I’ve ever seen. The colourful, slightly dilapidated constructions always stick in my mind when I’m back in the UK. Last time I was in Mauritius James and I stayed in a super-fancy hotel (post here) so it was a totally different experience this time sharing a flat with my Mum and Dad, especially as it’s been about 8 years since I last shared a house with my parents/spent longer than a couple of days with them. Again, it’s holiday, time to just go with it…

Dubai & Mauritius

I’m currently in Mauritius, a tiny island off the coast of Africa best known as a honeymoon destination. I’m not here for a holiday but sadly due to a family situation that is reaching crisis point. This trip was completely unplanned and last-minute, arising at the most inconvenient time in the way these things tend to. We had a few days stopover in Dubai (as you may have seen from this jubilant post) and I am now in Mauritius. Mauritius is one of my favourite places in the world and I’ve written a lot about it before.

Even given the present circumstances I’m grateful to be here in this beautiful country, although I feel very displaced right now. I had planned for September and October to be about recording, rooting myself in projects for the next couple months, writing round the clock and laying the foundations for next years work. Instead I’m a million miles away from home, trying to reschedule and mentally readjusting to effectively pausing my life for a bit. I feel like somebody’s taken over the reins for a bit and it’s pretty bizarre. If I don’t get much chance to blog in the next few weeks.. you know where I am, and I’ll try and share this incredible place on Instagram (@lailapictures) from time to time as well. 

Tiny Islands

Today I’m going to share Ile Aux Cerfs and Ilot Mangenie, two beautiful islands just off the east coast of Mauritius and about a ten minute boat ride from where we stayed. Mauritius itself is a very small island and these neighbouring islands are about the size of one or two football pitches.We spent the most time on Iles Aux Cerfs as Le Touessrok has a boathouse there offering various activities for free. We tried out kayaks and pedal boats and explored the mangroves, trying to catch a glimpse of the monkeys. We also took a trip by speedboat to visit a waterfall. On the way we passed lots of colourful houses and a tree filled with sleeping Mauritian bats. The bats are endangered and theres been a lot of conservation efforts to increase the population so it was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

We stopped on Ilot Mangenie for lunch with friends; it was completely idyllic. The dogs were strays who were hoping for scraps of food; you can see James is frowning at one rather persistent canine under the table but all in all they were very well-behaved, sitting patiently next to our table. There are over 400,000 stray dogs and they all look pretty similar as you can tell from the two I photographed. Strange to think they might all be members of the same family. James doing his best Hollister model impression.

Port-Louis

Today I thought I’d show you the capital Port-Louis and tell you a bit about Mauritius. Port-Louis is situated on the north west coast in a natural harbour as you can see on this map. The whole island is a very colourful place even without the tropical flowers, as all the buildings are painted bright colours. It’s hard to explain the mix of cultures in Mauritius. Mauritius had no native human population before foreign settlers got there in 1600ish (but a large number of endemic animals, birds and plants) and the population today is roughly of equal parts Chinese, African and Indian origin. The official language is English (meaning the papers, many road signs and education is in English) but the most widely spoken language is Creole (a sort of pidgin French leftover from the time of French colonisation), followed by Hindi, Mandarin, Urdu and Gujarati. Wikipedia actually has a whole article of Mauritian languages…!

It’s crazy to me that everybody seems to speak about 4 languages minimum without fuss. The food, architecture and faith groups are all a kind of mash-up of different cultures as well and I really love the diversity. From an outside perspective there’s no “culture clash”, instead all the different cultures seem to blend together seamlessly in a true display of multiculturalism. Seeing a mosque next to a church next to a temple next to a Buddhist shrine within the same 200m of road is magical.

I love anything with a contrast or fusion of influences and I think this comes across in everything I do. I feel happiest when things are thrown together and mesh in weird ways and I mean that in the broadest way possible. I think it reflects my feelings toward my identity; both my parents are mixed race and I have never really felt aligned to a country or nationality, instead always feeling like a mixture of places and backgrounds. To me Mauritius kind of encompasses this mixed up and diverse existence, whether it’s the mix of people and cultures or the natural geographical diversity between volcanos and rocky mountains, sandy coast and rainforests that have existed for thousands of years before people arrived. For me it’s a real life place of thrown together variety and I’ve not been anywhere else quite like it.