On our way from Africa, we did some “island hopping” between Madagascar, Reunion Island, and finally Mauritius for one final week before India.
It was a good thing we did this, because we were still recovering from the “Mystery Jungle Virus” we got our last week in Madagascar! And Mauritius was the perfect laid-back place to do that.
But first we had a stopover in Reunion Island…
which was lovely! Going from a super-remote spot in Madagascar to a full-fledged European destination for Frenchies was like culture shock.
A friend messaged me while we were in Mauritius, oohing and ahhing over the fantastic aerial photos that came up when she Googled Mauritius.
Yes, plane and helicopter rides on Mauritius are an option and can get you great photography of the beautiful waters, and there are a number of large resorts that are picture-perfect…
…but Mauritius also looks quite a bit different when you’re renting an apartment in a “normal” area like we were, from a local woman who split her time between France and Mauritius. (You’ll see one reason we appreciated her European mentality later. 😉 )
I snapped a few pictures for that friend one day as we drove to the grocery store to show her what real Mauritius also looked like from the ground.
We were thankful to have a lovely, quiet apartment for our recovery from Madagascar.
One of the reasons we chose it was for its proximity to a beach that wouldn’t be full of tourists and had some easy snorkeling off the shore.
Even though we were in a quieter area (we later met a man from Mauritius who asked where we’d stayed and when we told him, he got really excited and said that was his favorite “normal” town!).
We managed to get a rental car (sometimes harder than it looks depending on the season you’re there!) and did some easy exploring of the island.
Mauritius may not look very large on a map of the world (it’s about the size of Rhode Island), but with the roads it felt much larger and took longer than even we expected.
We’d already been in some pretty spectacular places on this trip, but we still thought both Reunion Island and Mauritius had their own unique beauties.
However, we never quite got used to the fact that we’d been “living and breathing Africa” for so many months, and were still technically IN AFRICA…
…but yet we could go to a Decathlon (European) to pick up extra gear we needed. 🙂
With so many things in French, and random European-style stores where we could “stock back up” after being so long in Africa, it felt almost confusing to our brains at first.
Don’t get me wrong, we highly enjoyed being able to get things we’d run out of (or new clothes for the girls who — you’ve gotta understand — do NOT stop growing just because you’re traveling around the world 🙂 so all those clothes you originally packed eventually have to be replaced with ones that fit!).
The one thing that was different about the Decathlon on Mauritius was the focus on equestrian life!
The girls and I got the biggest kick out of checking out this aisle. 🙂
Then it was back home to take it easy and fully recover before we left for India at the end of the week.
It rained a few of the days we were there, which felt cozy for us adults and exciting for the kids (after not seeing rain for what felt like awhile). Mauritius was definitely more tropical-feeling than Madagascar and our other South and East African countries had been.
One day, we visited the Black River Gorges National Park, which was beautiful…
…and the girls never got tired of monkeys our entire time in Africa!
Below shows you what the turquoise bays on the north side of Mauritius look like when it’s cloudy (this was our near-daily drive to the grocery store or running errands or getting local food).
We were spoiled with a washer and dryer in Mauritius! Clearly, the woman we rented from was used to European standards. 🙂
(Which was much-appreciated as we had a ton of laundry to do and knew we wouldn’t have that ability easily where we were going in India!)
Before we knew it, we were feeling like ourselves again and prepared for our flight to India!
Next…
We eat our way through India!
If you missed them, you’ll want to check out our earlier Africa posts:
Or if you missed it, you’ll want to see the earlier European portions of our trip, such as
- Living in the Azores
- Madeira
- Life in The Canary Islands
- Sevilla, Spain
- living in the Scottish Highlands for 3 months
- northern Italy
- …plus several surprise locations HERE!
PS: Following these steps has enabled us to make our dreams a reality, create a home that worked FOR us (instead of the other way around)!
