while it was disappointing to arrive late to Mauritius, it was nice to not have to get up at 6:00 am to watch us come into port. As with the other ports, the approach is staggeringly beautiful:
We’re told that Mauritius is a vacation spot for South Africans & Europeans and it is easy to see why. The island was originally discovered by the Portuguese, and then colonized by the Dutch, the French, and finally the British. There was no indigenous human population on Mauritius before the Portuguese arrived. Just Dodo birds (more on this below). Each European power in turn saw Mauritius as prime real estate that would be an opportune gateway between Asia and Africa. You can see all those influences here. French is spoken on the streets and in the media, English is spoken in the government, there is a vibrant Chinatown, and significant African and Indian influence is visible in their traditions and in their music. Africans and Indians were both brought to the island as slaves. The French spoken here is Creole and (I don’t speak French but …) the spellings are quite different. They replace the French “q” with “k” and those who do speak French say that the spelling is largely as if you were spelling out French words phonetically to teach pronunciation. Anne-Clair -- who is from France-- did pretty well today but didn’t catch everything. Mark Twain said of Mauritius: “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”
As mentioned previously, the Dodo bird is also from Mauritius until they were killed off by the Dutch in the 17th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo
I have a magnet of a Dodo on my fridge from a trip that I took to a Geac conference in Oxford back when I was at St. Joe’s. With Tim & Ann. The conference reception was held at the natural history museum and I remember them having a Dodo exhibit but I couldn’t remember what the connection was. Wikipedia reminds me that the Dodo was featured as a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. According to the website, the popularity of the book actually led to the making of the Dodo an icon of extinction. Hence, the connection to Oxford.
We walked around and around and around today. In Cape Town, the ship gangway exited out to a vibrant waterfront area. That area is built up here as well, but the ship is a water-taxi-ride away -- or a decently long walk all the way around the harbor. We didn’t want to wait in line for the water-taxi (as mentioned yesterday, I really wanted to be away from the ship), so we walked into town. Once in town & after finding the all-important ATM machine, we walked through some beautiful gardens and around Chinatown.
We passed by a mosque and a few Hindu temples.
There were 7 of us in our group, which is a little too large for a group walk frankly. I like them all, but we spent a lot of time regrouping our little group. We seemed to hit a particular corner of Chinatown that was full of hardware stores & stores where they sell bathroom fixtures: toilets, sinks, lights, etc. Interesting to explore. Then we wandered on to the waterfront. We sat and had drinks and people-watched for a while. The thing about Semester at Sea is that everywhere you go there are some of us. So, our little group became larger & smaller & larger again as other people wandered by and then headed off. One couple recommended an Indian restaurant for dinner and so we headed there & it was quite lovely. And also filled with other groups of Semester at Sea people. Indian food is not my favorite in the universe, but I’ve decided I’d better practice for India and this place was quite nice. Everything was very good.
And then we took the water-taxi back to the ship. It was a little bit exciting because you had to jump 3 feet from the side of the boat to the dock -- in the dark -- but fortunately no one missed! We're all safely back on the ship. Very happy to have walked on land and eaten somewhere other than the ship's dining hall! Last night was very very rocky with things falling off shelves and onto the floor and crashing waves keeping us awake. I'm learning to appreciate stillness.
