This is from Ryan....

This is my first blog and I am so excited to tell you all about the amazing time we had in Mauritius. Before porting we were told that Mauritius was the port that in the past had the most occurrence or petty theft. I was okay with since in Brazil we had to worry about getting stabbed and robbed at the same time. It has the highest prevalence of theft because most students stay in villas which get broken into, and everyone’s things get taken.

Day 1

We start by showing up a few hours later than anticipated because of storms. The first thing we do is head into town to find the marketplace, and an internet café to book our flights in India. If you have not heard already, we pay about 40 cents a minute on the ship for slow internet access, unless it is in the very early morning. We were told the whole island had wireless capabilities, but my tries were unsuccessful. We find the café and run into problems with the multiple Indian airlines. Some stopped taking international credit cards due to fraud, and some needed an Indian address for mailing. We could go through Expedia, but the prices were twice as expensive. We leave with the plan to show up in India and get flights aligned at the airport in India. This tactic was successful in previous voyages. The whole time we are in a hurry because a group of students are leaving from the ship at 4:00pm to go the VILLAS at the beautiful city of Flic en Flac. There are about seven complexes within a mile radius, and each complex has about 20 villas within. The condos are side by side and completely surround an enormous rectangular pool with multiple bridges, rocks, and walkways. The set up was amazing and about 10 of the villas were all occupied with SAS students. You can probably guess how crazy it was with over 100 students from the boat with our own villas, and unlimited access to cheap alcohol. According to many students, Mauritius was our spring break. Erika and I were going to stay at the villas with all the SAS students, but realized it would be best to stay at another one with other friends because the first villas were going to be trashed, and were more likely to be broken into, and they were the next day. So we start out at the party villas and set our stuff down. We then walk to the beach and around town to see what there is. There are some small clubs, a casino, restaurants, and a supermarket, with an internet café. We eat at this very cheap to-go place and had some awesome pizza. We then run into our friends Sami and Dustin and they want us to stay at their villa which is safer, and only a walk away. So we go check out their place, meet up with some others and head out to the party villas to get our stuff to bring to the new villa. People are playing beer pong, swimming, walking/ running around, and there are all types of alcohol making its way around. There were over 100 students having a good time, but also getting out of hand, and being destructive. People were playing hockey with palm fronds and lightbulbs and chanting “USA” it was very disrespectful. After we found the other members to our group we were supposed to meet, Julie, Jenny, and Claire, we walked back to the other villa. Two other guys, Slava and Greg, also stayed at the villa. Luckily we went to the supermarket earlier that day so we could make breakfast in the morning.

Day 2

After Erika, Sami, and Clair made a delicious breakfast, we went to flic and flac beach and scheduled to take a catamaran out the next day. While on the beach, we were surprised to see a good amount of topless women. I think they were foreigners, except the ones with implants. We hung out with a lot of people and got the cheapest food from some stands nearby. We had coconut drinks, and when we were done they chopped it open so we could eat the inside. I then went back a few times to get some 20 cent ice cream and Erika got eight mini somosas for 40 cents. I also caught some crabs, but they were very small. It was a very relaxing day. A good break from always feeling rushed. That night we made spaghetti, chicken, garlic cheese bread, grilled vegetable salsa, and samosas.




Day 3

Last day we wake up early and catch a 1.5 hour ride to our private catamaran that is supposed to hold 25, and we only had 9. They took us to see a waterfall, and then snorkeling. We were able to jump over the railings of the boat into the water, and it was a lot of fun. They also stopped at a shallow reef area and we were able to snorkel. It was a lot of fun, and extremely funny. I only had a mask and I was doing just fine. Erika on the other hand gets in with her snorkel and mask and starts freaking out because she can’t breathe. After a few seconds she had the breathing thing down. Second, there was a little current in the water, so that was her next problem. She had trouble concentrating on swimming with all this plastic on her face, so they had to throw her the life saver ring, and I had to swim her back to the boat. Once there we gave her a life vest and let her loose. Once again she had the problem of floating away. I then proceeded to get a rope, tie it to the boat and then tie it to her vest. After that she was having fun, and it was hilarious to look down and see the rope tied to her, while floating with the life vest. It was so cute. After snapping a few pictures of her, we sailed to an island which had amazing sandbars and a lot to do. We get there and decide to get pulled by a boat on an inflatable bat looking thing. We fell off once, but that was the best part. We hang out some more and buy some souvenirs and then it was time to head off for some more sun, water and food. We ended up racing another catamaran back to shore and of course won. We then took another 1.5 hour ride back to the ship where we dropped our things off and then headed right back into port. We then ate food, made phone calls, and bought some last minute things. Mauritius was awesome and for anyone going there in the future I know the place to get a great deal on a catamaran. Actually, over half of our group got really bad food poisoning so I don’t know if it was such a good deal. Erika, Sami, and Greg were the only ones that didn’t really get sick.

We’ll keep you posted!