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We had mixed feelings before coming here. We knew Mauritius only from tourist magazines that advertise its 5-star hotels, sunny beaches and golf courses. Our worries were amplified on the plane, where we could see (and hear) many kids. Mauritius must be indeed a typical family destination, we thought.

The reality turned out to be quite different. First of all, Mauritius as a 5-star hotel destination is overrated. On our first day it rained maybe 30 times. Most of the corals are dead (!), due to over-fishing (even with dynamites in the past), pollution, and over-tourism. We skipped diving here. Beaches are ok, but you could find better in Spain, for example.

Fortunately, there is life beyond 5-star hotels! Actually, these hotels are located in a few small enclaves fenced with high stone walls, whereas the rest of the island is covered with a regular developing-country dense infrastructure. In fact the population density on the island is about 30 times as high as in Poland.

Further striking aspect of the population structure is that Mauritius has probably the most incredible mixture of races we have ever seen. One could come here to film the ads for United Colors of Benetton. There are Blacks, former slaves brought by Europeans to work at sugar cane plantations. There are Hindus (majority) brought by Europeans to work against a salary, once the slavery was abolished. There are quite a few Whites of European descent. There are Creoles that cover entire spectrum between Black and White. Needless to mention that you can find quite a few Asians too!

The reason for such diversity is a great experiment (called The Great Experiment initiated by the British Government in early 19-th century in the use of indentured laborers, that is people who agreed to be transported to a colony to work for 5 years or more. The success of this experiment on Mauritius, where a rich multicultural society flourished, encouraged other European colonies around the world to adopt this system. And thus more than 2 million indentured laborers from Africa and Asia were shipped to British, French, Dutch and Spanish colonies. Many of them stayed. This explains, between others, the origins of the Hindu population on Fiji Islands.

In the port city of Mauritius Port-Louis we visited ‘Aapravasi Ghat’ – the place where water meets the land. This was the main immigration Depot, through which hundreds of thousands people have passed to complete the formalities before being allocated to the sugar cane plantations. Four years ago it became a Unesco World Heritage Site, probably the least visually impressive we have ever visited, but loaded with the nation’s history.

We still haven’t figured out why, although everybody speaks French, English is the official language. This is probably because the British ruled Mauritius after they captured it from the French in 1810 (in their second attempt; the first one was won by the French – the only French naval victory over English The “French” language often turns out to be French-Creole language, which for us is a phonetically and grammatically simplified version of French. Some examples of an alternative for the spelling of some French words:

-         Why to write down sounds that are not pronounced anyway? This often daunts foreigners during their first attempt to learn French. Here it’s simple: “nous” became ‘nou’, ‘tous’ is ‘tou’, ‘toujours’ is ‘touzou’, jusqu’a became ‘ziska’ etc.

-         Why so many letters per sound? ‘qui’ became ‘ki’, ‘fois’ – ‘fwa’’, etc.

-         Finally, if two words almost always go together, put them together! ‘La bier’ is ‘labier’, ‘l’amour’ – ‘lamur’… One bier in Creole is ‘un labier’ or ‘un lasoup’:)

Many friends of ours from Switzerland would definitely prefer Creole to ‘high’ French. Nespa?

On our small scooter, we visited many parts of Mauritius. The landscape in some places is beautiful, with thick green forests, nice waterfalls, abundant sugarcane plantations, and several rocky mountains. We also eavesdropped the dolphin conversations during a great dolphin snorkeling trip – you can really hear them talk under water!

To sum up, Mauritius surprised us and turned out to be a very interesting experience, even for backpackers like us.

P.S. We learned a lot about Mauritius from Fabiani, a CouchSurfer that hosted us for the first two days – thanks again Fabiani!

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