The Beginning
We had a quiet morning in the shitty hotel, breakfast and lunch and done some research for Mauritius – Brucey of course emailed a few fishing companies.
At 2pm they picked us up to get to the airport and luckily after a few frustrating queues at passport control and security we boarded our flight. Because of the plague in Madagascar they are also taking everyone temperature with what looks like a pistol – initially we thought it was a retina scan for your eyes but then realised is to check if you had fever or not.
The flight was on time but we had to wait a bit on the way out and in, again due to the plague they had to disinfect the plane at before take off and after landing. They finally let us off the plane at 745pm after landing at 720. Passport queue was also quite slow, thank got our luggages and finally we were in the car on our way to the hotel at 20:40. Immediately we noticed the massive difference from Madagascar – from the modern airport, to the clean and new roads without zebus crossing and no begging at the airport.
The taxi driver who met us gave us a yellow flowery necklace to wear and during the drive he told us a lot about the varied history of Mauritius. First colonised by the dutch in 1638 to 1710, the all the dutches left the island and they were followed by the French who were here from 1715 to 1810. At this time there was slavery, and they brought all slaves from Africa including some from Madagascar. Before the dutch there was no one living in the island.
After the French came the British, who stayed from 1810 to 1968 when finally they had their independence. They abolished slavery and they asked all the French if they wanted to stay or leave. Most of them stayed as did the ex slaves, but at this point no one wanted to do the hard work in the fields after the end of slavery – especially sugar cane plantations which is the main resource of the island. To do this hard work the British brought a lot of people from other places especially India. The official language of Mauritius is English although most people speak French and specifically the local dialect which is Creole, very close to French.
Even in terms of religion the island is multi cultural, 52% of people are Hindu, 30% Christian 15% Islam and 3% Chinese roughly. The population of the island is just over 1 million but the tourist per year are 1.3 million.
It’s the only country in Africa where hinduism is the biggest religion and it’s known for being the home of the extinct Dodo.
After this amazing introduction to the island history and culture, we arrived at our posh hotel the Tamassa resort which is part of the Lux group.
We just about managed to have dinner before it closed at 10pm, Indian themed buffet and a couple of gin and tonics each to celebrate our arrival – bring on the all inclusive!!!
Chilliiing
Woke up early to explore the hotel amenities and make the most of the sunny hours.
Our Monday consisted mostly in loafing on sun lounges by the beach, getting in and out of the blue sea, checking out the restaurant and working our way through the cocktail list – the challenge is to try them all before our departure. My favourite one so far is called Mortel which has sparkling wine, pineapple rum and some pink grandine. Also the Café Creole is very good, a local version of expresso Martini.
Also tried the jacuzzi at the spa and the steam room and sauna because why not. All pretty stressful! Thanks all for contributing towards our lush honeymoon ♥️
Tough days by the sea…
Tuesday was another tough day for us. Actually it rained a little in the morning but at 10am we still went snorkelling over the corals near the hotel, in a glass bottom boat that magnifies and you can see all the corals and fish underneath. The current was so strong that you didn’t even need to swim, you just got dragged along really fast watching the world go by and the fishes and coral going on about their business.
If you tried to swim against the current there was no point as you would just about stay still being really tired and out of breath!!
After the snorkelling we chilled for a bit and then had lunch at the Playa – I had a pasta and Brucey a steak. After lunch more reading of our book, and planning our boat trip for tomorrow, we met the couple we are going with, the lovely Tim and Sarah from England who we immediately liked.
It was a bit like a blind double date – meet at 2pm in the gym!
In the evening we had a nice special “honeymoon menu” with a printed menu that said Mr and Mrs Field ♥️
Bed early and ready for a 530am start tomorrow to see the dolphins and then go fishing for the joy of Bruce!
Tuna and Sea sickness…
We picked our pic-nic baskets in reception at about 6:10am feeling fresh and breezy. Ready for a day fishing and dolphin watching… we met with Sarah and Tim, and got chatting in the car on the way to the harbour – we found out that they have two kids of 20 and 23 years old and they are here to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. She is a nurse investigator, checking if the nurses have been rightly or wrongly accused of something and Tim is a cop, mounted one so always riding a horse and looking after them. Very interesting guys, we were very lucky to share the trip with them and really enjoyed spending the day with them – although they might not think the same since our day didn’t turn out to be quite what we were hoping for!
We set off with our fantastic 10metre long boat, and stopped immediately after 5 minutes near about ten other boats to see the dolphins. There were so many of them coming up and down of the water with their fins or jumping over the waves. We tried a couple of times to jump in the water and snorkel near them but it was hopeless – the water was mirky and greenish and you couldn’t see further than 3 metres away. The dolphins are really fast and we kept trying to follow them but no joy in seeing them in the water. We quickly gave up and got back on the boat, viewing them from there was actually much better.
We had a croissant from our breakfast basket as soon as we got back on the boat while the crew started throwing out lures in the water and setting up rods at the back.
The sea was really rough and I started to feel sick pretty much straight away. I had to lie down on the floor to feel a bit more human.
Shortly after Bruce, who had been chatting while standing up with Sarah and Tim, getting excited about what fish they’d catch, started to feel queazy as well. He lied down and immediately fell asleep, as he does. After a while in the sun and on the floor of the boat we got a bit hot and moved upstairs in the small upper deck which had a bit more shade and wind, and Brucey managed to sleep for another hour there too. It was about 1pm when we had out first bite – which was a bit disappointing since we had nothing happening for four hours and the sea was so rough we were getting thrown around in all directions. Anyway, Tim started to fight with the fish and Bruce went downstairs to take the camera and get ready to help. The fight laster about half an hour but Brucey was feeling far too nauseous to help Tim out. Tim did a great job getting the fish out with such rough sea, and the excitement built up as the fight was very hard meaning that the fish would be very big! Poor Brucey he’d been so excited about getting on the boat and catching a big fish and he couldn’t enjoy one second of it feeling so sick. He lasted just about until Tim reeled the fish in, it was a massive yellow fin tuna!! At that point Brucey couldn’t keep it in any longer and he puked from the side of the boat into the sea.
I watched the whole thing from above, trying to take photos without getting too sick myself. The rest of the trip we were both quite bad, me lying down the whole time on the top deck and Bruce at the bottom being sick once again. After that he managed to catch a smaller fish called Bonito – a predator that eats squid apparently.
After we got back, as soon as we touched the ground we felt immediately better and had a nice group photo and weighed Tim’s catch which was a 35kg yellow fin tuna! Very well done.
We had a beer and started to feel vaguely human again. We had our transfer back to the hotel and saw a beautiful sunset by the beach. After that we went for a shower to find that we finally have hot water after two nights without it but we also found two wasps in the shower…we had to call reception to get it fixed.
Then dinner time at 8pm at the Playa restaurant, we had tuna salad, then stuffed calamari with risotto and pistachio pudding. All good but not outstanding. After dinner we had a few drinks at the bar with Tim and Sarah, then tried to turn up at Jalsa, the club inside the hotel, but it was quite empty and loud and a bit much so we decided to have one last drink at the bar before going to bed. It felt such a long day!
Recovering from yesterday…
We got ourselves a little treat to start the day better having breakfast brought to our own little balcony, English Breakfast with poached eggs, sausage bacon and patisserie. Very tasty! After missing lunch yesterday we allowed ourselves some greediness – to be fair we always do love to treat ourselves in some way and often don’t need an excuse for it!
After that we went to the beach to prepare for a very stressful day sunbathing. In the morning we tried stand up paddling which I really enjoyed, Brucey as usual lasted about 10 minutes. Then we had lunch with Tim and Sarah who just before ventured for a water ski lesson but didn’t like it so much! We had a nice lunch followed by a glorious nap in the sunshine and followed by beers at sunset. What a perfect day! We are trying to not think too much about the fact that we are on our last full day here 🙁
We had our last dinner at Playa restaurant and went for the lobster menu which was pretty good. After dinner we had a couple of drinks at the bar with Sarah and Tim and I even saw a shooting star!
Somehow we were really knackered and went to bed fairly early. Probably too much boozing and sunshine in this very tough day on the shore of the Indian ocean!
Last day !
It’s officially our last day of honeymoon. Can’t quite believe it’s gone so fast! Very easy day for us – breakfast and check out followed by an amazing day by the beach, making the most of the blazing sunshine, drinking, chatting with our new friends and snorkelling near the rocks. We even tried all the three pools of the hotel to make sure we swam in all of them.
At lunch we had a burger from the truck and ate it at the bar, accompanied by live music and trying out some more cocktails to make our way through the cocktail list which we almost finished.
In the afternoon more sunbathing and swimming and Bruce & Tim also played a bit of beach volley.
We had our last sunset in Mauritius in great company and then used the transit room to have a quick shower before leaving. 🙁
See you soon Mauritius but mostly see you soon Tim & Sarah! Thanks for all your kindness, we had a great laugh.
Overall we had the most amazing honeymoon, romantic but adventurous, rough & ready mixed with luxury, lots of drinking & eating, just the way we like to live! Thanks all for the amazing donations, we couldn’t have done it without you! Xxx
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