Once again we had booked a tour with Hello Islands. It was a full 8 hour tour to see the South of Mauritius. We approached it with a little trepidation….. although we had enjoyed seeing most of what we’d seen on our North Island tour, we had not enjoyed the amount of walking, lack of comfort stops or drink stops or the rather negative driver/guide who was very good at telling us what he couldn’t do but not what he could do to make our trip more comfortable and individualised for us and our interests. We considered €170 for each trip quite a lot of money so we were keen not to feel disappointed in any way this time….
Our apprehension was totally unnecessary, from the moment we met Irfaan Neamuth we knew we were going to have a wonderfully happy day.
This young man is a real asset and a credit to Hello Islands.
He started by saying he wanted us to have a day to remember and he told us what the plan was for the day….then he asked if there was anything we wanted to change..we said we didn’t want to go to the “winery” or the rum distillery. We are not drinkers and consequently having been to both of these several times in numerous countries we didn’t feel the need to visit again. Irfaan was fine about this and said he could already think of somewhere else we could go to instead.
He was a chatty young man with a zest for life. He had started making videos of his tours and he enjoyed photography…he could see this was a passion of ours as well. He also said he’d be our model at the various different places we were going to, he wanted some photos for his social media…..great we love a good model!! It would save John from doing his “man at C&A pose”(as our camera club friends call it!!!)
Irfaan automatically slowed the car and wound the windows down when there was a view he thought we’d like a picture of.
We learnt that this was the second highest mountain – Pieter Both – and stands at 820 metres just 10 metres shorter than the highest mountain on Mauritius. The balancing rock is a natural feature caused by erosion….ahhh our companion for the day was not just our guide, driver, photographer, videographer, historian but also a geographer….we’ve fallen on our feet…someone with the same interests as us…..
Our first stop was at a shop which made model galleons….although rather touristy the actual workshop up a ramp at the back was fascinating.
We declined from buying one of the hundreds of boats they had for sale but we did buy a hanging, with dodos on it….as we have no wall space available we can hang it from the ceiling at home.
Our next stop was the dormant crater , Trou aux Ceres which is a dormant volcanic crater about a kilometre from Curepipe, the second most populated town, after Port Louis. The crater is a magnificent canopy of dense vegetation.
The crater is 300 -350 m in diameter and 80 m deep, it is 605m above sea level. It last erupted 700,000 years ago.
The weather station next to the crater stood moodily in a threatening sky
A vender was selling some very appetising looking wild raspberries
Because of the height we also had a fantastic 360 view
It was however hazy as the clouds moved in..We headed on to our next sightseeing, a Hindu temple complex…on the way we passed the reservoir which supplies the south of the island with water..
As we continued the heavens opened and the visibility was very poor….Irfaan now became a weatherman, as well as his numerous other skills, and decided to reroute us and come back to the sacred place after the rain..
So u-turning we headed for Black River Gorges National Park where the sun was shining. This is the largest protective forest of Maurius. It’s a national park with over 50 kms of walking trails under the thick vegetation canopy. You can actually walk through the national park to Mauritius’s highest peak – Black River peak, Piton dela Petite Riviere Noire – which is 828m high.
The park is also home to many species of birds which are unique to Mauritius. During our short visit we had a brief glimpse of the Echo Parakeet – John saw its head but I didn’t, we also saw several Long-tailed birds. They are also known as the tropicbird. We saw several White Long Tails soaring down in the gorge over the canopy but Unfortunatly none of the rarer Red Long-tails.
Our next stop were the waterfalls at Chamarel.
We passed passed through the pay booth. It’s quite reasonable at MUR 800 each around about £12 each. We went to the view point. The waterfall drops nearly 100m off a cliff. It is fed by 3 distinct streams.
Chamarel is named after Charles-Antoine de Chazal de Chamarel . He and his brother inherited the land from his step father and descendants later opened up the vast estate to enable the waterfall to be seen and enjoyed as well as the coloured earths in the Geo Park.
We drove quickly on to The Geo Park as the sky once again looked threatening.
We were excited by this as we have seen coloured earths on the TV in South America and I think Azerbaijan but we’ve never seen it in real life ourselves…
It was very easy to understand…there were 7 coloured earths and they are either iron oxides or aluminium oxides.
These differently coloured sands settle in different layers acquiring a surrealistic, striped colouring originating from the decomposition of volcanic rock.
It is now one of the Islands main tourist attractions.
There is a walk way around the area and further explanation boards
There are also beehives and explanation boards ..
…and a giant tortoise breeding area…there were quite a few small tortoises in the nursery area which is covered with wire as well as the bigger enclosures for the adults
We spent quite a while thoroughly enjoying gazing at the coloured soil…it’s really quite something…..We left just in time as it started to rain..
Then Irfaan took us to a view point which wasn’t included in our tour, it had magnificent views looking at Le Morne Brabant, a rock with a sad history – it is a 556m monolith on a peninsula at the South Western tip of Mauritius. It is a designated world heritage site and served as a hilltop shelter and fortress for runaway slaves in the 18th & 19th centuries. It soon became a global symbol of the fight for freedom. Many slaves committed suicide here rather than be captured again…the inscription on the rock says that “people chose the kiss of death rather than the chains of slavery”
From here we went back to Ganga Talao the Hindu sacred lake located in a volcanic crater. The name translates as The Lake of Ganga – Ganges. In 1972 some holy water from The Ganges River itself was mixed here establishing a symbolic link with India’s sacred river. The lake was then renamed Ganga Talao.
There are 2 statues both 33 metres in height at the entrance to this holy area. The first is Durga Mata Murti …..
The second is of the Hindu god Shiva. It’s been copied faithfully from the Shiva Statue in Gujarat.
There are many other temples dedicated to other gods.
Driving through to the next temple we saw a lovely sign …
We dutifully took our shoes off when entering the temple ..
This was the final stop for our tour….we drove back to the hotel. Irfaan kindly stopped so we could go to the supermarket and buy more water, sugar free coke and lots of lunchtime yummies to nibble on for the rest of our stay.
We felt very blessed that Irfaan had been our driver, kind and considerate. He parked in the disabled bays to cut down on the amount of walking I had to do, he thought of everything a man with so many skills , and not least of all good fun to be with….Thank you so much Irfaan for a wonderful day…we learnt so much and truly enjoyed ourselves and it was all thanks to this wonderful driver/guide.
We ended the day with supper in the buffet and an early night.
