Mauritius

For February break this year we ditched the winter blues and headed south, way south, for some sun.  We spent a glorious week on the island nation of Mauritius with the Stephensons catching some rays and just relaxing.  We chose the same resort brand we had chosen for our stay in the Maldives two years ago.  It did not disappoint.  We had a truly indulgent week enjoying a lovely hotel, wonderful food, spectacular weather and best of all the very best company.  Mauritius is an iffy choice for a February sun holiday.  It's cyclone season and you really do roll the dice going there in February.  We were incredibly lucky and experienced a week of near-perfect sunshine.  We also had no idea how lucky we were to take such a holiday given the brewing situation in the world at large.  I'm writing this a few months later, and looking back at this holiday now, I feel more grateful for it than ever.  We're currently in the throes of the coronavirus, but back when we took this trip it was just becoming a hot issue in the world beyond China.  We were paying very little attention to it in the news at the time.  It just wasn't a concern yet as it was mostly confined to certain areas well away from us then.  There were small signs of caution, but nothing anyone was worried about.  On arrival we had our temperature checked, but nothing else was said or done.  We had no idea that the world was about to practically fall of its axis into Covid-19 oblivion, which really got going as we were returning back to London.  We enjoyed a completely worry-free holiday, and for that I'm especially grateful given all that has happened since.  Also in the vein of being as lazy as possible, most of these are phone photos.  A note for my future self as well as anyone else who cares. 

Our resort was a dream . . .

Stephash crew

After dinner hammock sesh

Beach Rouge ladies

Our one and only excursion off-campus was a fun-filled day on a chartered boat to explore the small northern islands of Mauritius: Gunner's Quion, Flat Island and Round Island.  It was a fun day of swimming, snorkelling, island exploring and boating.  The water in Mauritius is so gorgeous, and some of the best snorkelling we've done.  Some of the group got pretty seasick, which was a bummer, but otherwise a really great outing.  

Girls go island hiking

Delicious island picnic

View of the resort on approach . . .

So the next couple of photos were taken on arrival into Mauritius at the start of our vacation.  It was an eventful journey.  Midair from LHR to JNB BA ridiculously rebooked our entire group on a slightly later connecting flight out of JNB to MRU because they thought we would miss the original connecting flight.  It's a long, stupid story that involves a lot of missteps by BA and a lot of resulting headaches for our group.  And mostly it resulted in 7 missing bags of the 8 bags in our group.   So when we arrived 7/8ths of us only had the clothes on their backs.  While I was grateful my bag made it, I felt a tad guilty/bad that I was the only one who had my things.  So we had to stop at a random, and fairly overpriced clothing store on the way to the resort to pick up some basics to make it through the first whatever many days we'd be there until our bags arrived.  It was an adventure and not how we wanted to start our vacation.  Gratefully the bags arrived on the second evening so not too much was spoiled. 

"Beach boy"