Backdate: Mauritius Jun 2023 Day 2

7/6/23 Weds: Woke up at 7.30am and we drove over to Bo’valon mall and Macdonalds’ for breakfast. *Their boiled drinking water has a strong chlorine taste… and only in this part of Mauritius somehow.* We first shopped around King Saver’s supermart and saw this green chilli that we think locals eat a lot with their meals. *Did buy it back to Singapore in the end and it was spicy and sour at the same time… Potato liked to have it paired with meat.*

I tried the McSpicy burger (rs248) but it was no way like Singapore’s haha… not as nice. Got back to the resort by 10am and checked out of our rooms at 10.30am when we left for our Airbnb at La Gaulette (S$289.38 for two nights for four pax) on the South-Western side of the country. While Potato was driving, we saw cyclists on the road and realised there was a competition going on and police diverting traffic for them.

Stopped to take photos at the reconstructed Chamarel Case Noyale Road of a view of Indian Ocean as we were nearing La Gaulette after about 1.5 hours of drive over. Took the keys to our place on the second floor from the aunt of the Airbnb lady, whose whole family stays downstairs. The whole interior somewhat resembled that of what a Malay home in Singapore looked like. They have a sky deck on the third floor too.

Quickly rushed over to Enso for lunch because PotaTOHs had another 30-minute drive over to Lavilleon Adventure Park for our via ferrata activity (S$83.90 for two pax) at 1.30pm. It didn’t help that they served the pasta slow too… Potato and I both ate fish arabiatta which was salty while WS had the alio olio and the noodle were too soft. WL ate chicken chop which was all breast meat lol.

To make things worse, there was a queue to drive into Lavillion Adventure Park! I had to get down the car and get the entry tickets to the Chamarel 7 Coloured Earth Geopark and waterfall viewpoints Honestly, it was already drizzling on the way there so I did not have my hopes up for this weather-dependent activity. There was no obvious entry point to the activity area on Google Map, so we had to follow whatever signages there were and drove ‘instinctively’ lol… even going off the Google grid as we drove into the park. Sadly, the three-hour activity was cancelled due to rain, so we decided to visit the Land of Seven Colours instead.

The colours were not that obvious but the place was quite packed with tourists. *Met a Chinese and German couple who were in Mauritius for their honeymoon and they just dived with dolphins that morning!* Saw Giant Aldabra tortoises again since my visit to Prison Island eight years ago. Also took photos at the Chamarel Waterfall that is 100m tall. Spent about 1.5hours in total and we also decided against going into Rhumerie de Chamarel in the end because the tour was expensive.

Drove back to the supermart at La Gaulette where we bought some alcoholic drinks and snacks (rs385)… not the local rums yet though.

PotaTOHs drove out to Captain Matthew Flinders Monument viewpoint which was 20 minutes away because I wanted to try to see sunset from there but the sky was overcast… still the view was quite pretty albeit cold!

WL and PotaTOHs headed nearby in the neighbourhood at 7.30pm to get dinner after speaking to the host lady. We bought one seafood pizza (rs470) from Ocean Vegabond restaurant, and then chillibite (fried with peas and local spices, rs175) and fish creole (local tomato sauce, rs350) from Frizzy, a local eatery (paid a total of rs 545) right across the street. I quite liked them all haha!

Three of us also had some booze but WS was tired, so she slept first. The ginger ale from South Africa (rs65) that I had was not bad.