After four days of cruising we docked in the extremely humid port of La Possession, Reunion. It was a really beautiful French speaking island and the beach that we ended up at was by a part of the island called St. Gilles and the beach was heavenly in that heat.
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| Rain clouds looming. |
Next stop was Port Lois, Mauritius on New Year's Day. We were originally meant to spend 3 days docked in Mauritius but due to a cyclone which was soon hitting Mauritius we could only spend that day there and would have to depart at 11pm that night. Luckily we had a taxi for the entire day and tried to squeeze in seeing most of Port Lois in a day. We visited the Port Lois market where you bargain your socks off if you don't want to get ripped off. We floated from one place to the next with dark clouds overhead, experiencing heavy rain for some parts of the day. We eventually ended up in the Grand Baie area which had a lovely beach that was almost like a lagoon. It would've been idyllic if the temperature was 3 degrees warmer. Shopping wasn't all that eventful because most shops were closed on New Year's Day and the few that we did find open we had to rush through because we had to get back to the ship. Tear, sniff. That night we decided to brave the rain and use a water taxi to get across the harbour to the waterfront where we ate fresh food from one of the local Indian restaurants as we were a little tired of the ship food. There was an arcade by the restaurant where we saw local Sega dancers which was something different.
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| Port Lois Market |
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| The photo doesn't really do justice to how dull and overcast it was that day. |
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| My souvenir from Reunion. |
Since we only had one day in Mauritius, the ship took us to Fort Dauphin, Madagascar (after another two days of cruising). Fort Dauphin is a really rural place and as we stepped out of the shuttle from the ship we were swamped with hawkers trying to make a few dollars. Driving through the town there were no real buildings or structures which showed how poor this place was. We decided to go to the beach and the beach itself was breathtaking. The ocean was a collage of blues and greens. It was truly island living with simple canoe-like wooden boats floating around and on the shore. Despite us being on the other side of the island we could see the ship. The best place to be, however, was in the sea and if you were stuck on the sand as I was the sweltering heat didn't make for good company as you burnt like hell.
All in all, it was a good cruise. Not many people get to say that they visited all the islands off the southern coast of africa all in one go. Who needs to go bar hopping when you can go island hopping instead? Stay stylish!
