Mauritius

Mauritius is an island close to Madagascar that is a part of Africa. Mauritius was supposed to be a relaxing stop between Africa and India, which it was. The main activities to do in Mauritius are just beach activities. Mauritius is very proud of their extinct Dodo bird, and there are souvenirs of dodo birds everywhere. Mauritius was formed out of volcanoes, like Hawaii, and after they were all inactive, the French and Dutch settled there and brought African and Indian slaves and servants, so now they mostly speak French, and most of the people look like Indians.
When we arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius at 8:00 in the morning, I was excited to go to the beach. We got off the ship and hired a taxi. The beach water color was AMAZING; it was very, very very light blue color. When we found a good spot we put on sunscreen and goggles and got in the water. We swam around finding dead colorless coral reefs. Next, we got out of the water and a person was selling spiral carved pineapple on a stick. We bought four for $2 each. We ate them and then got back in the water to play football. In the water, Eli bruised his toes so we got out and got Indian food and ice cream from a truck with incredibly annoying music. Then my dad took my brother to the coral before we took the taxi back to the ship.
On the second day, we were going to hike up a mountain, but Eli’s foot hurt so we walked around town. First, we went to the botanical garden, and in the garden there were these little trees that were planted by presidents of different countries. Also there was a fountain that looked like a brussel sprout. We looked at other cool plants. Then we went to the Sugar Museum, which told you how they make sugar. Then we went to an amazing restaurant in China Town that is called First Restaurant. It was really good. We went shopping before returning to the ship.
On our last day in Mauritius, we hired the same cab to take us to a beach called Blue Bay to snorkel. We sat down at a spot, and Eli put on normal goggles and the snorkel pipe and started snorkeling; he said he saw a pot and a tiny statue. While he was snorkeling, a man came and told us where the best place to snorkel was, so we went to the end of the beach. I put on the snorkel mask and snorkel, my brother put on goggles with no snorkel, and my mom and dad put on goggles with a snorkel. We first went in the very shallow water. There wasn’t any coral, just rocks, but there were fish to see. First, we only saw black fish, but then Eli pointed out a huge white fish, about a foot and a half long! Then we saw sea urchins, a couple of fish, finding Nemo (Nemo, Dory the leader of the tank, and maybe some others). We also saw a lot of little squishy white things with circles that are yellow. Also we saw a big school of fish that were small. We swam around some more before having lunch and returning to the water. Eli and Gabi showed me some coral. They took me out there seeing more cool fish until we got to it and when we got there it turned out that it was a whole forest of coral. It had very black fish that came out of the rock. I tried moving my foot close to it to see what would happen, but my foot went too far and I kicked it, but it wasn’t poisonous, so I was ok. There was a purple eel at the bottom of the forest. There was a huge tire that had another eel in it, also a bottle, and a sole of a shoe. After looking around, we went back because the snorkel fell out of my mouth. We swam a while in the shallow water, then we went back out to the forest of coral, and there was a huge school of yellow and black striped fish of what seemed like one thousand of them. There was also a very long but skinny 2 ½ foot white fish and a big purple and green foot. Also, I forgot to tell you this: after all the coral, there was about a 30 foot drop and that is where I saw the cool fish. The whole time you snorkel, you float. After that we went back to the ship and left Mauritius.
I thought that Mauritius was pretty fun, even though we were only there for 3 days. I liked Africa and Europe a lot, and I’m looking forward to Asia next.