We arrived in Mauritius on August 14th after a very long (12 hours) but very comfortable (half empty plane = one row to lie down across and sleep on per person) BA flight. When coming up with our itinerary we had decided that Mauritius was going to be a “vacation” from our travels, and it was. We had pre-arranged accommodation and an airport transfer so getting off the plane was a very calm experience!

We arrived at our small-14 room-hotel where we found out that the ocean view studio we had booked was full so we put into a huge 2 bedroom apartment with 2 ocean view balconies! Most of our time was spent on one of the two balconies reading, planning our time in South Africa, writing and gazing at the sparkling turquoise sea.

August is the end of winter in Mauritius and therefore it is the island’s low season. After being in Croatia and the UK in the summer, Mauritius’ low season was a welcome change! Though it wasn’t hot enough (for us) to swim, it was still very warm, and sometimes hot, and so the weather was generally very good.

Almost every day we would walk to the Super U, the big supermarket a 30 minute walk away, to get groceries and wine and explore Grand Baie. One day (sadly our only rainy day) we did a day trip by speed boat to Ile aux Cerfs, a beautiful small island off the east coast of the island. Another day we walked to the stunningly beautiful Mont Choisy beach and then took the but to Port Louis (the capital) to explore. Spending this relaxing time in Mauritius was a very good way to get rejuvenated for the 3 months of excitement in Africa to follow!

We are currently in South Africa, and having realized we WAY under-budgeted the time that we need we are going at about a million miles a minute, without much time to catch up on our blog posts and even less access to affordable internet. I’m actually writing this post while Jon spends the morning diving! We promise the posts (both UK and South Africa) are coming but it may require some patience!