Trip Around The Island of Mauritius

Jan. 14, 2014

Happy Birthday Wayne!!

Today, we pulled ourselves away from the resort life, and hired a driver to take us for a tour of the island.

Our driver Atma, with us at the Crater Lookout.
Similar to Hawaii, the Island of Mauritius was formed from volcanoes millions of years ago.

A ten story statue of Shiva, a Hindu God.

The sacred lake of Grand Bassin, a popular place of worship for the Hindus in Mauritius.

Hindu families performing spiritual ceremonies and prayer rituals at the sacred lake.

Suzie & Noah in front of soft Gum trees.  These trees felt a lot like cork.
If you pressed your finger into the tree, it would leave a depression in the wood.

Noah, Ellise & Wayne at the Black River Gorges.

Suzie and Ellise at the Cascade Waterfall, Chamarel.

The Seven Coloured Earth of Chamarel.
 Formed by the different mineral deposits from the volcanic lava flows.

Typical Mauritius Landscape with sugar cane fields and mountains in the background.

Le Morne Peninsula, and the southern coast.

Le Canonnier Hotel Mauritius

Jan. 9-16, 2014

The main drive up to the hotel.

The Grand Reception Area.
We were greeted with warm, moist hand towels, and a cool drink when we arrived.

The bean bag chair cafe.
A favourite spot to chill out and have a drink.

The swimming pools.

The Wellness Centre built into a large Banyan tree.

Massage Room Mauritian Style.

One of the beaches.

We did lots of snorkelling during our stay.  There was coral and rock islands just off the beach, or we could take a boat out to the reef bordering the island.  We saw lots of tropical fish, amazing coral formations and even a Moray eel.

Noah and Ellise in their loft bedroom.

We were often greeted with towel animals on the bed after the workers cleaned the room.
Unlike Canada, the housekeeping staff were all male.

I'm normally not a flowery kind of guy, but these were incredible!

The most awesome flower ever.  Yes it is a real plant!

Sunset in Mauritius.

We were blessed with many stunning sunsets.

The night sky in Mauritius.

The other side of South Africa

Jan. 8, 2014

Today was our long drive (about 10 hours) back to Cape Town.  Along the way we passed many "townships" which are large communities just outside of the cities where most of the blacks live.  Even though Apartheid has been abolished in South Africa, there is still a wide gap between those who have money and those who don't.  Some of these townships spread for several kilometers in all directions.  The houses (or shacks as we would call them) are crammed in beside each other and are only about 10 ft by 15 ft. in size.  The buildings are built of corrugated steel, wooden planks, or if it is really nice concrete blocks.  It is hard to believe that people live in these dwellings because they have no running water or toilets, no windows or ventilation unless there a holes in the walls, no privacy, and although there was power lines supplying the area, I'm sure most of the houses didn't have electricity either.  It is quite literally a roof over their heads.  Basically it would be like a whole family living in one bedroom of our houses back home.   I can only guess that there is one central area to get fresh water for drinking, bathing and laundry. We did see long rows of portable toilets at some of the townships for people to use to go to the bathroom.  

It definitely made us realize how fortunate we are, and what a good life we live in Canada. 

(Don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want a better view.)

Typical township accommodations.

The largest township that we saw was just outside of CapeTown.
It spread as far as the eye could see.  We figured it was about 5 km x 5 km.

The other issue that they had in South Africa was the garbage.  You would be at a beautiful lookout like this one and there would be garbage scattered everywhere.  At least in this picture the garbage is in bags but in several spots it was just all over the place.  For example on Boxing Day we walked down to Camps Bay in Cape Town, and being a public holiday there was a lot of people that came to the beach for the day.  After dinner we were walking back to the hotel along the beach and there was trash littered everywhere.  The worst part about it was that the wind was starting to pick up and the garbage was being blown into the ocean.  We started to pick up some plastic bottles and styrofoam cups that were blowing into the water but there was just too much, so we eventually gave up.  Also, no one else seemed to care that this was happening. We were shocked!  It was a real shame because it was such a gorgeous spot, but after seeing that, it tainted our impression of the South African people.

Hitch-hikers were a common sight along the road especially around the townships.
Often the speed limits on these roads are 120 km/hr. Sometimes there were people hitch-hiking out in the middle of nowhere.  No houses or crossroads anywhere in sight and there would be people looking for a ride.  We wondered where they came from.

Kuzuko Safari #3 & #4

Jan. 7, 2014

For our  third safari we went in search of the cheetahs and the black rhino.  I really wanted to see the cheetah, and Noah really wanted to see the rhino.  The black rhino are much more aggressive and harder to find than the white ones, like the one we saw at Buffelsdrift that was out in the open.  They have a special section of the park where they keep all of the cheetahs, so they can usually find them relatively easily, but unfortunately, we didn't see any.  That is the way it is with safaris, sometimes you see lots of animals, and sometimes you don't.  We did see another male bull elephant though.

The fourth and final safari had us among the elephant herd.  The 2 male elephants that we saw on our previous safaris were by themselves, but today we found all of the females and young elephants.  I think we counted at least 30 elephants at one point.  The highlight of the drive though was when our driver parked about 10 m up from the dry river bed that the elephants were following, and several elephants walked right in front of the Jeep.  Then a whole line of 10 elephants came out of the bush behind us about 5 m away.  We were surrounded by wild elephants!!  Noah and I were in the back seat of the Jeep, so we had front row seats.  It was amazing, and a bit scary to be that close to the wild elephants.  Unfortunately, I had the camera zoomed in to get pictures when they were farther away, and I fumbled with the camera to try to adjust it to movie mode to get it on film, so I only got a bit of footage of the elephants going by.  The younger elephants were a little surprised to see our Jeep there, but otherwise they just kept sauntering along in search of more food.  What an awesome experience!

The elephant herd.
How many elephants do you see?

Mom and baby.

A young female elephant right in front of the Jeep.

The elephants coming out of the bush behind the Jeep.

This photo was taken without any zoom.
That's how close we were to the elephants.

A rare glance at a Steenbok.  

Reminders that you are amongst wild animals.
Aren't the horns amazing though!?

Kuzuko Safari #2

Jan. 6, 2014

Our second game drive was all about seeing the lions.  They found them earlier in the day, and hoped that they were still in the same spot for the afternoon safari.  The only catch was that they were at the far end of the park.  But here is what we saw.

Flat tire on the safari Jeep.  It's a good thing the lions were at the other end of the park.This pit stop put us about 15 minutes behind the other 2 vehicles which made for a very bumpy ride trying to catch up to them.  There were several times where we were bounced right off our seats.  

This is about how close we were to the lions.
Fortunately, they had a good meal the night before, and weren't interested in us.

Close up.

Lions sleep or rest about 20 hours a day. Not a bad way to live.

The lions woke up just long enough for us to get some great photos.

Noah and Ellise having some fun on safari.
Noah is holding a thorn from an acacia tree.

Giant millipede.
There were hundreds of them all over the roads.

Safari-ing is hot, strenuous business, so we 'had' to stop for a drink break.
Our drivers doubled as bartenders for the occasion. They were awesome!
South Africans love their Castle Beer, so when in Rome...

Kuzuko Safari #1

Jan. 6, 2014

We woke up early today and went for the 5:30 am game drive.  We were told that we would be able to  to see more animals at this time and that they would be more active as well.  Once again, we were not disappointed.  Here is a sample of what we saw.

(Click on the photos to enlarge if you wish).

Zebra.
(Pronounced with a short e sound in SA)

Female Kudu

Two male kudus fighting.  This was the highlight of this safari for me.  When they clashed antlers is sounded like a gun shot.  They were fighting about 50 m from the Jeep, but by the time they were done. they were only about 20 m away.  It was awesome!!  I got it on film, so I will try to upload that as well.

Male Kudu.
I took this photo because I wanted a close up of the antlers.

Red Hartebeest and calf.
We were lucky enough to see a young hartebeest suckling from its mother.
This is the only photo that I got of these two because they took off right after I took this picture.

Black-backed Jackal.
We saw several of these, but they are so fast that as soon as we saw one, it was gone.
This one was a long way away in a dry river bed.
This was Noah's favourite African animal.

Ostriches.
Good eatin' for all you carnivores.  It might even make me start eating meat again.

African Bull Elephant.
He was absolutely massive.  He was also on the track we were driving on, and wouldn't let us pass

It was amazing to watch him eat, because he would just grab a tree limb with his trunk, rip it off, and put it in his mouth.  He needs to eat 200 kg of food each day.

Vervet Monkey.
Noah liked these guys much more than the baboons.