We drove from the north to the south of Mauritius island, stopped at different hotels and resorts, explored many beautiful landscapes and learned so many things about nature, history, people and culture of this tropical paradise.
Mauritius is arguably Africa's wealthiest destination as this island nation owns many coral reefs, exotic landscapes and is a shark-free zone which attracts numerous tourists to willingly pay top-notch services at luxury resorts. Also, Mauritius is currently under protection from global warming as well as environmental pollution; therefore, the cost here is quite high but it really worths a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To get the best of Mauritius, we rented a car and headed on a road trip in this paradise island.
Our road trip route
Our route was starting from the very north of the island, going down to the south, following the west coast to visit the capital of Mauritius and continue heading south. We visited some specific places in the southern central. Then, we kept the south beach route to Le Morne Brabant which was our final destination.
First destination: Anse La Raie beach
It's a beautiful windy kite beach area in the east north. We chose Paradise Cove resort to stay for 2 nights as it's a decent, peaceful, friendly and well-taken care resort. The resort owns such beautiful and calm parts of Anse La Raie beach that we really enjoyed our time there. We deserved some relaxing time after such a bumpy flight from Dubai to Mauritius.
Second destination: Port Louis
After such a lovely stay at Paradise Cove to recharge our energy, we were ready and excited to start our road trip. We drove through the field, up the mountain and around the forest. We inhaled fresh air to our lungs, felt the wind through our car window, popped to small shops to load up some snacks and whenever we spotted nice places on the way, we stopped to have a walk and spend time with nature.
It was a long nice drive from Anse La Raie beach to the capital of Mauritius - Port Louis. We were quite surprised at how bustling this city was, with a big market and busy harbour. You can clearly find huge French influence on Port Louis through lots of French architectures, buildings and infrastructures. French and English are the main languages here. Mauritians speak French a bit slightly different from the original French, but everybody is comfortable speaking English as well.
We visited the museum and harbour to learn more about the history of the city. Then, we got lost in the market to explore the real lifestyle of Mauritians.
Third destination: Flic en Flac
Away from the noises of the city, we drove to a beautiful beach in Flic en Flac. There was a lively town in the area with a simple life close to nature full of smiles and laughter. We enjoyed the sea breeze and had a local lunch there with fresh fish and seafood. We could see how much every Mauritian loves their nature and country through their lifestyles of recycling and protecting the environment.
If every country could cooperate with nature in living lifestyle like how Mauritians have been doing, we could make a huge improvement for our earth.
Fourth destination: Botanic Garden
It's one of the most visited attractions. The botanical garden was initially opened as a private garden by the French governor of Mauritius nearly 300 years ago, later to become the famous Mauritius National Botanical Garden.
From Flic en Flac, we took the road through fields to visit this big, green and beautiful garden. We were lucky that the rain stopped by the time we got there. The clear blue sky appeared for us to have a nice walk into the greens and smelled the freshness of awaking nature after rain.
Fifth destination: Bois Cheri Tea Factory
It was afternoon when we finished our lovely walk at Botanic Garden. The sun was going down so we thought it would be nice to have an afternoon tea at the famous tea factory in Mauritius - Bois Cheri. We hopped in the car and drove to the mountain of tea fields.
We had a nice experience to watch the whole process of making tea from picking up the leaves to extracting the herbal flavour and having the final tea bags. We got a chance to try different flavours from English breakfast to camomile and other herbal tea while enjoying some biscuits with a beautiful view of the lake. We bought a few tea boxes as gifts for family and friends before leaving.
Sixth destination: Alexandra Waterfall and Seven Coloured Earths
Alexandra Waterfall is hidden in the deep jungle of the Black River Gorges National Park and is something out of a movie scene. This cascade gave us such a breathtaking view of the cloud forest of Mt Cocotte standing tall at 771 meters.
Chamarel Seven Coloured Earths is one of those surreal things that made our curiosity run wild. With its 600 million years of history, it's one of Mauritius' most iconic attractions - a relatively small area of dunes with seven distinct colours (approximately red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow).
Seventh destination: Sugar Factories
We continued our road trip to the south, heading to beach route. We were passing many sugar cane fields. Then, we stopped at 2 famous sugar factories on the way which were: Britannia Sugar Factory and St. Felix Sugar Factory.
This island nation is also gifted with such rich soil to produce great tropical fruits and sugar canes. Therefore, sugar cane has been the primary economic pillar of the island for the last 50 years and known to the world as "sugar island".
The beach route
The route along the south beach coast was a beautiful drive. We stopped at a beach on the way to our hotel and watched the sunset. Dipping our feet in the soft sand, taking a deep breath of the sea breeze and feeling the wind, we suddenly felt calm and lucky that we were there. All the noises from sugar factories were gone, leaving only peace in our minds.
The sun was going down behind the clouds. It was a stunning view and we were glad that we had such a dynamic and enjoyable road trip, but still made it to our final destination on time before it all got dark.
Final destination: Le Morne Brabant
We finally reached our hotel on time, checked in and enjoyed the rest of our evening by the beach before our hiking tomorrow morning to Le Morne Brabant.
The next day, we woke up early, had a lovely breakfast and got ready to go hiking. We were not professional hikers, but we made it to the top. It was quite a tough and sweaty hike, but the view on top of the mountain was absolutely rewarding.
Mauritius is known for its spectacular beauty. The abundance of natural beauty undoubtedly makes this country one of the most picturesque places in the world. Here, you will find the perfect shorelines with white sands, the beautiful hotel rooms with sceneries never seen before, a cuisine so mouthwatering that you will surely leave the place with your stomach satiated, and a real paradise on earth that holds a part of your heart.
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