Le Morne Brabant

Le Morne is one of my two favourite places in Mauritius. The south west part of the island is much less touristy than the north, but I think it's far more beautiful. I want to tell everyone to go there but then it will get busy, so I'm keeping quiet about it...

View of Le Morne from across the bay

It's surprising that the area doesn't have more visitors as it's classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of only two in Mauritius. Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis was the immigration depot through which half a million Indian indentured workers passed on their way to work on plantations all over the British Empire after the abolition of slavery, and Le Morne is a monument to slavery.

The Le Morne peninsula covers an area of about 30 acres and is most famous for the big mountain (556m) you can see in the photo. In the early 1800s, runaway slaves used the mountain as a shelter because it was difficult to access and has lots of caves and hiding places. The story goes that when slavery was abolished on 1st February 1835, a group of men were sent to the Morne to tell the slaves the good news. They misunderstood and, rather than risk being re-captured, they jumped to their deaths from the top of the mountain. There is a moving quote on the monument which reads :

"...there were hundreds of them but my people, the maroons, chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery. Never must we forget their noble deed, written in the pages of history for the sake of humanity..."

As with the Maison Eureka, which I wrote about in a different post, the slave monument is disappointingly lacking in information. The monument itself is the above circle with some sculptures around the edges, and two plaques like the one below with lists of the people who were present when they officially opened the memorial. There is absolutely no explanation about the slaves themselves, I learned all I know from Merv's recollections of school history lessons!

Oh, I forgot this guy too...

I hope to climb the mountain one day to learn more about the place and see the remains of the settlements. You need a guide though and there's only one person who is allowed to lead walks up there. 

Interesting as the slave memorial is, what I really love about Le Morne are the beaches. The first few times I went there, we stopped for lunch at a very nice restaurant with tables practically on the sand, and then went swimming from there.

As you can see, it's not bad but there are a few boats about! Plenty of space though, no need to fight for a place to put your towel. The beaches in the north are nice but they are smaller and busier than here. 

It all changed the day I decided we should try to find the famous kitesurfing spot. We drove 5 minutes further along the road and saw this :

The kitesurfers only go up to a certain point before turning so you can swim without the threat of a kite landing on your head. The views are breathtaking, the lagoon is many shades of turquoise, the surfers are impressive, and there's a rocky area which you can swim (or even wade) to with a huge number of tropical fish, corals and sea urchins. It's just amazing.

From the sky Le Morne looks quite spectacular as well. Its optical illusion 'underwater waterfall', created by the shift of sand and silt into a trench, often features on "things to see before you die" lists. The truth is though, that's it's pretty much impossible to see in real life, unless you're super rich and travel by helicopter perhaps. Each time I go to Réunion, I try to take pictures of it from the window and I usually end up with this:

Not that impressive, right? You'd be better off Googling it to see what I'm talking about.