Sugar crush

Sugarcane covers 85% of arable land in Mauritius and produces around 600,000 tonnes of sugar every year, most of which is shipped straight off to the EU. The 1.2 million inhabitants of Mauritius do pretty well though, getting through 40,000 tonnes by themselves each year. 

Sugarcane fields in front of Albion bay

For a foreigner, used to fields of cows, sheep, and corn, sugarcane is a novelty. The landscape has changed a lot since I arrived in March, from the green fields of the young cane, to the tall, flowering plants, and now, back to bare soil as cutting season has started.

Flowering sugarcane

Cane ready for cutting

What nobody told me though, is that cane cutting season is a pain for the people who live here for two main reasons. Firstly, before the sugarcane is harvested, all the leafy parts are destroyed by controlled burning. This makes cutting easier, as well as chasing out any snakes and other animals which might be lurking, and improves the quality of the sugar. It also produces a lot of ash which is carried by the wind and comes down like drifts of black snow in your garden, on your car, on your clean washing, and through every door or window you might have had the misfortune to leave open.

It doesn't look very nice either.

The other annoyance is being stuck behind a lorry transporting the harvested cane to the mills. The roads in Mauritius, on the whole, are not great. They're narrow, there's no drainage, no parking, and far too many people who won their driving licence in a lucky dip (not really, but they certainly shouldn't have got it on merit and good driving!) During transportation, cane is not secured and pieces often go flying off the back of the lorry, lying abandoned in the middle of the road. Lorries are restricted to 40kmph, which is a good thing, unless you're trying to overtake one and there's no space, in which case it can double your journey time, and lead to a line of irate horn-honkers behind you.

It's not all bad though. When I go to the shops to stock up on baking products, I choose from this range:

rather than this one, which is what was on offer in my local shop in France.

Who lives in a house like this?

I love house programmes on TV - French or English - I watch them all whenever I get the chance because looking at other people's houses fascinates me. If you believe all you see in Maison à Vendre and its English equivalents, houses should all be neutral and bland, in order to please the highest number of potential buyers. If you want to build your own house, unless you're featuring on Grand Designs, there are often many limitations on things such as what colour you can paint your exterior walls.

A typical French "lotissement"

In Mauritius, with the notable exceptions of gated residences which have their own rule book, it's pretty much a free-for-all. People invest in plots of land which can stay empty for years until the owner has enough cash to build his house, but when he does, it's usually his 'forever house' and he will design it how the heck he wants. This leads to the most amazing range of colours and styles; in fact the only thing Mauritian houses all have in common is that they are BIG. 

This pink and turquoise house was more useful to me than any road sign when I first arrived!

When they build houses here, they often take up the entire plot of land, sometimes leaving just enough room for a swimming pool.

There's a fenced in pool behind the blue part of the wall

The photo above is of our neighbour's house. He has added a whole new floor, covered terrace, and a pool. Doesn't have much room left for grass or flowers. The builders have also woken me up at early o'clock every day of the week for the past few months. I hope it doesn't take too much longer.

Because we live in a cyclone zone, the majority of the houses here are made of concrete. Every so often though, someone decides to do things a little differently. Take this guy, for example, who is in the process of building a mountain chalet on a land plot at the entrance to Albion.

 There's also this jigsaw-scene-inspired thatched roof. I couldn't see what the rest of the house looked like.

My other favourites from around Albion include:

The turreted house

The house with the independent green tower

The blue house

The giraffe house

The hand painted mosaic house

The future 50 shades of grey house

Of course, amongst all the brightly coloured and crazily shaped houses, you find sad, concrete block houses like this one:

I've been told (though I'm not sure how true it is) that you only start paying housing tax on your new build when it is totally finished, so some people purposely never paint their houses, leaving them 'unfinished' and therefore avoiding paying tax.

To avoid finishing this post on a sad, grey concrete note, here's a picture of the sky from the roof of our house last week.

An apology with a flake on top

It's just been pointed out to me by an upset reader that ice cream vans DO exist in France, contrary to what I posted the other day. Sorry Max!

 

The 99 flake - Mauritius style

Ice cream vans don't exist in France, so when I first heard that familiar irritating jingle in Mauritius, I was immediately transported back to England. We never went to the ice cream van at home because we lived on a main road, so the music used to taunt us from a few streets away. We had our fair share of Mr Whippy, Feasts and Twisters on holiday though, and I was excited to see what retro ice lollies might be on sale in Mauritius.

Big surprise. The vans may look like the ones of my childhood from the outside with their catchy slogans and brightly coloured stickers advertising all kinds of goodies, but on the inside it's a different story. When I pointed to the ice lolly I liked the look of, Merv laughed at me. It turns out that they don't actually sell any of those, it's just to make the vans more attractive. You basically just have to choose between a cone or a cup, and whether you want all the extras. These extras vary between vans, but include wafers, shredded coconut (which is usually red for some reason!) strands of bright green jelly like stuff, rice crispies, hazlenuts, and chocolate sauce. You can have a cup with all the extras for around 35 rupees, or 70p, so it's pretty cheap.

The one thing I still don't understand though, is how they manage to play music that travels so far. Last weekend, we were 800m up a mountain, enjoying the peace and quiet and the sounds of birds and wind in the trees, when lo and behold, we heard a tinny, ice cream van rendition of Jingle Bells. Not only unseasonal, but annoyingly loud. It was only when we had finished our hike and driven about 2km away from the mountain, that we came across the van, which was STILL playing the same Christmassy tune. I'm not sure how the vendors stay sane, I know I wouldn't.

Thumbs up for Le Pouce

I climbed my first mountain on Sunday! Well, at 812m, it's just a small hill compared to the mountains of neighbouring La Réunion, but it's still the third highest peak in Mauritius behind Le Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire (828m) and Pieter Both (820m) It's a relatively easy climb, except the very last part, but should not be tackled, as we did it, after a heavy lunch!

The first part of the walk is a wide track through the sugar cane fields. Thanks to Pat and his penknife, we each got a piece of cane to chew on, giving us a sugar rush for the effort ahead.

This sign said it would take us over 2 hours to reach the summit less than 2km away. With all our water and photo stops, that was pretty accurate, but we could have done it in less time I think. We were lucky with the weather - it was sunny, but not too hot.

There was also this charming piece of graffiti with the message in Kréol to ask visitors not to turn their mountain into a dustbin.

After the cane fields, there was a steeper, rocky path through some trees. It was well worth it though, as we soon arrived at the first viewpoint. This photo is looking south across the central plateau where the major towns are concentrated. There's Quatre Bornes, Beau Bassin-Rose Hill, Vacoas-Phoenix, and several other, smaller places. In terms of climate, it's the coolest and dampest part of the island. 

We thought this would be a great way to get back to the car after climbing to the top, but unfortunately we didn't have the right kit for it and had to walk down.

After the first viewpoint, the scenery changes to this low scrubland. I didn't do my homework before going, but I've since read that there are many imported acacias and guava, native ebony and mahogany, and a critically endangered endemic plant called Le Pouce Mountain Screwpine. I'll look out for them next time.

The path opens out to a kind of plateau where you can rest before attempting the steep final section to the summit. From here, you get a great view of Pieter Both. (the one in the middle) The mountain is named after the first Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies because there's a giant boulder perched on the top and they think it looks like him. I've been reading up on it and there's no way I'll be climbing up to say hello! It sounds a bit too dangerous for me.

From the "thumbnail" or summit of the mountain, you can see all of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. It was a bit hazy so the photo isn't that clear, but you can still see the port itself, the towers of the town centre, and the Champs de Mars racecourse.

The way down was much easier, and we even spotted this small shrine which we had missed on the way up.

It was a good job we had a great day, great weather and beautiful scenery - it went a long way towards compensating for the pain in our legs the next day!

Tea break

After days of swimming, snorkelling, and mountain climbing, Susan and I are exhausted. (It's a hard life!) Merv came home today from his shortest ever crew (three weeks) and we went to meet him at the airport before spending the day fish and coral spotting in Blue Bay.

It's getting late and instead of writing a post, I thought I would just show you the biscuits I've just baked.

They are Yorkshire ginger nuts from Mary Berry's Baking Bible, best eaten warm and chewy or dunked in a nice cup of tea. It says the recipe makes around 50 biscuits, but as you can see, it doesn't in my kitchen! Merv has already eaten five of them and is now snoozing on the sofa. Home sweet home!

Normal service will resume tomorrow (hopefully!)

Calebasse chinoise - Round II

I've been meaning to post a new photo of our monster plant. It was looking less impressive as the original leaves are dying off, and we ate (or gave away) all the calebasses. It keeps on growing though, and the vines now stretch all the way down the side of the house and are starting to creep around the back.

I also discovered that it's fruiting (vegetabling?!) again. They have a way to go before being ready to eat though. I've been told that, in fact, calebasses like this are often harvested and kept for several months before being eaten. We didn't need to give them away, we could have stockpiled them and eaten them during a cyclone or something.

Oh, and to finish today's tour of the garden, here's a bonus picture of a lizard in a letterbox. 

Eureka!

Today we visited this beautiful house:

It's La Maison Eureka in the Moka district of central Mauritius. The house was built in 1830 in a typical colonial style, and has 109 doors and windows (so the guidebooks say, I didn't count them all!) The ground floor of the house is filled with 18th and 19th century furniture, including this amazing shower: 

Other than what I've written above, I learned nothing else about the house whatsoever. There was absolutely no information given as to who built the house, why, who owns it now, or what kind of life the people who lived here led. It's a shame because this is one of the very few remaining houses in this architectural style in Mauritius, but it appears to be badly managed. The upstairs has been converted into an office to sell luxury real estate, not at all what you expect in a historic place like this.

The gardens provoked equally mixed reactions. For the most part, they were lush and green, with lots of endemic vegetation and a great view of the house and mountain. Some sections, however, were filled with weird sculptures and a cage filled with far too many chickens.

When we paid for our tickets, we were told that at the bottom of the garden there was a waterfall and that we should take care when going down the path. If the lady saw that we were all wearing flip-flops, she didn't feel it necessary to point out that they were not really an appropriate choice of footwear for the terrain. We were lucky because the path was dry, but it was quite steep. Worth the effort though, to see this waterfall at the bottom.

We crossed the river using the rocks as natural stepping stones, and took lots of pretty photos. On the way back, Susan lost one of her flip-flops and watched, helpless, as it drifted down the river towards the falls. Thankfully, Pat managed to recover it as it got stuck in some leaves right at the edge of the rocks. Not sure how she'd have got back up the path with one naked foot!

I don't regret going to Eureka, but think that 300 rupees for an unguided visit, with zero information, of the ground floor of a house, is a bit steep. Almost as steep as the path to the waterfall!

 

Ganesh Chaturthi and the kindness of strangers

A few weeks ago, Merv and I went with some friends to a show jumping event in a small stadium in Quatre Bornes. It happened to be in the street where our friend Patrick grew up, and he decided to pay a quick visit to one of his ex-neighbours while we waited in the car. He didn't stay long, but when he came back, he announced that we were all invited to a dinner a couple of weeks from then.

One of the great things about Mauritius is the hospitality of the locals. If someone is having a party, they invite all their neighbours, colleagues, and, in this case, friends of friends who they may never have met before. They really do believe "the more, the merrier." Being so far from home, from my family and friends, this really means a lot to me, and it's a great way of learning more about Mauritian culture, which was one of the main reasons for coming to live here in the first place. 

The dinner in question was part of the family's celebrations for the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. I had never heard of this, but there was a long article about it in the local newspaper, and, with the help of Google, I managed to learn the basics before going (about the way it's celebrated in Mauritius, there are probably some variations between countries)

Some weeks before the festival, people install specially made clay statues of Ganesh in their homes or in public places. They are brightly coloured and often decorated with flowers and lights. The evening we were invited, the family and other Hindus in the area held a prayer vigil and brought offerings of fruit. It was a huge event, with a policeman outside to control the traffic and everything. Members of the family served food to all the visitors. They were so kind and attentive, treating us like long lost friends, rather than strangers who were totally ignorant (though respectful) of their religion and culture. We ate our food off banana leaves, with our fingers - not easy, but we wanted to fit in so refused offers of a spoon. 

After the night of prayer, the Ganesh statues are carried to a local river, or to the sea, and immersed. The statues are traditionally made of clay so that after immersion, they disintegrate in the water, reflecting the constant state of change of the universe and the cycle of creation and dissolution in nature.

We headed down to our local beach in Albion and watched the rituals. You didn't really need to understand what they were doing or why to appreciate it, the colours alone were amazing. It also explained a lot about why we often see pieces of material and chunks of coconut washed up on the beach! 

People queuing to present their offerings to Ganesh

Music and singing during the prayers

The statues are then carried down to the beach

People on the beach waiting for Ganesh

The statues are immersed in the water and disintegrate

Mauritius is a multicultural and multi-religion country and Ganesh Chaturthi is one of the two Hindu festivals observed as a public holiday. The Chinese, Christian and Muslim communities also have two annual public holidays each. More on those another day.