Mauritius

Mauritius, my jubilee country No. 60.
The reason for choosing is simple — direct flight from Aeroflot. I think it's worth promising yourself not to choose directions based on the availability of convenient directions anymore.

Long-distance business class tickets, especially, cost like a cast-iron bridge and, of course, expectations from the trip become high already at the time of their purchase. This time we flew with 7 people, this is the most global trip I have ever organized. A spacious, new villa was chosen for living in a prestigious area overlooking a large green mountain. At the same time, the critical mistake was the lack of a private beach. For this, we paid in the truest sense of the word with regular payments at various resort hotels for access to their beach infrastructure. How difficult it was.

There is such an option called "DAY PASS". This is daytime access to the hotel's infrastructure, which is paid, as a rule, for going to the beach and using sun loungers, towels, hotel pools. Sometimes the cost of a Day Pass includes a deposit in the amount of half of its cost to pay for food and drinks, and sometimes not, and the entire amount is the cost of a "pass" per person. Every day, through our concierge, we found out where we could go. Due to the fact that all the hotels were completely packed with tourists, there was often nowhere to go and popular comments were "sold out" and "fully booked", which meant "fuck you" or "we have everything booked." In fairness, it is worth noting that, being a guest of any hotel, having paid for my stay, I would not like to come to the beach and not find myself a sunbed, due to the fact that the hotel sold these "passages" well to someone. But most often these refusals were due to poor and lazy administration of their beaches, but for this you need to recognize when tourists leave and clean up their abandoned towels. It's worth some effort, and laziness is just a free option for Mauritians.

Immediately upon arrival, again through the concierge (concierge is convenient), I rented a car so that we could get to various hotels on our own transport. Despite the fact that there are many rich tourists in Mauritius, there is trouble with rentals there. I assumed that it would not be possible to get a Range Rover or BMW X7, as well as the Chinese Lixang L9, which would be great for a three-row trip, but the choice turned out to be very tight. Break all the sites, the best we could find was a Toyota Rumion with a cheap fabric interior, a microscopic engine and a space that only accommodates dwarfs. In order not to feel like an economy taxi driver, I preferred to order transfers by minibus and calmly drink wine on the beach. After a couple of weeks, when our line-up decreased, we managed to make a replacement for a relatively fresh hybrid BMW X5 2021.

The excursion program began with the Casela Safari, where we successfully cuddled giraffes and zebras. The waterfalls turned out to be just waterfalls, but the panoramic view from the high point of the island to the coast and the lagoon consolidated the desire to fly by helicopter over the local beauties. At that moment, I realized that Mauritius is much better from above than from below.

As time passed, we were deceived by street vendors, restaurants were closed, we were poisoned and recovered. By the way, in Mauritius, as in other countries of the third and fourth world, one must be prepared for a constantly poisoned state, which is not unusual. Our trip was planned for a month (I say it was planned because it was extended), so our family had quite enough adventures.

The first significant adventure was Cyclone Eleanor and the complete closure of the island for several days. Closing the island, looking ahead to the next trip to Dubai, is an ingenious solution that minimizes material damage and the number of victims of a natural disaster. Mauritius was bypassed by the Cyclone, the residents got off with a slight fright, light rain and a light refreshing wind. In fact, any cyclones are not a joke at all. Our helicopter tour was canceled for the first time due to the restrictive measures and bad weather.

The second adventure was my Dengue fever, which caused the repeated cancellation of the helicopter tour and the extension of the vacation, if you can call it that, for two weeks. Dengue is a bone—crushing fever that cannot be treated with anything. All that can and should be done during the illness is a regular decrease in temperature. Taking into account that my body temperature returned to forty degrees every six hours, I took the maximum dose of paracetamol droppers through a catheter. It's a disgusting feeling, like an addict, waiting for a new dose of antipyretic to make it more bearable. During a fever, almost everything hurts, but most of all, the eyes. During the "treatment", quarantine is introduced not so much for the non-proliferation of infection (the patient himself is safe for humans and can only transmit Dengue to other mosquitoes through his blood), but to exclude the possibility of "Dengue shock" if a person is bitten by another infected mosquito with one of the other four types of virus. Statistics on Dengue are very unimportant, including due to the effect on the liver and platelet levels, since a low level suggests possible bleeding, and a high one suggests possible blood clots, so many people reasonably prefer hospitalization for regular blood checks. Since the dried bloodstains on the floor and the talk about rats confused me a little when I visited the city hospital, I preferred home treatment. The conclusion from the situation is that being healthy is an underestimated luxury and happiness.

After my recovery, for the third time, we planned a helicopter with some apprehension and thoughts about "not fate" and "life takes away." The helicopter was the best thing that happened at the resort. He was able to erase almost all the shit that happened to us this month.

Of the few pleasant emotions, I want to note that Mauritius does not verbally fight for the environment. There is really little plastic and they try to give it up wherever possible. A striking example is the collection of grocery store purchases in used cardboard boxes, which are freely available to everyone. It makes my heart feel better when you see that some people do not want their descendants to leave a planet of mountains of garbage.

And here is my insights and recommendations:

1. I recommend visiting only five-star hotels with a private beach.
2. When traveling with a large family, you have to constantly organize, negotiate, and dock everything. So that it doesn't make you nervous, the best vacation is a seal vacation, where you don't need to do anything.
3. I do not recommend traveling with children.
4. Everyone praises the whale excursion, which we haven't been on, and the fishing for marlin, which we haven't caught.
5. For yachting, it is a million times better to choose Turkey. Mauritius has a poor choice of boats, they are dirty and old.
6. Mauritius is unreasonably expensive.
7. All is well that ends well, but you can prioritize other directions.