Day 3 (March 14, 2016): Hello from the Southern Henisphere

So I think where I left off on my last entry was that we had pulled into Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport at 6:30 AM.  Immigration and baggage retrieval went smoothly, but they are doing health checks here to try and keep Zika Virus out, and were concerned that we had visited the Carribean a couple of months ago.  The health checker judged us to be low risk and let us enter Mauritius. WHEW!

A guy from Pingouin Car Rental was waiting with a sign bearing our names, and took us to the parking lot to do the paper work for our tiny metallic lime car.  Thank heavens he threw in a GPS, because this has to be the most confusing place I've ever driven.  And it being a drive-on-the-left country only adds to the angst.

By 7:30 AM, we started out on the country's only divided highway, which connects the Airport in the southeast with the capital city in the northwest.  Everything we had read about weaving motorcyclists, slow lorries and buses, pedestrians, and the unbelievable gridlock of Port Louis (the capital), proved true.  The 45-minute drive to our hotel took 2.5 white-knuckle hours. I guess that's what happens at rush hour when you cram 1.25 million people onto an island less than half the size of PEI!

We were exhausted by the time we reached Le Meridien Ile Maurice on the northeast coast, and wanted nothing more than a hot shower.  When we were told our room would not be ready for another five hours, we played the, "... but we've been traveling for 42 hours... " card and were given an upgrade to the adults-only "Nirvana" wing. 

Pool area at Le Meridien Ile Maurice

The afternoon began with long-awaited pool lounging and a dip in the Indian Ocean, always keeping one eye out for man-eating bull or tiger sharks!  At 2 PM, we left to find lunch and to visit Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam National Botanic Garden, touted as one of the country's top sights..  ("Sir SR" was once the beloved Prime Minister of Mauritius.)

Curries dominate menus here. This chicken curry was lunch today. 
 

The Sir SR Botanic Garden boats an amazing collection of palm varieties
 

Pretty cool - the way this palm variety sets down its roots
 

The gardens have a collection of massive tortoises
 

Pam spotted a Red Fody, native of Madagascar
 

"Are those, like, massively whopping huge, or what?!"
 

The piece de resistance in the gardens is the collection of giant water lilies. 

 

They can grow two meters wide!

That's a baby water lily about to rapidly expand: they go from baby to full size in about two hours.

 

By 5 PM, we were back at the hotel for cappuccinos by the beach.  It threatened to pour all afternoon, but luckily, the rain storms stayed off the coast.  Dinner was had here at the hotel, overlooking the ocean.

It's rainy season here, and by 5PM, the rain was on the horizon

The hotel's pier
 

A stormy sunset to close our first day in this paradise country of Mauritius.