Precipitation, Perspiration, Condensation and The Pacific
Let’s start with the weather, the weather in Mauritius has
ADD! One minute it is pouring down torrential rains and the next it is blue
skies and sunny, sometimes it does both and you can’t even tell where the rain
is coming from! This makes laundry day very interesting, especially because it
takes hours/days for things to dry due to the humidity and general damp
weather. We had mostly overcast and wet weather for the first two weeks and
from then on we have had hot, occasionally wet weather. Sometimes we can hear
storms during the night and early mornings, sometimes, just as I have got the
washing on the line, it rains but in between these storms we have clear blue
skies. The weather is warm, a different heat to Johannesburg summers, probably
averages around 28°C.Doing housework causes perspiration and lots of it, I generally have a sweat towel on hand to wipe my face, got to be good for the pours! It was almost unbearable until I found The Pacific, a stand fan and the new love of my life. Sometimes I find myself just standing in front of it just trying to cool down. It has multiple uses too as it helps cool down the downstairs, which has no aircons, as well as keeps the mozzies at bay. Today we found a new use, once Beatrice has mopped the tiles, the blowing fan dries the tiles far quicker.
Another thing I have to mention is the condensation, no wooden table is safe in this place and even regular coasters don’t stand a chance, we have resorted to using folded tea-towels under our drinks. With the warm air, the ice in your drink melts quicker than I am used to and you often find your drink diluted and warm before you reach the bottom, I have two solutions to this problem, use smaller glasses and fill up often or drink your drink quicker!
Shopping in Mauritius
Grocery shopping is an interesting adventure, Ash and I
think we have found the formula. Fresh produce we can buy from either the Port
Louis Market, which looks like something out of movie, where everything is
displayed in huge baskets that is brought in fresh daily from the farms or Food
Lovers Market. The FLM looks exactly like the ones in SA, a bit too familiar
but we like knowing the produce is fresh and there is one close to our house.
FLM is good for meat as well as bread and apparently the only place for decent
sushi.
For non-perishables we like Pick n Pay, the prices are not
as bad as you would imagine and we are able to find a few of the home comforts
that remind us of home. The Super U is also ok for these grocery items; they
are also good for the Chinese imported goods like cheap kitchen products,
glasses, appliances and décor.
For clothes shopping they have Woolies, Mango and a few
local stores. You can also find “fake” brands in some stores which advertise
60% off everything but the discounted prices are close to what you would expect
to pay. You don’t find much that is cheaper than Joburg, surprising due to the
Chinese influence here. I would say we can get things more cheaply at our
Chinese Markets than here. Items in Mauritius are on par or just above SA, so I
would say in general shopping costs you 10-20% more.On Sasch and Drey’s visit we also found a local “Flea Market”, the prices here were cheaper than the main stores and beachfront shops but you do get hassled a lot. These traders are super switched on and will even convert your purchases to ZAR if you ask them to. At The Grand Baie Bazaar (Flea Market) you can get anything from Foakleys to Fiesel, as well as souvenirs, table clothes and more! Sasch and I (mainly Sasch) bargained a guy down from Rs 1200 (about R350) to half! Rs600 (R175) for a Mauritian table runner for our home, not super cheap but a nice little local addition.
Restaurants and Nightlife
When choosing a Restaurant in Grand Baie, you should not
look for the cheapest option, it is better to spend slightly more money and get
much more in terms of quality of the food. Our favourites so far are The Grill
at Banana Beach Café, The Beach House and The Patch n Parrot. Some on our list
to try together are three restaurants with the same owner: Paparazzi Pizza, Cocolokos
and Sunset Café. I have tried 2 of these and keen to take Ash and any other
visitors we have soon.We have now established that if you are invited out and the meeting time is 8:30pm that you do not eat before, this is a dinner invitation, Ash and I learnt this the hard way and ate dinner twice that night. Because social meeting times are so late, everything starts late and before you know it, it is 4am and you are making your way home.
Driving in Mauritius
I mentioned shopping in Mauritius was an interesting adventure, nothing is an adventure until you have driven in Mauritius. Here are the basic rules of the road:
1) Never under any circumstances let anyone in, if you do then the sixteen guys behind him think you have fallen asleep at the wheel and push ahead of you.
2) Look out for pedestrians, cyclist, scooters, motorbikes and dogs, you need a sixth sense for these loose cannons, one waiting around every corner to jump out at you and scare the living daylights out of you.
3) Park anywhere, I mean anywhere, middle of the road, no hazards needed! Just don’t park in dedicated parking bays in town, for this you will get a ticket.
4) Use your hooter but only as a warning, not an instrument of violent rage (as we do in SA), for example if you are about to overtake a scooter, give a little friendly toot-toot to let him know you are passing.
5) When an oncoming driver flashes their lights at you, this is not a friendly gesture to let you go ahead, this is a warning that they are about to cut you off, even if you have right of way. It’s a kind of thank you before you have had a chance to accept the action.
6) Most import rule of all, never get upset, no matter how many times you get cut off, pounced on by a pedestrian or hooted at, never get angry, remember we live in Paradise!
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