Easter
Easter Sunday 5 April 2025
Here’s a quick geography quiz question for you. What do you know about the island nation of Mauritius? If you answered “Nothing” you are in the same league as us before we started planning this trip. But after today we know quite a bit more. It’s an independent nation on an island east of Madagascar that’s about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island with most of its 1.3 million people living along the coast. Formed by volcanoes about ten million years ago, it has had people permanently living on it for less than four hundred years beginning with the Dutch in 1638. It was a French colony for a hundred years then a part of the British Empire for a hundred and fifty years. It’s now an independent republic within the Commonwealth of Nations since 1968 but still retains evidence of French culture along with Indian, Chinese, African, and English influences upon its education, cuisine, religious practices, music and dance and has been dubbed “The Island of Tea.” We learned much of this from Veena, our guide on the “Mauritius Tea Route Tour” that concentrates on three businesses with roots in the French Colonial period that have been owned and managed by the Guimbeau family since 1892. Our first stop was at La Maison de la Vanille a part of Domaine de Saint Aubin where we came face to face with vanilla plants cultivated in the shade before strolling through the grounds of an 1819 colonial house and around the corner to La Maison du Rhum. Although we couldn’t visit the distillery this Easter Sunday morning we were treated to a rum tasting. Only a few of the group tasted all twenty-six varieties of spirits offered but every one of us had a fun time trying before it was time to reboard the bus and head to Bois Cheri tea processing plant and museum. Again the holiday prevented a tour of the plant but we did get a quick visit to the museum including a short video on tea production. On the way there we had stopped for a quick photo stop at the edge of a tea plantation giving us a chance to actually see the tiny little tea leaves that are at at heart of one of the world’s favorite beverages. Next stop was La Bois Cheri Restaurant perched above Swan Lake for a tea tasting and then a fabulous Mauritian lunch. As we drove on we spied many families out enjoying the public holiday together perhaps picking guava fruit or picnicking along the side of the road. Many were out together at Mangal Mahadev at Ganga Talao, a 108 foot tall statue of Lord Shiva near a holy lake that Hindus believe connects to the River Ganges. That’s where we paused for a quick photo stop. Finally we headed to Domaine des Aubineaux for a very quick self-guided tour of the beautiful 1872 colonial house and grounds that was the Guimbeau family home until 1999. From there it was back to the ship and an opportunity for a bit of an Easter celebration including a fabulous display of chocolate Easter Eggs crafted by the talented chefs onboard. One more thought about eggs – you probably do know something about one of the most famous inhabitants of Mauritius. The Dodo bird, extinct since the late 1600’s was unique to this island, and its memory is important to the Mauritian people. One fascinating fact about this species was that the female laid only one egg at a time, but that egg weighed in at one pound each. Happy Easter, from the far side of the world!
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