Eating and Other Habits

 

Day 041:  Yesterday, I posted the Mauritian-Chinese food called a "Magic Bowl".  It had all fresh ingredients and was reasonably priced at less than US$ 7 for a portion with about as much as I could finish.  Yet, we do not often eat out during our winters away.  The picture above was lunch that Jay made today.

 

This is a photo of the inside of our Airbnb's refrigerator.  This year we're spending three of our four months living in three different Airbnbs, the one here in Mauritius and the others in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa.

Some people mistakenly believe we need a lot of money to travel the world.  There is an upfront cost in getting to a location, indeed.  However, every Airbnb we've ever stayed in for a month or more has cost us less than average monthly rents in our home city of Vancouver.  

More importantly day-to-day life hardly ever costs more than when we're home.  Eggs, for example, are quite a bit cheaper here than in Canada.  Mauritius isn't quite as cheap as many of our destinations, but when at the market in the photo found below, we didn't spend all that much!  This is true of much of the foodstuff we've bought in most places around the globe.  

Also, while away for the winter, all of our usual fixed costs completely stop.  For example, we have no electricity bill, no car insurance, and no Internet and TV bills.  So, being away for four of five months doesn't really cost us much more in total than staying home.  It's a whole lot more educational and personally gratifying for Jay and me though.

A Lazy Cut and Paste from FB

We're in Mauritius until the 5th of January.

Day 039:  I was sitting on the balcony this afternoon with my tea and I got a ping from my phone.  It was verifying some information.  Norwegian Cruise Lines allowed check-in the other day.  It signifies how we'll be leaving Mauritius as we're not going by airplane.

A cruise ship, the Norwegian Dawn, will take us to Cape Town, South Africa over a trip of 12 days.  We're scheduled to leave on January 5th. 

The itinerary has been modified since we bought passage last year.  It will not stay a night here but depart on the day of our boarding.  We do see Reunion Island before heading to two ports at northern tip of Madagascar.  We already spent time there but had no chance to get to the north, so that works out well.   Yet, we do not get a chance to stop in Mozambique, I assume because of the political troubles the country is experiencing.  We will also skip Richard's Bay, South Africa.  Therefore, we have three days at sea in a row that was not in our original itinerary.  We do get an overnight in both Port Elizabeth and in Cape Town.  So we can scope out the location of our Cape Town Airbnb the day before we get kicked off the ship.

We, then, have a month in Cape Town and nearly another month in Durban.  We are travelling to Johannesburg and will spend four nights before we board our flights to return to Vancouver in the middle of March. 

The Wrong Bus

Day 038:  This morning, we took the bus out to the shopping mall.  Jay mailed a postcard with holiday greetings, we got $50 from an ATM in order to have a little cash, and we used the big Winners Supermarket.

Getting on bus #123 is an easy walk from the apartment.  One is sure to depart every fifteen or twenty minutes depending on the time of day.   I do enjoy riding a bus because, as a passenger, one has a more commanding view than from a car. 

There are reasons to be cautious at a busy bus stop though.  When returning with three full bags of groceries, we saw a bus at our bus stop.  It had been there with passengers both getting on and off.  So, we ran a bit to get to it in time.  Jay mentioned, Flick en Flac but the bus conductor didn't hear, I guess.  He kept the bus there until we struggled to get on with our grocery bounty.  We left.  Soon, at the roundabout, it returned back out to the main highway.  This was not a 123 but another route!  We had to get off at the first stop, cross the road and wait for another bus in the other direction.  It could only left us off at the road stop and we had to walk back to our normal stop to wait for our regular route.  We added a half an hour to our return back to our Airbnb.

So although taking the bus has advantages as in a great view and a cheap cost, one has to make sure one gets on the right one.

We Saw Some Things This Morning

 

Day 037:  The buses in Mauritius remind me of those in Sri Lanka.  Each is in a unique state of disrepair and none are very comfortable.  Yet, the seats in buses here are not high enough and this tends to hurt my knees.  Also, rather than classify them as cheap like Sri Lanka's, I'd call the fares in Mauritius just reasonable.  From our place in Flick en Flack to Port Louis takes at least an hour or more depending on traffic.  The price is under $US 1.00 each way per passenger.

 

So Jay suggested we go downtown to check the market area.  Last week, we took our first trip there.  We got off at the station today and walked down the street full of vendors which is perpendicular to the real Port Louis market.

We didn't buy much.  The prices in the food section are not any cheaper than in supermarkets.  We didn't even buy the bananas as the selection was not great but the price was expensive.  We did pick up some biryani to take home with us as lunch. 

We didn't spend a lot of time there today.  Still, it was an interesting few hours.  I am so lucky to get to see such a variety of things in my life.  I always feel sad for those who seldom venture out of their small, well-defined area.  Life is too short to see everything but too long to spend all of one's time in a the same old places.

No, YOU'RE a Dodo!

 

Day 036:  This morning, Jay and I decided to walk down the beach a fair bit.  We saw that the bus route ends in a place called Womar and we found where that is.  We saw a small supermarket and decided to go inside.  I saw several things I thought were interesting.

 

Inside the shop, there was a collection of souvenirs for sale.  So, far I hadn't mentioned that Mauritius is the island of the famous, but extinct, dodo bird.  You must have learned about the bird species in school.  It represents one of the first times that humans had a hand in the extinction of an entire species.  That's why it was in your school book and you probably remember it because it had a funny-sounding name.

A second interesting thing I spotted was Corona beer for sale.  Granted this is a beach town and a smooth sweet beer can quench one's thirst.  Yet, I sort of thought the Indian Ocean was an odd place to sell Mexican beer.

Sunday Evening

Day 035:  We had a lazy Sunday.  I guess this week has been a bit of a rest after our month in Dubai, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Antananarivo, and our road trip to the west coast of Madagascar.

It's a great place to relax, actually.  Locals crowd the Flic en Flac beach near us.  The busiest time is the evening.  People are sure to come to see the sunset.  Families make a meal of it.  Younger adults come with music and alcohol.   Nobody tries to sell things; they simply come to enjoy their time.

We expect things to get most crowded during the next several weeks.  Actually, we are here until January 5th and we will see people flying in for the Christmas and New Year's.  Fireworks are for sale in the big, local supermarket.  So, we are expecting quite an explosive time welcoming in 2025 at our beach.