Lions, Louis And Lilly Pads

Cyclone Bejisa has diverted away from Mauritius and has hit Reunion an island a couple of hundred kilometers away. While the full force of the cyclone has caused widespread damage there, Mauritius remains unscathed. The winds are still pretty strong and as a result the red flag on the beach remained in place.

And so what was the best way to spend the first day of sunshine this year? That’s right, stuck in a car on a tour of the north of the island!

We headed over to Casela Nature park (again) for our Walking With Lions adventure. Despite our holiday rep telling us that they no longer offer this due to ‘an incident’ a couple of months back, we’d booked it through our hotel as it was something that I’d wanted to do since learning that they offered it.

We entered the park and headed down to the lions section which included a truck drive through part of the park. We were dropped off around some enclosures where people had the chance to go in and interact with the lions. there were also a pair of male cheetahs for those that wanted to see these.

After our briefing (“have a stick, stay behind them, don’t run”) we entered the park and met the two lions and got the chance to pose for photos, stroke them and be scared of them. Although it was a unique experience which we both enjoyed, I think it should be renamed “Walking Behind Lions”.

We got back into the car and headed to Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. I’m not sure what I was expecting to get out of this part of the trip but we were driven around the city for a bit, stopping to take a couple of pictures, and then headed up to the old fort for a view over the city.

We were then dropped off at the waterfront and had an hour to have a walk through the market where we could haggle for useless tat if we so wanted. We didn’t. So having walked through, not bothering to stop and look at the rubbish on offer, and then passing through the food market with it’s array of fruit and vegetables, we decided to get a bit of food.

After lunch we bought some postcards in one of the shops back at the waterfront and then jumped back into the car for a trip to the botanical gardens at Pamplemousse. This was the one thing that The Wife was looking forward to as they have some large lilly pads as well as a huge selection of trees and plants to wander around.

When we were done, it was back to the hotel to catch what was left of the sun before the usual routine of bar, walking dead, dinner and bar again.