Mauritius, the Place After Which Heaven Was Copied
Mauritius is so beautiful that Mark Twain wrote in “Following the Equator”: “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”
What made him to say so? Maybe the answer is in another excerpt from the book:
What there is of Mauritius is beautiful. You have undulating wide expanses of sugar-cane–a fine, fresh green and very pleasant to the eye; and everywhere else you have a ragged luxuriance of tropic vegetation of vivid greens of varying shades, a wild tangle of underbrush, with graceful tall palms lifting their crippled plumes high above it; and you have stretches of shady dense forest with limpid streams frolicking through them, continually glimpsed and lost and glimpsed again in the pleasantest hide-and-seek fashion; and you have some tiny mountains, some quaint and picturesque groups of toy peaks, and a dainty little vest-pocket Matterhorn; and here and there and now and then a strip of sea with a white ruffle of surf breaks into the view.
That is Mauritius; and pretty enough. The details are few, the massed result is charming, but not imposing; not riotous, not exciting; it is a Sunday landscape. Perspective, and the enchantments wrought by distance, are wanting. There are no distances; there is no perspective, so to speak. Fifteen miles as the crow flies is the usual limit of vision. Mauritius is a garden and a park combined. It affects one’s emotions as parks and gardens affect them. The surfaces of one’s spiritual deeps are pleasantly played upon, the deeps themselves are not reached, not stirred. Spaciousness, remote altitudes, the sense of mystery which haunts apparently inaccessible mountain domes and summits reposing in the sky–these are the things which exalt the spirit and move it to see visions and dream dreams.
Sugarcane plantation in Mauritius. Photo by Asadbabil via Wikipedia
The eastern part of the island is known for its long sand bank beaches and famous hotels such as “The Coco Beach Hotel” and the 5-star “Le Touessrok”.
Tamarin Beach offers white sands and crystal clear waters and both novice to expert surfers visit for some of the best waves on the island. The bay also has its own dolphin pod and dramatic views across to the Montage du Rempart – an extinct volcano.
Flic en Flac has a very long white sandy beach stretching down the west coast to Tamarin which is enjoyed by both locals and tourists. Scuba Diving is a major attraction here with excellent diving just a few minutes from the beach.
A highlight of any visit to Mauritius is the relatively undeveloped south of the island, which includes some of the country’s most wonderful scenery and wildest landscapes. While the area around Blue Bay has been a long-established favourite with tourists for its great beaches and crystal-clear waters, the majority of the south coast has no beach, thankfully limiting hotel construction for the most part.
Mauritius is a tropical paradise with great views and so much more to offer than the traditional beach vacation.
