So. Mauritius.
where should i start. well, we flew from amsterdam to paris, thats about an hour. a little more. the problem was we left really early. then, it was a direct 12 hour flight from paris to Mauritius. with the 3 hour time zone difference, we left friday morning, and this meant we arrived on saturday morning, at 5:30am. ouch.
The official language of the island is english, but, everyone speaks french as their main language. now, we got off the airplane, thru passport control, and out into the humid, 30 degrees Celsius air ( 86 degrees Fahrenheit). a nice change from rainy amsterdam.
so, we get picked up by a small minibus, and head right over to our hotel. now, the thing is, the airport is at the very south of the island, and our hotel was in the north. so, it was about a 2 hour drive to get there, crossing the entire island. the cool part is that the middle is a huge plateau, where it is always cloudy and rainy. But the north was a lot dryer and sunnier. good stuff. anyways, the picture to the left here is a pretty typical sight from anywhere on the island.
we arrived, and where given some fun friut drinks right off the bat, and this is the sight from the main lobby to the right here. so, anyways, the next 2 days, we basically relaxed on the beach, swam in the ocean and pool, ate some yummy food (all you can eat breakfeast buffets!!!!) and yeah, just took it easy. we decided to wait till monday to do all the touristy stuff.
so, monday rolled around, and we went and visited a sugar cane factory, which was pretty cool. sugar cane is the major industry, followed by tourism. at the end, we got to taste all the different types of sugar that they produce, and even 2 types of rum. ill tell you, having 2 shots of rum in the morning, not the most pleasant thing in the morning. next up was the city pomplemousse, and the royal someone botanical garden. on the left here are some of the waterlillys that they have. these were the small ones. the larger ones grow up to half a meter in size. and there where hundreds of different types of palms and trees.
towards evening, we then went and visited the capital, Port Louis. the boardwalk was nice, but we walked around in the city some, and it was really run down. really really run down. trash everywhere and broken down buildings all around. anyways, we had a really good steak for dinner, and at the end of a long day, we returned to the hotel.
the next day was even more exciting. it was our nature exploring day. we woke up early, took a small minibus again, and headed 2 hours south into the mountains. on our list of things to see, were some beautifull waterfalls, the seven sands (to the left here)
i guess there were seven different colors of sand in there somewhere. now, right after seeing this waterfall, and taking some SUPER pictures of it, my memory card in my camera decided to stop working, and to tell me it has an error. permanently, it appears. and therefore, i lost the last 4 days of pictures… i, lets stay, was not in a pleasent state at this time. this also meant, that for the rest of the day, i was upable to take pictures also, except for a little point and click. which explains the pictures you have seen here. at least the ones from the 2 trips. im still trying to fix the problem, and hopeing that i will recover the pictures.. but it doesnt look good.
so, carrying right no with my dialogue here, this was a monkey we saw at another waterfall, in a national park called the black river gorge park. they just appeared from the trees, and looked at us. man, i was really upset that i wasnt able to use my camera to take some pictures of them. god, i would of gotten some amazing pictures. 
next we went to a hindu temple, and at the top of this mountain, next to the temple, they are busy contstructing the biggest statue of Shiva, which was pretty cool to see. you can follow that link and read up on the god if you wish, i dont really want to get into it all right now. following this awsome sight, next, we hit the….
La Vanilla Park. this may sound like something else, but, its actually a turtle farm! and when i say turtle, i mean tortise. 100 year old tortoise…. umm, tortoisei? in the picture here you can see noa’s sister sitting one of them. and this is what made this place awsome. they let you walk around amongst all the tortoise. it was soo cool. and they had a nursery too. where they raised little baby ones. anyways, this park was just so amazingly cool. they also had crocodiles, which you could’nt ride, but also cool monkeys, and a really cool insecatrium, where i have never ever seen so many dead insects catagorized in such an amazing fashion. i was blown away by all the insects they had. most of them were from mandagascar. ohhh, the other cool thing i saw was the feeding of the crocs. they fed them chicken feet and what looked like half of chickens. man, those crocs went to town on them.
This pretty much rounded out the day, the only other thing we saw was the crater of the old volcano, which formed the island. the crater was all grown in with vegetation.
The next 3 days where basically vegging days, and we went water skiing, my first time, and sun bathed, swam, i tried wind surfing, its pretty hard, and took some naps. good times. heres a picture of noa waterskiing to the right here. ohh, we also went snorkeling one time, which was cool, except for the fact that i didnt bring my contacts, and therefore, 
i was unable to actually see anything as i was snorkling along. cept for some blobs that i assumed were fish. BUT, as we were taking the glass bottom boat out over the reef, we did see a turtle much like this one, who we saw at the local aquarium. the aquarium wasnt the best in the world, infact, it was missing a lot of tropical fish, which to me seemed kinda odd, since they were all around in the ocean. but anyways. the shark and turtle tank was cool.
so, then, finally, sadly, saturday rolled around, and again, we woke up early, 5 am, and took the 8am flight off the island. we got back to amsterdam 10am local time, safe, sound, and without my suitcase. it decided to travel to venice instead. luckily, it did come back to me the following day. and i didint get any souvenirs from it either!
But, what we did bring back, was, lots of dodo birds! and speaking of dodo’s i looked everywhere, but it appears they really are exctinct. such a shame. and who do we have to blame for that? the dutch. ill leave it at that.
the end.