Mauritius and Reunion – The Indian Ocean Islands – and what animal is most closely related to a Dassie blog candy answer

Happy Saturday.

Well, I am really late with THIS post!  After all, we were in the middle of the Indian Ocean in the middle of February :-). It's amazing how time flies so quickly when you have almost no responsibilities and lots of time to do what you want, when you want :-).  Oh…. in this post I posed a question for some blog candy….. What animal is the most closely related to the rock dassie?  You can find out that answer at the end of this post – and find out who won the blog candy!

Sailing between South Africa and Australia we visited the small islands of Mauritius and Reunion.  I decided not to get off at these two ports as I have been to them often.  It's been quite a good few decades since I was last there and I knew that there had been tremendous growth on the islands and I decided I wanted to keep the memories of those earlier days.  However, I did want to share a little of the history of both Mauritius with you – and share some of the memories I have of it.

Mauritus is actually made up of several islands – the largest being Mauritius itself.  The island is believed to have been uninhabited when it was first discovered by Arab traders around 975 AD.  Since then, like so many islands and areas along the trade routes, it has had many "owners".  Let's have a quick look at the "owners" and some key milestones:

• 1507 – named (discovered) by the Portuguese – quickly abandoned as they were not interested
• 1598 – a Dutch squadron named the island Mauritius
• 1639 – the Dutch brought enslaved Malagasy to the island to work the new tobacco and sugar plantations.  However, due to the Macaque monkeys introduced by the Portuguese, none of the plantations really amounted to much and the island was abandoned by the Dutch.  However, not before they had done a massive cleanup of Dodos for culinary purposes and the last Dodo was seen around 1660ish.
• 1715 – 1810 – the rule of the French – who named it Isle de France. 
• 1810 -1968 – ruled by the British.  Well, of course they had to at some point!  Thanks to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who in 1959 decided it was best that the colonies were released to become independent, Mauritius gained indepdendence on 12 March 1968.  About time, too!
• Early 1800s, thousands of Chinese voluntarily migrated to Mauritius
• 1835 – slavery was abolished in Mauritius and about 65,000 African and Malagasy slaves were freed.  BTW, that was 2 years after the abolition of slavery in the UK and 30 years before that same occurrence in the US.
• After 1835 – Indian indentured labourers were brought to the island to fill the gap.  Between 1834 and 1920 nearly 700,000 indentured labourers were brought to the island.  In addition, migration from India amongst traders, merchants and business men increased.  Consequently, those of Indian descent now make up about 65% of the population

So.. that's a brief history of the island.  Let's get to some of the things I loved about Mauritius.

• The beaches.  OK…. yeah, I know, many places have beautiful beaches, but, this is in the middle of the Indian Ocean with turquoise blue waters, white beaches and lots and lots of sunshine.  I must admit, the only time that I have ever seen anyone get "sun poisoning" was in Mauritius when my first husband (who was blonde!) had too much sun on the first two days of our trip – he was a blistering, shivering, vomiting mess!  But… the beaches really were worth it.
• It rains in the afternoon.   On several of our trips – and my besties Pam and John can attest to this – the skies cloud over, it rains for about 10 minutes – warm torrential rain – and then the sun comes out again.  So, what do you do when it rains – go for a swim in the ocean.  I mean, you might as well get wet while it's raining 🙂
• Watching crabs and their territorial battles.  Our first trip we stayed at a hotel that had the dining room right up against the beach and it was open.  We used to rush to find a table up against the wall – not for the romance of being together under the moonlight in a romantic location…. no… it was so we could watch the crabs battle each other for territory at night.  The best points were apparently those closest to where the sea lapped against the sand.  Several layers of crabs inhabited the open sand between the prime part of the beach – and the part up by the restaurant.  Every night the guys up against the restaurant would make strategic strikes against the crabs further down the beach.  The guys in the middle were having to battle their position  – as well as trying to capture better positions against the water.  Honestly, I cannot tell you how much fun it was to watch.  It's something I will never forget.  The battles never got nasty and we never saw a crab get hurt, but there was so much posturing and running backwards and forwards that it was so amusing to watch.  Mind you, some of those crabs would have put the military strategy of Bonaparte to shame 🙂
• Pampelmousses Gardens.  The gardens themselves are beautiful, but they are probably most renowed for their Giant water lilies.  Not a figure of speech either.  These lilies are 2-3 meters 7-10 feet in diameter… they are huge and can support up to 20Kg of weight on them.

The lilies are 7-10 feet in diameter – And here's a photo that really puts the size into perspective!

photo

• The Seven Colored Earths of Chamarel Plains.  These geographic beauties are one of those things that makes me want to get out a paint brush and paint – if only I could do them justice!  These formations are a geologists dream and my late father-in-law would have loved them. The colours of the soil are due to a combination of iron and aluminum oxides which produce a range of hues fron the heat and moisture. For example, the red and brown colours of the soil are caused by the oxidation of iron in the soil, while the green and blue colours are due to the presence of magnesium and copper respectively. The yellow and pink colours are caused by the presence of iron, sulfur, and calcium.
  

Aren't they just gorgeous – especially surrounded by all that wonderful green.  Photo

• Black River Gorges National Park.  One of the few parts of the island that is the same as you would have seen it when Mauritius was first discovered.  A haven for native flora and 9 birds that can only be found in Mauritius.
  
• Things to avoid:  I had to throw this in – just because it still makes me laugh.  My first husband was scared of no insects or animals… except for baboons and bats.  The baboon story and the bat story is from a whole different part of the planet :-).   On our first visit to Mauritius we went into Port Louis.  We had been told about the amazing market, so we decided to go check it out during our free time.  We were coming out of the market and about to cross the road when a massive rat decided to run over my hubby's foot just as he was trying to lift it to take the next step.  I have never seen anyone jump as high as he did… not the rat – the hubby :-). That thing was about the size and weight of a dog – I had never seen a rat that big in my life.  Cane rats grow to about 24 inches – NOT including the tail!  They weigh around 15 pounds as an adult.  So… pretty big!!!  To this day I am not sure who got the bigger fright – my hubby or the rat!  BTW – the rat ran off and disappeared back into the market completely unharmed by it's experience.  Hubby on the other hand, was still white about 15 minutes later – which is tough when you are suffering from severe sunburn 🙂

Well, that finishes up my coverage of Mauritius – but, as we are on the topic of rodents… let's look at the answer to the blog candy question……    So, this is a photo of a rock dassie

The question I asked in my blog post – what animal do you think this is related to.  Many of you went to marmots which is a really good guess because they do look a lot alike.  No… the answer is this guy….

Rock hyraxes, also called rock dassies or rock rabbits, are small, stub-tailed, rabbit-like animals native to Africa. Though rock hyraxes resemble rodents, their closest living relatives are actually elephants and manatees.

So… you can't tell me you don't learn something reading blog posts :-). As for the winner of the Pinkfresh Studio stamp set – here's the randomly generated winner: