Island Tour

A shot of Le Morne from the "other" side

From our boat tour of the east side of the island, we wanted to see more, so we chartered a tour to go more "inland."  Our driver was extremely knowledgable about his home and very proud to be Mauritian.  Needless to say we learned a lot and experienced some great "off the beaten tourist path" places.

A captivating higher view of the coast of the island where we spent most of our time

Coffee beans!  Reminded me of the coffee tour we took in Kauai: Island Coffee

An old volcano that is now an open gorge with the Chamarel waterfall

The Seven Colored Earth(s) is a natural wonder; the different colors may have been a consequence of molten volcanic rock cooling down at different temperatures

Visitors used to be able to walk on the colored earth, but too many people were taking "samples" home with them, so you can now view the area from the fenced in area

Look closely and you can see the pineapple growing, I never knew how pineapple grew until now!

A quick stop at the Rhumerie de Chamarel (rum factory)

These little guys are everywhere and absolutely stunning in color

Unfortunately the factory was not in operation this day, but it was still interesting to see the equipment

Another stunning vista

Guess what this is?  A vanilla bean, again seeing how things I enjoy grow for the first time.

I bought some dried vanilla beans from this little farm, and will be posting later how to make homemade vanilla extract from them

I couldn't resist showing some more sunset photos, truly stunning and I love how each night is different from the previous one

A very special place, very fortunate to have experienced Mauritius