Mauritius

So, miracles are real!! We hit big waves and storms and almost had to miss this beautiful place! BUT, the captain/ ISE worked their magic and got us here! We pulled in to port at 10pm and the ship refueled overnight to take us to India. Then, at 6am, immigration and customs came on board and we did face-to-face immigration. 730am rolled around and the ship was cleared to get off!! We were only allowed to be in port for 4 hours..but it was so worth it! We got off and took a water taxi across the river to the city Port-Louis. When we got off, everything was still closed because of how early it was. We wandered around until 10am when everything opened. In the meantime, we found an open fruit juice bar. The fruits were the sweetest fruits in the world! I had a "watermelon, pineapple, mango, passion fruit" super special. OHMYGOODNESS. It was delicious! After this, my friends and I walked around taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. The craft market finally opened and we did some shopping. The craft market was divided in to sections and each section was a different seller. I bought a skirt/cover up/wrap/scarf thing. And a straw turtle for my mom :). After we finished here, we went to Pizza Hut. OH YES. I had a Chicken Tandoori Pizza. It was the best pizza I have ever had in my LIFE. By this time, it was 11am and we had to run to the water taxi to get back to the ship before "on-ship" time. When someone is late they get "dock-time" which means for every 30 minutes they are late, they have to wait 4 hours before they can get off the ship in the next port. HARSH but good. Do you want to hear about how 80% of the students went to the beach to get drunk and came back falling over? It's not a good one, it is so irritating! In the pre-port for Mauritius, they explained to us that the country does not allow commercial airlines in to the country because they only want to rich tourist in their country. So, tell me how someone can justify wasting 4 short hours in a beautiful country that we will probably never return to? ANYWAYS, I had an amazing time and am so glad that we were able to keep this amazing place on our itinerary. We are now going super fast booking it over to India! We have 4 days to get there, and we are all crossing our fingers that the weather will work with us and we can still get there on time! Hope all is well back in the States!