For a country built on slavery and indentured labour, Mauritius feels surprisingly gentle and tranquil. To me, places give feelings. Places can give many feelings and they can be complex and contradictory. But there is often one dominant one. Johannesburg is exciting, edgy. Cape Town, colonised. Maputo is vibrant, promising. Venda is spiritual, like it’s the oldest place on Earth. You get the picture.
As a visitor to Mauritius, I found myself prodding at this feeling of tranquility, so at odds with the country’s violent history. Was it Kool-Aid for tourists, their version of the rainbow nation myth? Perhaps. I was only there for five days and was, after all, on an all-expenses-paid visit with the Mauritius Tourism Authority.
But perhaps not. Perhaps it has something to do with the economy, which has been growing steadily; and the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, which has been narrowing steadily.
Or maybe it has something to do with the country’s own reckoning with its past. Mauritius had its own TRC process, a Truth and Justice Commission, which looked into the long-term effects of slavery. It’s the only country to have done so, says the introduction to the commission’s six-volume report.
The commission made 300 recommendations. Though the government has been criticised for failing to implement them all, one of them led to the creation of the Intercontinental Slavery Museum, which had just opened when I was there in September, though parts of it were still being finished.
It was a little frustrating because the exhibits had not yet been translated into English. But it was uplifting to see they were presented in Creole — the language that most Mauritians speak, but which is mostly not seen in writing — as well as the usual French.
Next door is the more established museum at the world heritage site Aapravasi Ghat — the first immigration depot for “The Great Experiment”, which was the name given at the time to the replacement of the system of slavery after its abolition with indentured labour.
Between 1834 and 1920, indentured labourers were brought to the Aapravasi Ghat from China, the Comores, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Southeast Asia and Yemen to work — “some ... by deception and force”, said one of the displays at the museum — on sugar-cane plantations or to be transported to other parts of the world, including South Africa.
At the Aapravasi Ghat — originally called the “Coolie Ghat” — the stone steps, where about 462,000 people took their first steps off the boats on to land, are still there.
Part of the colonial administration process was not only to record the names and ages of arrivals but also to take a photo of each one. One of the original cameras used for this is on display, as are many of the photographs — of unusually good quality. African, Indian and Chinese men and women gaze at you with an inscrutable intensity as though it is you, and not them, who is on display. The past feels very close.
TREATS BRIGHT AND FRAGRANT
Across a busy, bustling road is the Port Louis market, where it’s easy to get lost amid the stalls of fruit and vegetables. Some are unrecognisable, but all are bursting with colour, fragrance and dewy freshness. Elderly women in saris prod at the produce, while vendors keep a beady eye on me as I look for vanilla pods for gifts.
There’s a meat section — whole animal heads and things that are not for the faint-hearted, but which I am quite equal to. There’s a clothes and bric-a-brac section — meh. And there’s the fruit and veg section — heaven. The problem is that I am staying in a hotel, with all my meals laid on. There is no cooking for me. So, I soak it all in and imagine myself taking home some of those glorious baby aubergines to cook.
Maybe next time.
Not that I’m complaining about the hotels. I have always been snooty about resorts (they are plastic, you don’t get to really experience the country, too much curation and so on), without ever having experienced them. Now that I have, I humbly confess, when you are tired after a year of working hard, all that luxury is really quite nice.
My first hotel is Le Méridien Ile Maurice in the southwest, about an hour’s drive from the airport. The hotel underwent a $60m refurbishment during lockdown, so everything is new — the rooms are airy and light and everything is designed to be at your fingertips. In bed, you can stare out at the sea and you don’t have to move for anything — there are buttons on hand for the lights and the TV (which I never switched on). I did not test the air conditioning. September is a good time to go to Mauritius — it's hot, but not sweltering.
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With the common areas, the idea is fun vibes. Cocktails in the pool, live music — cover versions, mostly inoffensive. Though not a resort person, I’ve seen my fair share of hotels and I’m a sucker for breakfast buffets. Le Meridien’s is up there, somewhere near the top of my list.
A little more stately, a little more serious, more luxurious, was my second hotel: JW Marriott, on the Le Morne peninsula in the northwest. It doesn’t have the shiny, new feel of Le Meridien, but I would personally choose this one. It was not so much the luxury. Yes, the personal butler there to cater to my every whim was very nice. The massive tub and the powerful shower, the walk-in closet and the bed the size of my kitchen were all very nice. I would choose this hotel because, for the first time in 10 years, I slept so soundly that I overslept and almost missed breakfast.
It was the sunset that finished me.
Part of the JW Marriott’s offering is the Grand Beach Front Villa, the “biggest villa in the Indian Ocean”. “No is not a word we know here, at the Grand Beach Front Villa” was the PR spiel from the hotel. We oohed and aahed dutifully at all the luxury.
But the magic really came from the sunset, which you can see from almost every one of its corners. Descriptions of sunsets will invariably fail to capture their beauty, so I won’t try. As I gazed at it, mesmerised, there was a couple canoodling on the beach with a bottle of wine. That’s all you need, really.
That’s the thing, I realised, about Mauritius. If you can afford it, you can book the Grand Beach Front villa, and you will get the exquisite service and luxury. But the sunset is there for everyone.
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It’s the same with the food. There are many excellent restaurants. The JW Marriott has five. But you don’t need to be at resorts or fancy restaurants to eat well. On the beaches, there are little food trucks that serve up delicious dim sum.
I asked one of our guides where locals eat. He said: “You know the church with the red roof? Behind it is where the fishermen come in.” They braai fish there, he told us. You can sit in the water and eat fish and have a beer. I was desperate to get there, but did not get a chance. Maybe next time.
MAURITIUS MEETS SA
Because of its history, Mauritius is a cultural mix of Indian, Chinese, African, French, Dutch and English. The food culture is fascinating. There is a lot of coconut in everything. A lot of vanilla in the puddings. For South Africans it is particularly interesting, as we too have a history of indentured labour and there are echoes of ours in its food culture.
A South African I met who lived there complained: The atchaar is not the same. The breyani is not the same. It’s true. They aren’t the same as ours — less heat, less oil, generally drier. More gentle. More Mauritian, I guess. And if I had to choose, I’d also go for our intense, passionate, flavours. But there’s one pickle, which they served at Eureka House, which specialises in Creole food, of grated fresh coconut and crushed mint leaves and unfamiliar spices, that I wanted to pack up and bring home.
Eureka House is also a must if you are interested in architectural or judicial history, as I am. Restored close to it its original condition, and built almost entirely of timber, it was home to one of Mauritius’s early chief justices — Sir Eugène PJ Leclézio, who presided over the country’s highest court from 1883 to 1897 — and his law books are still on display.
A CORRIDOR OF MANGROVES
On my first day, we went kayaking. It was fun, though at a point I thought my arms might fall off. At another point, I was evaluating how deep the water was, calculating whether it was shallow enough for me to get out and pull the kayak to shore because of the pain.
I digress.
We took the kayaks through mangroves. Our guide told us that when we got to a certain place — a passage through the mangroves, where they narrowed to a corridor — we should slow down and “quieten; and have a meditation”. He needn’t have said it because the effect of the leaves and their shadows dancing on the water quickly brought our chatter to silence. It was a place of utter serenity and captivating beauty. And on the other side of the corridor, we jumped off and swam — swimming in mangroves, in crystal clear water with little fish swimming alongside.
My immediate thought as I sat down on the Gautrain and looked out at the lines of electrical pylons and the parched, yellow hills that drew me into Johannesburg was “take me back to Mauritius, please”.
As I finish up writing this, it’s been some months since I came home. We’ve had some rain. We have also seen war, deaths and untold suffering in the Middle East. It feels almost vulgar to write, even think, about hotel rooms and sunsets. Now, my memories of Mauritius feel like distant and dislocated snatches — a plump glistening vanilla pod, the feeling of cool seawater over my toes, the joy of spotting dolphins cavorting in the waves.
I don’t know why Mauritius feels gentle, why it was such a balm. But I am reminded of the last lines of one of my favourite poems by ee cummings called maggie and milly and molly and may (who went down to the beach to play one day). The last line says: For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.
PLAN YOUR TRIP
GETTING THERE:
Air Mauritius flies daily to Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport, about 48km southeast of the capital, Port Louis. South African passport holders do not need a visa. See airmauritius.com.
ACCOMMODATION:
Set against the backdrop of the Le Morne Brabant Unesco World Heritage Site and surrounded by protected coral reefs and lush vegetation, the JW Marriott Mauritius has a variety of restaurants, as well as a gym and spa. Activities include stargazing, kite surfing, mini-cinema, tennis and horse-riding. Some are free and some are at additional charge.
Le Meridien Ile Maurice has four restaurants, glass-bottom boats, kayaking, windsurfing, water skiing, aqua gym, tennis, beach volley, bocce ball, gym, big game fishing, mountain biking, spa, children’s club. Some are free and some are at additional charge. The 261 rooms include a separate section called Nirvana, for couples and honeymooners.
ACTIVITIES:
Sea kayaking: A three-hour guided tour through mangroves and to the 137ha National Park of Ile D’Ambre with Yemaya Adventures costs €50 (about R1,000) for adults, €34 for children.
Eureka House: Entrance is Rs300 (about R127). There is also a restaurant and self-catering accommodation on site.
• Rabkin was a guest of the Mauritius Tourism Authority.
• The photo of Chateau de Labourdonnais was initially captioned Eureka House and has been corrected.
