Spring 2015 - Day 70: Mauritius
Even though my trip didn't leave until 11:30 I got up early so that I could test my phone. I was walking upstairs right at 8 when I ran into Phillip. I told him I just needed my phone to work and he told me that it definitely won't. Thanks for the vote of confidence Phillip.
It worked fine, it connected right away and I was able to call my dad and he was able to call me back. I think it helped that I could see the cell tower from where I was sitting outside on deck 6. My dad and I talked for a while, which was wonderful, I hadn't spoken to him in ages. I then was able to call Josh and talk to him, Tori, and Pat. that was wonderful as well. I realized that I hadn't talked to anyone on the phone in almost a month, since we were in Singapore. I think it was starting to get to me and I didn't even realize it.
When I was done on the phone (which was quite a long time later, that bill will be astronomical, whoops) I went back down to my room to try and go back to sleep. The entire time I was sitting up on deck 6 Kevin was calling groups to go through the Union for immigration. He was probably half way through the groups when he came on and said that the ship was cleared. I guess what he said last night was true, we started immigration and then they just sort of waved us through.
So I didn't go through immigration and by the time I was ready to go back to sleep the announcements had stopped. I could feel the exhaustion deep inside me but I didn't really fall asleep. I could sense that Armando was going to come in and clean. I got up and stuck my head out the door to see him emerging from the room next door. I told him that I was leaving at 11:30 and he told me to take my time. He's the best, he's been so patient with me constantly being in the room while I've been sick.
I snoozed until 10:45 and then got ready to go. When I arrived in classroom 9 at 11:30 I was given a box lunch. It was a typical boxed lunch with a cold chicken leg and hardboiled egg. But the ham sandwich was good and they gave us Oreos! For actual lunch upstairs they had lasagne and berry cobbler, so bummed that I missed that.
We got off the ship and boarded two small busses. There weren't too many of us on this program, which was lucky because in order to get off the ship you had to be on a program and there were only about 12 programs. Some of them had almost 100 people. Ours had barely 30.
We had to drive an hour from the north east of the island to the south. On the drive our tour guide told us about the island. She said that it was like a giant tropical fruit salad. There isn't a majority race on the island, it is a mixture of French, African, Chinese, and British. The island was settled by the British and then the French so everyone speaks both French and English. They learn them both in school. Sometimes the teacher will lecture in French and then the reading and homework will be written in English. Because of this they speak French well and they write English well. So many prefer to watch French movies but read English books. At home they speak Creole, which is a dialect of French.
This is definitely how we should learn language in the U.S. Instead of starting in middle school we should start right away so that instead of being bilingual we end up being dual lingual. It's a fact that we learn language better the younger we are, clearly the Mauritians are doing it right.
When we arrived at the zip lining place it took a bit for us to figure out where to go. We were supposed to have been met by some trucks to transfer to to take us on the dirt road but the bus ended up going down there itself. That was interesting. By that point we were deep in the jungle. Actually, we were deep in the sugar cane. They grow a lot of sugar cane on the island and we were traveling between huge fields of it.
The main building was tucked back in the sugar cane fields. The scenery was beautiful. I think the place we went did more than just zip lining. They might be a small hotel because they had a dining area and some lounge chairs. There were some other visitors fishing in a small pond. When we got out of the vans I generously applied the bug spray they handed me and then walked over to the building where they handed me a drink. It was citronella, or lemon grass, which, as you probably know from the candle, is a mosquito repellant. I swear they had us drink a mosquito repellant. It tasted like fruit loops.
We were all given a harness. Well, had a harness put on it. They were exactly like other harnesses I have worn zip-lining. I swung on a rope swing while I waited for everyone else to get their harnesses. At that point I started feeling a little anxious. Nothing too serious but I was nervous about the zip lining and wasn't sure if it was because of my anxiety or I was just feel the normal amount of a nervous a person gets when they are about fly through the air dangling from a cable.
Just in case it was my anxiety, I didn't want it to get worse, so I tried to put into practice some of the things I learned in the counseling center. I just tried to acknowledge the fact that I was getting anxious. I didn't give into it or try to make it go away, I just noticed that what was happening was anxiety.
Then I did some deep breathing and suddenly it was time to leave. From that point on I was normal amounts of nervous up until the point that I stepped off the first platform, then I was just having fun.
We piled into two pickup trucks to get to the first zip line. We all had to fit in the beds of the trucks, which was challenging, and probably a little dangerous. But we made it. The drive was only about two minutes and then we walked down a small dirt path through the sugar cane to our first zip line.
The cable went right over a river and waterfall. It was gorgeous. It also went right through a tree, which was interesting. They gave us the rules: don't grab the cable above you, only grab your yellow rope, you don't need to break. If you get stuck in the middle you get a few seconds and then they cut the cable.
Ok, that may have been a joke. They really liked to joke with us.
I was the second person to go. He told he to jump and I said I was too scared to jump. He told me to just go for it so I half sat/half jumped and we flying into nothingness.
It was awesome. Of course it was awesome, it's zip-lining. Once I was going I was no longer afraid. It was incredibly freeing and fun.
That is, until the tree hit me. But my back was to it so it wasn't that bad. Some other kids got it right across the face. Ouch.
The benefit of being the second person to go was that I got to stand on the other side and watch people come across. Most people screamed, like I did, others had smooth landings but most didn't. One thing that everyone had in common was the look of pure joy on everyones face as they soared over this gorgeous valley.
The place were we landed seemed like it didn't go very far back and we were all crowded in this little space until the zip-lining guy told us to climb up farther. We hiked up some cement blocks and found ourselves looking at even more sugar cane fields.
It took a while for everyone to come across the zip-line and we just stood there and chatted until the guide came up to lead us to the next one. He said we had to head straight, which meant going straight through the sugar cane. We all thought he was joking until he started off right between the stalks. We hacked our way through the sugar cane for a while until we came out onto a dirt road on the other side. We walked along the dirt road for a bit until we came to the second line. The second one went back over the same valley but this time there was not a river underneath us and there wasn't a tree in the way. Instead we were soaring over think brush that came almost right up to the zip line, at least it looked like it did but we didn't come anywhere near hitting it.
We also had to run to start ourselves off on this one. If we didn't we would hit our butts on the ground. I was still right at the beginning and flew across the zip-line so fast that the guide had to catch me on the other side. I don't think I screamed this time but I shrieked a few times because the guide at the beginning would bounce the line so that you flew up and down as you went. He didn't tell us he was going to do it so it was a surprise and it was so much fun!
While I was standing on the other side waiting for more people to come across I started to feel really itchy. I looked down and there were at least 15 mosquitos on my legs. I frantically swatted them off and killed a few on me and then hurried up to higher ground where everyone else was standing. Even up there they were still attacking me. Whitney, our trip liaison offered me 100% deet, deep woods spray and I accepted immediately. Apparently the bug spray they gave us to start with was not every strong. By the time I got the spray on and stopped being swarmed I had at least 50 bites total. 30 on one leg and 20 on the other. And I am slightly allergic to the bites so they swelled up and started to merge together. It was gnarly, and really, really, itchy.
We didn't have a very long walk to our next zip line. We didn't have to chop through sugar cane fields this time. It was very similar to the second where we had to run. I went right at the beginning again and landed more gracefully than I had on the first two. This one had brush that come up really close to the line, so close that it actually hit us as we went across. I didn't mind it at all because it scratched my mosquito bites for me.
When we were on our way to the third one they told us that it was the last one but when we had first started off they had said that we would be going on 4 zip lines so we all didn't really believe that the third was going to be the last.
The fourth involved another trek down a dirt road. On the way to it I saw a really cool old truck that had been abandoned. Of course I had to stop and take a picture of it for my dad.
The start point for the fourth zip line was the highest vantage point we had yet. The view was stunning. We were looking out over rolling hills that were so green they didn't seem real. Someone mentioned the T.V. show Lost and I completely agree that it looked like the scenery from Lost. Lost was filmed on Hawaii so it made a lot of sense that this island would be similar. At one point we could see a waterfall way in the distance and at another point huge bats flew over our heads. It was surreal, almost magical.
Since this was the actual last zip line I savored every moment of my journey across that short valley. On the flip side I just stared at the view for as long as I could.
There was only one truck waiting to take us back to the main building where we had started. Everyone decided that is was a great idea to all stand in the bed of the truck. So about 20 people stood up and wrapped their arms around each other to keep themselves from falling.
Definitely a bad call. I joined in for a moment but could just sensed how incredibly stupid it was and opted out when I heard that another truck was on its way. Just Whitney, our liaison, her fiance, and I were the ones that waited for the second truck. We didn't see any bodies on the side of the road during our drive so I guessed the survived while driving like that.
But I did take a picture of them and send it in to Dr. Jeff as a good call/bad call photo for our next pre-port.
We arrived back at the main building around 3:30. I was itching to leave by that point. My interview was at 5pm and it was at least an hour drive back to the ship. I wanted to be safely on the ship before my interview began. Not because I needed to be on the ship for my phone to work but because 5pm was very close to on ship time and so if I wasn't on the ship then I might end up having to go through security while talking on the phone. Something I couldn't really do.
Also, being off the ship would be considerably louder than being on the ship.
I had told both our tour guide and our liaison that I needed to be back by 5. They both said they would try their best, we were scheduled to be back by 4:30.
When we finally all piled into the vans it was closer to 3:45 than 3:30 and our tour guide said that it might take an hour and a half to get back due to traffic.
So I accepted my fate and just decided that if my phone rang I would conduct my interview in that tiny van and everyone would have to be quiet. That wasn't a hard thing to ask, most people slept on the way back.
I held my phone in my hand, counted down the minutes and took notes in my notebook.
We got back to the ship at 4:50.
I ran so fast to the front of the line and asked the girls there if I could cut because I had a phone interview. They agreed immediately and I found myself out on deck 7 in the quiet with minutes to spare.
And I am pretty happy with how my phone interview went.
What was supposed to make the evening even better was that it was BBQ night. But I had agreed to meet Stephanie at 7 so after my interview I went and showered. By the time I got up to deck 7 to get food there was barely anything left.
There wasn't any mac and cheese!! Mac and cheese is the best part of BBQ night!! But I learned later that there never was any mac and cheese so I didn't really miss out. But they did run out of potato salad so I did miss out on that.
So I met Stephanie and ate my burger and my corn on the cob and we talked about life and the ship and our feelings.
Then, they announced that they would be showing the Lion King in the Union.
BEST NIGHT EVER.
So when I finished eating I went and got my blanket and arrived at the Union right as Scar convinces Simba to go to the elephant grave yard.
It felt like everyone in that room was watching the movie for the first time. Every laughed in just the right places. And I mean laughed hysterically. We all sang along and just had a grand old time.
It was so much fun and a great end to a pretty fantastic day.
