After a relatively decent sleep – rock hard bed, firecrackers at 1 am, ok, enough New Years already! – we don’t get up until after 7 to start our day.  It’s overcast and cloudy so coffee on the patio with a nice little breeze is wonderful – and surprise! Siddick shows up early (to clean the downstairs apartment) with 2 hot baguettes.  He calls up to us from the downstairs garden telling us he is there with the baguettes.  So sweet. 

Now that we have baguettes – we need cold cuts.  Off we go to the finally open London Way grocery store (with a quick pit stop at the restaurant we want to eat at tonight to make a “booking” that we are sure we won’t need, but we wanted to ensure a space, and ensure they were open!).  OMG, the grocery store!  What a zoo!  Talk about packed.  And with really narrow aisles and people everywhere.  Jeez.  It’s a great store though, so sorry it wasn’t open yesterday, but no matter – we made do and are here now.  Smoked ham, cheese, snacks and more beer and wine (craft beer for Ed – you can’t turn down a 750L of Flying Dodo beer! – and a bottle of S African Chenin Blanc for me for the ship) and we are set for our lunch.  We want some croissants and another baguette for later but their bakery doesn’t appear to have anything…weird….

We head home to stash our purchases, find another bakery and head off there for morning treats.  Weirdly, our data keeps going on and off.  It shows 5 bars, but if you get out of a map – you can’t reconnect.  We manage to make it to the bakery anyway – through little back neighborhood streets – buy our baguettes and croissants and meander back to the apartment to make lunch – Ham and Cheese baguette with BBQ sauce (from last night) for me and Ham, Cheese and Egg sandwich, Ed’s normal lunch at home, only on a baguette this time (there were leftover eggs here in the fridge, as well as butter as well as the frozen veggies we ate last night).  Then, in a very unlike Ed and Cathy way, we spent most of the rest of the day inside.

Yeah, we know, we are not usually like this but A) we covered lots of ground when we were here in 2020, B) the only museum we wanted to visit here is closed “temporarily,” and C) it’s hot and we are still getting used to the temperature change.  All that being said, we are being relative slugs today.

But then again, you all know us, we can’t sit still all day – so we take off around 2 to walk into town, past the Bateau-Roche monument, dedicated to Remy-Ollier who was a teacher and a vocal supporter of colored people’s rights; He started his own newspaper when other papers refused to run an article he wrote in support of Alexandre Dumas –  and on into the historical center of the city.  Quite the difference from yesterday!  Shops are open, more traffic and people out, it’s nice to just meander about, taking in the activity, wandering through the central market, which is all but closed now, then heading to the waterfront. 

At the waterfront park, we turn back toward the apartment, since we visited here in 2020 and don’t need to walk out to the monument for carved depiction of the 1810 battle.  Walking this way, we pass the statue of Swami Sivananda, or the Gros Boudha.  Sivananda was a doctor in Malaysia who devoted himself to the service of the needy – apparently there are numerous places in Mauritius named after him, although we’re not really sure why, except that he was an extraordinary person who believed deeply in spirituality.  At any rate, the statue does remind you of a Buddha statue, just with different features, all created from stone and pebbles. 

It is a lovely walk along the promenade that fronts the bay of Grand Port, past the plaques explaining the history of this area of the island (the island was named in 1598 by the Dutch in honor of Maurice de Nassau, the bay of Grand Port was actually christened Port Warwick) with fabulous views out to Lion Mountain and the little island of Mouchoir Rouge.

Further along, at a little inlet we stumbled upon, I become fascinated with this little Striated Heron fishing out on a rock, while Ed focuses on the little wooden boats in the bay.  Then we wander on home, meeting Siddick in the street near the apartment, having a long conversation about families and taking care of mothers, then bidding him farewell to spend the rest of the afternoon in the apartment – doing the un-E&C thing!

But, hey, good thing we did, because around 4:30 the skies opened up and it was a monsoon.  Ok, for only about 10 minutes and then it just stopped.  But still.  We’re comfy and dry in our little Mahebourg abode.

Seven o’clock rolls around, and we head over to Le Bistrot for our booking…which we of course did not need because we are the very first customers there, grabbing the primo 2-top outside on the corner near the windows so we can catch the breeze, but not get wet if it rains.  Perfect.  And the meal matches the seating.  Oh so good and delicious.  Garlic bread is brought to the table, then we have a “starter” of Octopus salad – all octopus in a red vinaigrette – and huge.  I’m full from the bread and my little portion of the octopus.  For our mains, I had the Vanilla Chicken.  I’ve been waiting for that ever since we booked the apartment and looked at restaurants in the area – and it does not disappoint.  Tender chunks of chicken in this delicious vanilla cream sauce.  Absolutely fabulous.  And the sweet waitress/hostess brought us fresh bread to sop up the sauce.  Perfection.  Ed had the grilled Dorado, again, fabulous.  Good size, perfectly grilled, a light sauce on top.  All in all, an excellent meal and well worth the wait (even the additional day wait, as we learned they were open last night.  Sigh.  But our waitress said they were really busy, so tonight worked much better for us – who knows where we would have sat, or if the meals would have been as good.)

Back home – a 3-minute walk mind you –we spent the evening repacking and watching more City of Shadows.  Then it is off to bed. Tomorrow, the Journey awaits!