Last night

Can't believe it! It's our last night in Mauritius already. Heather is now getting comfortable speaking French and creole and we have to leave. If she stayed here another few months, she would likely be able to speak creole fairly well. Maybe at her next visit in another 14 years!!! We will post pictures when we get back home. We thave a few thousand pictures to sort through.

Blue Bay

We had another 10+ dish chinese meal last Saturday. Every time we thought they were done, they brought another dish. Of course, we had to keep trying the food. Heather freaked out over seeing the head of steamed fish with its teeth.
Blue Bay is in the South South East corner of the island and is close to the airport. We stayed in Blue Bay for a couple of nights. Swimming is big in Mauritius; there was a swim club practicing right at the beach. Apparently there is a swimming pool that is waiting for a heater before it opens. We visited the Mahebourg waterfront but we were too late to visit the naval museum. I needed air in my tires but, of course, all the gas stations close at noon on Sunday. We went to the marine park in Blue Bay (there is another one in Bacclava) and went snorkeling. The corals were huge. There are 28 species of corals and 72 species of fish in the lagoon. We bought more necklaces on the beach.
Heather is "camping" in Flic en Flac for a couple of nights with a friend and her family. She is still fitting in her swim practices in between all of this. Her friend's dad is taking Heather to swim practice and then she is going to stay to teach her friend starts and underwater kick.

Pictures

Heather and her new friends

FRIENDS
Heather and Melissa at Pereybere

Heather and Melanie aon the catamaran on the way to ilot Gabriel

Heather and Melanie at the chapel on ilot Gabriel. They do wedding ceremonies on the island. Nobody lives on that island, just visits.

Heather and Melissa waiting to go undersea walk and tubing.

Update

Sorry we haven't posted in a while, but we've been so busy lately and often w/o internet access. So far on this trip I have read the following books: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult, and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer. They were all really good books!!! And I must say, please read My Sister's Keeper before you see the movie!!!! That little fact could be essential to your health in matters of life of death. Anyway, I think I've watched just about every movie on my Ipod... except for the really scary ones! Today we went on a Catamaran ride and it was really stormy out. So when we were riding on the front (me and Jeremey and Melanie) we were going up and down and up and down and we were getting splashed all over! It was crazy fun! We saw a whale and also flying fish!!! They were so cool... at first I didn't know if they were flying fish or swimming birds! Hahaha! Anyway, time for bed!!!

Driving in Mauritius

I have mastered driving in Mauritius. I just have to remember that the driver's seat is on the right side of the vehicle. Driving on the left side is no problem and I am now an expert in taking round-abouts. I definitely have developed bigger leg and arm muscles on the left side of my body from constanlty using the clutch and using the stick.
Here are some rules and tips about driving in Mauritius:
1. Get use to driving in circles before u get here because there are lots of round-abouts. Very often the streets are not well marked, so you may have to go around the roundabouts more than once until you get to the right branch off the round-about.
2. Driving on the left side is a breeze since you can drive on the right side of the road too. There are always cars coming right at you.
3. Motorcyles and bicycles go on your left, on your right, in front, behind, in between vehicles; so, watch out for them because you never know where one will appear. There are no rules for motorcyles and bicycles.
4. Lights for motorcyles and bicycles are not necessary and it seems to be a rule that you should wear dark clothes while riding bikes, which means you need to have night-vision googles to drive at night
5. Most roads are so tight with no sidewalk, meaning people just walk on the road with dark clothes. And do not run them over because you will be found guilty
6. If you need to get out of an intersection, put your right hand out the window and wave until someone stops. You need to make sure your vehicle is at least 5 feet into the intersection first.
7. Honk when you need to get thru, honk if you're giving way to another vehicle, honk if your mad at someone's driving, honk if you just want to get someone's attention.
8. If there are 2 inches on each side of your vehicle to get thru traffic, you should be able to just fly thru. Just remember that pedestrians are not scared of vehicles.
9. Practice driving in LA rush hour and you should have no problem here. Who said there were poor people in Mauritius? Cars here, cars there, cars everwhere!
10. If ever stopped by police for speeding, not having your seatbelt, or for any other reasons, just remember that money talks.
If you can drive in Mauritius, you can drive in the US without any problems whatsoever. I think all teenagers should come to Mauritius for a month to practice driving before they get their license.
- Caroline

Daily Update

Bonjour tout le monde!!!

I don't have time to update any new pictures right now, because today we are off to another zoo-type thing. But what I'm more excited about is riding four-wheelers again! hahaha! Anyway, this week (5-10 July) we will be up at Pereybere.

We are staying in a bungalo there with some relatives.

This is what the beach there looks like. The only bad part is that I will have a long way to drive to swim practice... because now I am going everyday! We originally thought I was just gonna go for like 3 days a week... but that little voice inside my head kept telling me, "go to practice! go to practice! or else you will die of embarassment at the state swim meet!!!" So now I am going everyday! Oh well I guess I shouldn't complain. How's practice back in the US?

-Heather

Zoo

JACKIE: Have you checked my blog yet? How are you? I miss you!!! What's new? Oh and I need ur phone #!!!!
SARAH: Um... pretty sure you NEVER answer ur phone.

SWIMMERS:EEEp cannot wait for HS season!!!!
KELLY: Did you answer when I called one time?

This is starfruit... it looks amazing, but I think it's more of an aquired taste...

This is me riding on a giant tortoise... there was one there that was 95 years old!!! I sat on him too; poor old grampa turtle... i probably squished him! hahahaha! jk! He was really big!!

BE YOUNIQUE!!!

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT!!!!

hahaha I know it's cheezy, but I thought it was funny that there were a bunch of black fish and then one orange fish... so I took a pick and I'm making it my very own 'Dare to be Different' poster! hahaha!

This is one of the monkeys in the zoo. We fed them peanuts. It was so cool bc they would actually reach through the cage an grab the peanut out of your hand!!!

Dubai Pictures

Just a warning that you cannot run more than a few seconds on the beach without your feet burning. The water is actually hotter than bath water. Caroline likes warm water to get in to swim but the water was just to warm to even be able to cool down. We had to go find shade to cool off.

Waiting for the land cruisers to cool off before we can take off again.

Heather on her 4-wheeler in the desert.