Being a tourist in Mauritius

The beach at the end of the lane

View from the River House verandah

Fly to Mauritius, hire a car and make the River House your base. It's a small island and you can get anywhere in a couple of hours. (Just remember that even though most people are speaking French, you drive on the LEFT in Mauritius!)

The rooms at the River House are comfortable, the breakfast is delicious and the location is perfect.

In the evening, you can sit on the verandah (three rooms have their own private verandahs,) and watch the sun go down and the sky change colour.

Sunset from the beach by the Tamarina Hotel

As the sky darkens you can work up an appetite to hunt out a nearby restaurant, or anticipate one of Angela's traditional, spicy Mauritian dinners. (Just give a couple of days' notice and let her know if you have any preferences or allergies.)

Alternatively, take a gentle 5-minute stroll down to the beach and walk up the steps to the luxurious cocktail bar of the Tamarina Hotel. 

Access to the beach is restricted to the River House, and a few other properties. It is nearly always deserted, and the surf is perfect for body-surfing.

If you want to snorkel, the beach at Flic en Flac is about 10 minutes away, with crystal-clear water and shoals of brightly-coloured fish. 

It is mostly a public beach, so you can find cheap snacks on sale everywhere. There is some tourism development, but although it's becoming a popular resort, Flic en Flac hasn't become quite as commercialised as some other parts of Mauritius. 

The proof of this sweeping generalisation is the number of guests at the River House who leave to tour around, only to phone in a day or two, in the hope that Angela will have a vacancy so that they might be able to return to what is, in my opinion, the ideal base for a holiday on this wonderful island.

I thoroughly enjoyed just lying in the pool and reading a book

My room did not have its own verandah, but I wouldn't have swapped it for one of the larger ones, because my room had its own exclusive feature. 

In addition to its en-suite, it had a tiny courtyard garden full of plants and flowers and with an outdoor shower. I shall always remember my morning showers in the privacy of my secret garden under the open sky.

But tomorrow I must fly home, from 30 degrees Celsius in Mauritius to 30 degrees Fahrenheit in England. After my experience here, I am seriously investigating ways to spend the early months of every year in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Anyone down there need a house-sitter. . . ?