Photos from Mauritius, 2018

A friend I met at summer camp in 2010 later became an air hostess.

She ended up falling in love with her colleague, who is from Mauritius, so I went to their wedding.

They had just bought a house there but were still stationed in Dubai, so they let me stay at their place for a couple of months leading up to the big day.

Alexandra Falls is a 500-foot waterfall in the Black River Gorges National Park. I can’t remember much about it but I’m sure it involved a short hike.

Being an island country, there is no shortage of beaches in Mauritius. Many of them were very secluded, including this one which was a 5 minute walk from my friend’s house.

I went swimming there almost every day for a month and think I only ever saw a handful of other people.

Black River Gorges National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is home to 163 endemic flora species and 28 endemic bird species in Mauritius.

It has some spectacular views.

The Chamarel Seven Colored Earth Geopark is a natural geological formation.

The only other place I’ve seen something like this was the Danxia Landforms in China, but I think the way they are formed is different.

Aldabra giant tortoises are one of the largest species of giant tortoise in the world.

I can’t remember where I took this picture, but you can see them in the Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth Geopark as well as in La Vanille Nature Park and probably some other places too.

Grand Bassin is a crater lake located in the heart of Mauritius and is considered the most sacred Hindu place in Mauritius.

There are several holy places and statues of deities there.

Tamarin River is a 12km river located in the Black River district. It flows from Mare aux Vacoas to the Indian Ocean.

You can kayak on it.

Well, that was the last of my catch-up travel posts, which means from now on these travel slideshows will be much more sporadic as I am making a conscious effort not to travel so much from now on.

I'll live in the Philippines, go to camp once a year, visit Australia and Malaysia once every couple of years, and perhaps just do one new country a year after camp.