Wow, we are finally here. To be perfectly honest it still feels like a holiday, I don't think any of us have really come to terms with the magnitude of what has just happened.
We had a great time saying goodbye to all the family, although it was very hard. To begin with when people were saying goodbye to me I felt like I was on a different planet than them, like I was just moving house and couldn't understand why they were so upset but it soon dawned on me. It was much harder than I thought it was. David's mum, dad and brother came to see us off at the airport and that was absolutely fantastic, particularly for David and the children. I think they really appreciated it.
And so to our 11 hour flight to Mauritius. I think between the 4 of us we managed 6 hours sleep and James had the lion's share of that. It felt much worse because it was a night flight landing in Mauritius at lunchtime. A tip now for those of you intending to come out, flying via Mauritius is definitely the most direct route, if you can stop over for 1 night each way it makes it easier. However, try to always land in the evening so you can go straight to bed if you haven't slept on the plane.
We had a 1 hour drive from the airport to our hotel in Mauritius, and the hotel totally met expectations when we arrived. Gorgeous hotel, fantastic setting and fabulous weather. However, we were shattered so after trying our best to stay awake at 6:30 pm (local time) we finally gave in and all fell asleep until 9am the next day. Feeling refreshed we explored the hotel grounds, but got as far as the pool and decided to stay there. Lying on sun loungers looking at the pool and mountain with the sea lapping on the beach just 6ft behind us, how perfect is that. The whole point of stopping in Mauritius was to have a total relax and not do anything and that is just what we did. All inclusive is fantastic for just those kind of short breaks when you are not doing anything, we just ate and drank when we felt like and didn't have to think about what we were spending etc. I don't think I could go all-inclusive for any longer than 4 days though, I'd be the size of a house and permanently drunk, even the cocktails were free!
Despite having 2 days of rain, Mauritius was beyond relaxing until the final day when we had to get up at 5am to get a taxi to the airport. An easy task for the day you might think, except the taxi didn't turn up at 6am as promised so we had to wait for another one which eventually turned up at 7am. We arrive at the airport to find that our plane has been delayed from 10:30am to 12:15pm, I can feel my body screaming out that it could have had an extra 2 hours sleep, and you try sleeping in a noisy airport. So free light refreshments all around as we hadn't had time for any breakfast.
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