Mauritius - Our Treasure Island

At a recent press conference, a member of the public remarked on my Mauritian tan with obvious distaste, "Jeez but you guys are always traveling, when do you work?"

My response is always the same, "My husband and I do not want to live in a big fancy mansion on the beach, we do not want to drive expensive cars and we certainly do not want to build empires, we would rather travel." And that is exactly what we do.

There are no words to describe our adventures, because most of them are not all together completely planned. We normally ensure that for the first couple of days we have a place to sleep and only once we are at our destination do we finalise our itinerary.

This time around for the first four days we chose a fancy villa style home in a region called Flic en Flac, a touristy spot with many vacationers, some elderly, from all parts of the world, frying their 'very white' bits on coral shores of a perfectly blue sea.

In Flic en Flac we saw some bizarre things, like a generously aged gentleman, I mean somewhere around his late seventies, whose skin was the same colour as a roasted chicken, calmly walking along the beach in his 'teeny weeny' red G-string.

Here also all forms of modesty fly out the window as women of questionable shapes and sizes openly flaunt their wobbly bits in two-piece bikinis. It is all very reassuring, to be honest, nobody on those public beaches cares about pretence. It is vacation indifference at its best.

One of the reasons we tend to avoid staying in the holiday resorts is to avoid the poor, malnourished Barbie dolls that hang around the pools and beach area in their matching designer bikinis. They look like they have just finished their two-month carb free diet, lost tons of weight and are ready for that top international model placement, however some of them can be as bitchy and unfriendly as a venomous snake. Condescending would be an understatement.

Personally I would rather hang out with the friendly people found on the public beach, and hang out with the locals who are always looking for good natured fun, that most of the time includes local rum and music, the perfect duo for an island holiday.

Don't get me wrongbeach resorts are perfect for young families with children who need constant entertaining and for people who prefer to have everything served to them.

As tourists, we are just not wired for resort leisurewhen we travelled with our children it made sense to stay in resorts but even then they soon got tired of the Wi-Fi, the play station and the satellite television and begged us to take them on a 'real' adventure.

Mauritius is a perfect destination for personalised adventure travels. Just check availability on Air B&B, https://www.beachhousesmauritius.com, https://www.mauritius-villa-rentals.com or https://www.tripadvisor.co.za or just type 'holiday rentals in Mauritius' and you will get hundreds of hits.

Our first Villa D'Architect in Flic en Flac was a cool space to chill. It had everything we neededwe were just not prepared for the mosquitos, jeeze Mauritius has lethal mosquitos, so remember to pack Peaceful Sleep or Tabard, you cannot do without it and yes you can buy it on the island but it will cost you three times more there than in South Africa.

Another important item to pack is sunscreen. The sun over there is twice as hot as it is here. We got frazzled so fast it was amazing. Our SPF 50 hardly had any effect, however we were very grateful for it. It did rain a lot while we were there, however the rain was more often than not a welcome relief from the heat and the sizzling sun.

Car rental on the island was really simple and abundant, out little Hyundai i10 was brand new and all we really needed. We traversed the island from top to bottom and left to right and the freedom of movement really added a special quality to our stay. Scooters are also freely available but we opted for the safer option of a car and with the on off on again rain, which was unpredictable, it proved to be the right choice.

In Flic en Flac we could walk wherever we needed to go, with numerous nightlife venues, restaurants and supermarkets, we did not need to leave the town. The tall acacia trees provided the much needed shade on the very long stretch of white sandy beach. The lagoon was always calm and the gentle swish of crystal clear water beckoned to everybody on the beach, offering some welcomed relief from the scorching suns rays. Across the road coffee shops and restaurants offered a variety different from the mobile fast food vending caravans that were dotted along the beach's parking lots.

You really don't need to move from Flic en Flac if you choose to stay there, however we were driven to bring you more adventures and so we packed our bags, bid farewell to our plush designer villa and headed for our next destination.

Join us next week for more about this island of romance, decadence and blissful relaxation.