Complete Rainbow

We actually drove beneath this one. Let's hope it brings good luck!

Double Rainbow

I finally got a picture of a double rainbow. There are so many rainbows here that perhaps I will be able to see a triple rainbow some day.

Tiger

One of only 3 tigers in the whole country. The 3 of them live at Casela Bird Park.

Albino Kangaroo

Another Close Up

It's amazing how animals get so used to human presence. This ostrich was trying to make a meal out of my camera.

Pheasant

Casela is another zoo in Mauritius; a bird park to be precise. They have all sorts of birds, and I managed to take a close up picture of this Pheasant without it running away. The green hue you see in the middle of the picture was one of the many little cage bars.

Baie du Cap

This is yet another huge rock extending into the water. All huge rocks seem to be in the south of the island!

Gris Gris

Again, this was the third time I went there, but the first time in daylight. It is only a couple hundred metres away from the crying rock and it's a public beach. You can actually go down to those rocks; that's were the two men where swimming at.

Swim Harder!

These two guys were trying very hard to swim back to beach against the current, but at times it seemed as though they were never going to make it. The ocean is very strong in the south coast of Mauritius.

From a Distance

That rock extending into the water is the crying rock, where I took the previous pictures.
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More Crying Rock

La Roche Qui Pleure

The Rock that Cries. I had been here twice before, but there had never been enough daylight to take a decent picture. I guess there is so much water beating the rock with such great force, that when it splashes it seems like tears flying.

Native Mauritians

They were making some kind of documentary on cavemen near La Roche Qui Pleure in the south. I wonder if cavemen did really live this close to the ocean.

Bite Force

They say they bite very hard, but I didn't want to test with my finger.

Up Close!

Tortoiseback Ride

They were strong enough to take you for a ride! Very slow, but they managed to walk. I even made a video of it.

Vanilla

Sunday the same usual group, Amelia, Sonia, and I, went to Vanilla Nature Park in the very south of the island near Riviere des Anguilles. The main attraction was a garden filled with giant tortoises, more than 100, as you will see in other pictures.

Voile

I took this picture the they we went on the submarine ride using Isadora's camera. She had some trouble with her computer in Mauritius and wasn't able to give me the photo before, it's only now I got it. I really like it!

Pieter Both

The second peak from left to right is called Pieter Both and it's the second highest mountain in Mauritius at 823m. The highest one is called Piton de la Petite Riviere Noire further to the south of the island and that one is 828m tall.

Port Louis View

Finally at the top, we got the view of Port Louis and other parts of the island. It was a little clouded, but we managed to get a couple of good pictures from the top.

Apple

This was taken during our lunch break. The sandwiches we bought were a little too spicy, so I settled for eating two apples and a bag of chips. Not the best lunch but better than having a steaming mouth.

Fly

There were a lot of flies flying around on our way up; during one of our breaks I took a couple of pictures of them. This one I like because it has an excellent perspective of magnitude between my nail and the fly.

Power Break

It took us about two and a half hours to reach the top of the peak (including the lunch break and the power breaks like this one). Going down was faster, about one hour.

Power Nap

After I got sick, I took a power nap for about 20 mins and that helped a lot! After that I was able to keep climbing and reached the top.

Mari Fatigué!

I made the mistake of not eating anything before climbing the mountain and it was no wonder I got sick while going up. I almost fainted, it felt horrible! I thought I wasn't going to make it to the top.

Le Pouce

Thumb Peak (far in the back of the picture) is the third highest mountain in Mauritius, 812m. Shyam, Swaley, Kevin and I climbed to the top yesterday and it was a bit complicated; there was a lot of mud because it was raining earlier. The way down was even harder because it started to rain again and the path became even more slippery, but it was a lot of fun.

Splash

This is the whale splashing water; I managed to make a little video of it. We never take the seaside road to come to the office, it is always the motorway which is far from the water. Randomly today the driver had to stop at David's restaurant to drop his computer there, so he took the smaller beach road and voila, we saw whales!

Whales at the Beach

While coming to work today, we saw a whale just playing around very close to the beach. It jumped a couple of times but by the time I had my camera in hand it stopped jumping, it just kept beating the water with its fin.

Thumbs Up!

Faceless

Since the apparatus was round, due to light refraction from some angles the person inside isn't visible like in this picture. You can only see a hand with a camera. This was Amelia taking her photos.

Air Bubble & Fish Face

Inside the diving apparatus there is air, when you shift it huge bubbles like the one in the pictures escape from underneath.

This picture was taken precisely at the moment when a fish was swimming by the diver's face and it randomly showed up as if the fish's mouth was the man's mouth. Cool accident photo!

Touching the Reef

Feeding Bread

As I said before, the tickly feeling of the fish biting your hand was very interesting. You could have around 20 fish trying to feed from your hand.

Holding the Apparatus

Although I did have a ballast attached to my waist, the weight of the apparatus also helped to keep you at the bottom. It was tricky to move at the beginning with such a bulky thing on your head, but if you use your hands to shift your weight it isn't that hard after all.

Inside the Apparatus

Undersea Walk

Last Saturday we went to do an under the sea walk. We just dived at a depth of 3 meters using a diving apparatus to feed fish. It was very nice! The best part was when we were actually giving bread to the fish and they bit it out of your hand! The feeling of dozens of tiny jaws biting your hand was very weird but nice.

South West Coast View

The road to get to Parc Aventure and 7 Coloured Earth is very narrow, but it has an espectacular view over the coast. The weather that day was very bad in the morning, but towards the evening it became very nice; not hot or cold, just perfect!

Random People

7 Colours

I'm not sure if you can count the seven in this picture, but at least you can see there is a difference. Very beautiful place really.

From Far

Sonia, Isa and Sundeep. This was taken at 7 coloured earth in Chamarel near the south of the island; it's a place where the dirt has seven different colours.

Bird's Eye

Little Trouble

Sundeep had no trouble crossing all of the obstacles except the last one. I guess his muscles were tired just like the rest of us and he couldn't keep his balance at all crossing that last rope bridge.

Slightly Askew

Rope Bridge

This was the last obstacle and the hardest one as well. It consisted of 4 loose ropes hanging between two trees. Very very hard to keep balance! Isa and Sonia retired before doing this one, Amelia on the other hand surprised us all and crossed it very quickly!

Lost Sole

It seems like Sonia is going to have to buy new shoes!

Sundeep Hanging

Hanging Nets

This was one of the hardest! There was no bottom, the nets were only joined about two meters from the end.

Isa Swinging

Sonia Swinging

Amelia

On this bridge, the step were very far away so you had to swing on ropes to reach the next one. Amelia was the only one who didn't dare to do it! Boring Boring!!