Mauritius, An Island Of Emotion @ Chamarel, Black River Gorges and great Seafood lunch

1. Seven Coloured Earth @ Charamel

The Seven Coloured Earth is a geological formation and prominent tourist attraction found in the Chamarel Plain of Riviere Noire District in South-western Mauritius. How interesting!

It is in fact a relatively small area of sand dunes comprising sand of seven distinct colours (i.e. red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow). In fact, the colours are dependent on the sunlight.

The main feature of the place is that since these differently coloured sands spontaneously settle in different layers, dunes acquire a surrealistic, striped colouring. At the entrance of the Seven Coloured Earth, there is this beautiful Chamarel Waterfall. Although this is not the most magnificent waterfall that I've seen, this waterfall is the highest in Mauritius.

Pineapples sticking out from the bushes

Red Pineabpple, How Unique

Chamarel Waterfall

The Chamarel also has quite a number of gigantic turtles that seem to have live for almost 100 years old. It's quite a small area to walk about and can be easily completed in 30 mins. The Seven Coloured Earth is protected with wooden fence to prevent people from stepping on the sand dunes.

2. Black River Gorges National Park

Black River Gorges National Park is located on the hilly South Western part of Mauritius. It covers a wide area, including the humid upland forest, drier lowland forest and marshy healthland. Within the national park are several viewing points for tourists to view the spectacular views of the gorges and also picnic sites for familes to enjoy their weekends in the forest.

There is also a waterfall known as the "Alexandra Fall" in the national park. This waterfall however is much smaller than the Chamarel Fall.

It feels magical (rather than relaxed) to walk in the forest and when we arrived at the gorges viewing point, we were simply taken away by the beautiful scenery before us.

Beautiful view

Alexandra Fall

We walked for an hour before the guide hurried us to our next destination. Just outside the National Park, there were several small stalls selling souvenirs @ touristy prices and fresh coconut drinks. We bought the coconut drink from the stall and it tasted so refreshing especially during the warm day. We even spotted a cute van painted in Mickey Mouse characters. This van actually sold tidbits and snacks.

Mickey Mouse van selling tibits

3. Great Seafood Lunch @ Saveur Tropical

We had our lunch at Saveur Tropical located at Royal Road, Chamarel, Back River. The seafood served at this restaurant were simply fantastic. It was here that we had a sumptuous meal consisting of gigantic tiger prawns (the biggest that I've ever eaten) and lobster, cooked in Mauritian style.

The food tasted "walah"! I would say that Mauritian's cooking really made great use of the spices to boost the flavour of the food to a whole new level. I quite like the spices used in their cooking. The ending dessert, crystallized banana, is really sweet. Basically, they grilled the banana and added sugar to it. As simple as that, but the end result was really good. Of course, this meal cost us a hefty price but for the freshness of the seafood, I would say, it's a must have!