Third time’s the charm

Here I am back in Mauritius for the third time this year and from the comparative luxury of my hotel room this time to previous visits I would say the third time is indeed the charm. The trip started with a very early morning getting up at 4 am to get dressed, feed the animals and make the journey to King Shaka International Airport. Unfortunately I had to fly via Johannesburg as there are no direct flights to Mauritius from Durban on Saturdays. The first flight was okay with just a bit of turbulence coming in to land in Johannesburg due to a moderate headwind.

I had a bit of time to spare in Johannesburg so checked out the electronics duty-free shop before making my way to my boarding gate. Just an aside, if you believe that the duty-free shops (in Johannesburg) are cheaper than normal shops then you are sadly mistaken! While I was waiting at the boarding gate I came across one of the French participants of the meeting I am attending. It was a nice distraction to chat to him while waiting for boarding to commence especially when boarding was delayed by 25 minutes. Eventually we boarded the plane, an Airbus 340-300e, and took our seats. I was in the second row from the back. I don’t really enjoy sitting behind the wings but I had no choice in this and the flight was full so there was no moving. We sat for ages waiting with no word from the cockpit as to why we were further delayed but I had a good view of the proceedings outside. There was a problem with one of the cargo bins and the baggage handlers had to go find a replacement bin and then transfer all the baggage in the faulty bin into the replacement. The rest of the passengers started getting rather restless and started confronting the hostess about what was happening. She must have passed this on to the captain because he made an announcement: “Sorry everyone but at this stage we are looking at a seven hour delay due to a cargo loading problem”. This was met with dead silence and he paused just a little before telling us that he was just joking and that we would be on our way shortly and that the problem had been one of the cargo bins that had to be replaced.

It wasn’t long to push back and we got underway. The flight was thankfully uneventful and I got to see my first sighting of Réunion Island. I have flown over it five times previously but have always been on the wrong side of the plane. It really is quite dramatic with its volcanic peaks. Réunion marked the start of the descent to Mauritius. The landing was a bit of a kangaroo hop but not too bad.

Réunion Island

Sitting at the back of the plane has definite disadvantages when heading to immigration. I was almost last in the queue for the snail crawl through the process. When I got to the front of the queue the woman asked me how many people were with me and when I said one she looked very sorry for me. I told her that I was not on holiday but here for a meeting and she said that was okay then that I was on my own.

I met up with the Frenchman outside the airport building and he gleefully told me that he had been upgraded to business class so he really enjoyed the flight. We found our hotel transfer driver and a couple of other participants and then spent another two hours waiting for who knows what before we were taken to the minibus for the hour-long journey to the hotel.

At the hotel we were ushered to the lounge area and given welcome drinks (very nice lemongrass flavoured water) while we waited for our paperwork to be brought to us to register as guests at the hotel. While it was a novel way to check in to a hotel it was a time consuming process and it took another hour before we were eventually shown to our rooms - minus our luggage which I was assured would be delivered within a few minutes. After yet another hour-long wait I phoned reception and asked where my suitcase was because all I wanted was to have a shower and go to bed. They said it would be delivered in 5 minutes and luckily this was the case. So after a very long day I finally managed to crawl into bed.

My room is really lovely and the welcome platter of pineapple and coconut was devoured really quickly. I do understand why it is so expensive to stay here and I am for once lapping up the luxury.

 My room

The view from my balcony

Today our meeting has begun. Fortunately it was not an early start because, while I had intentions of getting up early to go for a walk, I was still on South African time and just couldn't make it out of bed until there was only time left to go for breakfast before going to the meeting.

The entrance to the meeting venue