10.16.09
Rosario and I got up this morning and grabbed some breakfast and headed to our Adventure Park and Beach trip. I was ambushed by Dr. Aimee and was told to get on her bus, which I did gladly. Mackenzie was right behind me so we both hopped on. We drove about an hour to the park. We got there and signed our lives away on waivers and got fitted into our harnesses. They were super atrratcive. We could have totally pulled off being “robust mountain women.” We had a brief lesson on how to use carabineers and away we went.
The first course was the easy one. We clipped in and then walked across a series of footbridges. They were pretty wobbly, but not too hard. There were spaces that were pretty far apart that you had to jump over. Mackenzie and I followed Dr. Aimee, Kara (her 12 year old daughter) and her friend Louise. They were too funny. I love them! As Dr. Aimee pointed out – “How many other professors would do this?” The last bridge we crossed had nothing to hold onto. That was kind of tricky, but I ended up doing something between walking briskly and running across it. I didn’t fall so I guess it worked. While doing all of this we were being eaten ALIVE by mosquitoes (As our guide said “The mosquitoes are like helicopters.”). Our guide had warned us, but I never expected that. Between the 2 courses Mackenzie and I ran back to the reception area and put on her 98% deet. Since Deet eats plastic and I just put 98% on my skin, I had some on my hands and it ended up eating a little but of my flip, but the mosquitoes stopped biting.
The second course was way more difficult. We had to hike up to the top of this mountain. We were all ready up most of it, but the hike up was still pretty difficult so I am counting it as my mountain in Mauritius. We got to the first obstacle and it was a net laid over the ground, but it was basically touching the ground so it was pretty easy to get across. The incline was so great that people behind me ended up just doing a make-shift zip line down. That was definitely the easy way to go rather then fight the net. Our next task was another footbridge that had nothing to hold onto. The gaps were really wide so there were ropes hanging down that we used to swing ourselves across the gaps. I kind of wanted to try and Tarzan it across, but that really didn’t work, but I did make it across.
The 3rd obstacle was a cage type thing of ropes. It went over and us and down either side, but there was no bottom. So either you had to put a foot an each side or try to shuffle down one side. I tried to monkey bar it down the middle, but that killed my hands. I wish I would have had gloves. I ended up slowly, but surely making my way down one side. Louise fell at one point and ended up swinging from the bottom of the ropes. Dr. Aimee got a little tangled up on the way down and had to have the guides help. Best line of the day:
Guide: “Wow! You’re flexible.”
Dr. Aimee: “Oh yeah, I’m really flexible.”
Probably one of the funniest exchanges because she says all this in some sort of weird pretzel position.
Both Mackenzie and I made it down, but we were both exhausted and my arms were shaking. The 4th obstacle was a set of log swings. The logs were about 6 inches wide. You had to stand on one and swing yourself forward and some how kind of jump to the next swing. I thought this one was really fun, but towards the end some where higher than others and going up and down was a bit challenging.
We then faced just a wall of rope that we had to shuffle down sideways. There was a path where you could walk down so I opted for that since I don’t think my arms had not yet fully recovered. Then we finally made it to the zip line! It was so fun! But not nearly long enough. I slammed into this pad at the end of it and it was slightly jarring, but all part of the experience. I guess now I kind of know how Tinkerbell feels every night during Wishes!
After the zip line was the final obstacle – a rope bridge. There were two ropes on either side. One for each foot and one for each hand. I went with the approach of putting both feet on one rope and tightrope walk across it. I had a flash back to Wesley Woods in 7th grade with BGA and there was a similar obstacle there and that approach worked. I made it about halfway across, but then my balance just went to hell. I completely flipped over and then it was just game over from there. I managed to get back up once, but then I just fell again. So I am hanging there from my harness and I do the only thing that makes sense. I flip my feet up over the rope so my back is parallel with the ground and go hand over hand in a sloth-like movement and pull myself across the ropes. It was a little unorthodox, but it worked. Dr. Aimee got a great picture of me hanging upside down.
We all wandered back to the reception building to get lunch and count our bug bites. One girl had about 30 on each leg. We hung out a little bit there and Bill and Maria entertained us with some awesome dancing. We finally left the park and went to Flick-en-Flak Beach. It was nice, but definitely not as nice as I was expecting it to be. The water was beautiful, but it was freezing. Our tour guide stopped on the way there and cut some sugar cane out of some random field. When we got the beach he cut it up and gave each of us some sugar cane to chew on. The texture was what I imagine to be like chewing on bark. You don’t actually eat it. You chew on it and get the juice that is inside of it. So we sat on the beach, looking at the ocean and chewing on sugar cane. One random thing about their beaches is that they are pretty wooded and the trees look line pine trees. It kind of reminded me of the boundary waters.
Mackenzie and I decided to walk and did a little shopping. After walking around for a bit, Dr. Aimee came and found us and told us to get back to the bus because we were heading back early. We all wanted to get back early so we could finish up shopping because Diwali is tomorrow and everything is going to be closed. Diwali is, how I got it explained to me, like the Indian New Year. We signed out of the trip so we could stay in the waterfront. We finished our shopping and by that time we were both starving so of course we ended up going to Pizza Hut again. The pizza hut there is like a nice sit down restaurant. We sat at an outside table that overlooked the harbor and we could see the ship. We also saw Maria and Bill again and some of crew members who were using the free wi-fi. Bill and Maria entertained us again with some dancing. Bill took a hat and set it on the ground and tried to get some tips. He ended up getting a few rupees from our crew members, which was pretty funny. It was a fantastic dinner and very relaxing.
After dinner, we ventured to find a grocery store of some kind so we could load up on snacks, but we never found one. So we grabbed a water taxi and went back to the ship. It felt amazing to shower. I felt so icky from all the deet I had put on, plus I was dirty from traipsing around in the jungle of Mauritius.
We met back up and went back into Port Louis for internet. We ran into Jennifer and Rosario there. Jennifer ended up coming back to the ship with us. We chilled in the room, played cards and watched High School Musical 2.