The More Candles, the Bigger the Wish!

Knowing that dolphins are my most beloved, favorite animal, Richard arranged a tour for us on the morning of my birthday. We dragged ourselves out of bed at six and hitched a boat ride to the other side of the bay at the hotel.

We hopped in a taxi and drove for an hour to the other side of the island. I always hear horrible things about traffic in Mauritius, but we seemed to be the only ones on the road. As we passed by villages, Indian music was playing over loudspeakers and people in beautiful costumes were walking around carrying shrines over their head. 

"Today is a holiday, it is the celebration of Shiva," the taxi driver informed us. Richard whispered that Mauritius is known as "Little India," the major origin of their ancestry and culture. I felt pretty honored that Shiva was sharing his day with me. Ironically, I saw three rainbows that morning. I took it as a good sign.

When we got to the lagoon, we hopped on another boat with six other people.

Our mission was to find some dolphins and maybe try to interact with them.

Our captain looked kind of scary at first but he turned out to be a big teddy bear. He was always asking us if we were happy, if we were having a good time...and if we wanted some rum. (It was 7:30am.) 

  

So we cruised along the slick lagoon, breathing in fresh salty air and enjoying the sunrise colors playing out on the landscape before us. 

Finally we came upon a cluster of dolphins surrounded by a few other boats. I had been worried about how this would work...if we would be disturbing the dolphins or causing any harm...but it was nothing like I feared. In fact, it seemed like the dolphins were enjoying a private little game. They would circle back and forth between boats, inviting swimmers to come chase them, then minutes later they'd kick up the speed and leave us in their wake. Little tricksters! 

The captain would spend some time angling us in their path. We'd climb up on the side of the boat and wait for his signal. "NOW!" He'd shout in French, and we'd dive in right next to the dolphins as they were passing by and swim swim swim as hard as we could to stay with them. Lucky for us the others seemed to be quite lazy and would give up swimming after about ten seconds. So Richard and I would be mostly alone with the pod after they whizzed by the boats. They swim so so fast...a minute with them was all we could do! 

After that, we would swim back to the boat and climb up. The dolphins would come back around eventually, teasing us to try it again. And so we did, for about an hour or so. 

When you jump in the water, the way they look at you goes straight to your heart...curious and compassionate, silent but deep...in those first few seconds when you're next to them and there's a connection there...I swear it is one of the highest highs life has to offer. 

After respectfully thanking the dolphins for playing with us, we bid farewell and went snorkling over by the reef. 

As you might imagine, we worked up a pretty big appetite! On the way home, we asked the taxi driver to stop in town for some local cuisine. Richard would not rest until he found some dholl puri, which was kind of difficult as most things were closing early for their Shiva celebrations. After a few tries we finally got lucky.

We spent the afternoon lazily napping underneath the palm trees with Elena and James. Then we got ready for dinner at Le Boucanier.

The food was magical, the service, superb. They even made me a special little cake before the dessert course. :)

I made three very important wishes. 

This photo makes me laugh every time.

It was the best birthday I've ever had.

I felt so lucky to be surrounded by such extraordinary people (and animals!) in pure paradise.

The night ended in pirate discussions back at the room.

Yeah, maybe the free champagne won again.

ARRRGGG MATEY!