When we opened the front door to go to breakfast, it was very odd.  We hadn’t looked out that direction - away from the ocean - the entire last week.  Indeed, since we went straight to our room after check-in, we had no clue what any of the rest of the grounds looked like, save for what was along the coastline close to our room.  There was a lake with ducks near our unit, and a couple other units inland from ours.  Around where we were, the buildings all had 4 rooms, with the two downstairs having large patios and the two upstairs having large decks.

There weren’t many people at breakfast.  The choices were ironically much less than what we’d had when we ordered into the room, as the buffet didn’t have any of the spicy fried rice that Justin had been ordering, and - very oddly - no potato dishes of any sort.  We couldn’t remember a breakfast buffet not having any sort of potatoes.  After breakfast we went to the front desk to get new keys, as we assumed our keys wouldn’t work, since we were supposed to have checked out days earlier, and our internet had cut out on the day we were supposed to have left.

Even though the self-isolation was a fixed 7 days, no matter what, and we were now free according to what we’d received from the Health Ministry, the guy at the front desk wanted to do more tests on us.  Justin was incensed, as this was continuing to be a “heads we win, tails you lose” sort of testing regimen.  Justin hadn’t been able to do squat for 4 days since he’d tested negative, yet they now wanted Crystal to not go out even if she’d done the rigid 7 days that she was required to do.  We saw the nurse again, and she asked about our plans and we told her “we’re going on an excursion in 15 minutes, our driver is showing up at 08:30.  We finished our 7 days, and we’re now going out exactly as we were told.”  We think she was tired of dealing of us (and especially Justin), and didn’t want to argue with us about anything anymore, because about 15 seconds after doing Crystal’s test said “good news, it’s negative.”  [Whether it would have continued to indicate negative if she’d waited the specified time, we’ll never know.]

We met Bernard at 08:30, and were very relieved to find out that he was fine.  He’d tested negative the evening we arrived, so thankfully we hadn’t given him anything.  And since we were with him today, and presumably not nearly as contagious as the week prior, we didn’t feel like we were putting him in any danger.  He gave us a new packet of stuff, with vouchers for the coming days.  He told us that his company, Emotions had won awards over the years for best local tour operator, and we weren’t surprised to hear this - they’d been great so far.  He said that because of COVID and the resulting drop in tourists, they were down to just 6 driver guides from the 20 they’d previously had.

We drove west from the hotel, then north, and went back to the same area where we’d seen the waterfall and 7-colored earth, Chamarel.  But today we were visiting the Ebony Forest, in another part of the park.  There was a small office area that had some drinks, souvenirs and (fortunately for us) bug spray.  We got some water and some bug spray and waited for the next vehicle to depart.  It seemed as though vehicles left the office at specific time increments, and however many people were in the office then would get on the vehicle.  We ended up in our own vehicle, however, as only one other couple was around, and we surmised they spoke French and not English.

The 4x4 started driving uphill on some winding roads, through the Ebony Forest.  The entity was attempting to regrow the native forest, which is always difficult since weed trees grow faster than the primary rainforest plants.  This is even more true for Ebony, as it grows very slowly because it is such a hard wood - even moreso than Mahagony.  He showed us some cross-sections of trees that were cut down a long time ago, and they had 3-5x the diameter of the plants now growing.  But at least the current ones were growing.  We got out of the vehicle at one spot and walked along a boardwalk path through the forest, where he pointed out various plants to us.  The Ebony trees were easy to make out, as even the outside of the trees were a darkish gray to light black color.  They looked nice, and we wondered if we should try to plant some in Pahoa.

There were also Dictyosperma palms everywhere, which we already have in Pahoa.  Justin asked if there were any of the other endemic Mauritian palms in the forest, and the guide said not at this elevation, no.  He said there were some down lower, a Latania, but he couldn’t remember the species.  Justin asked if it was Latania lodegisii, and he said yes, then gave a quizzical look.  Justin mentioned we had these, as well as the Dictyospermas, in our garden.

After finishing the boardwalk we got back in the vehicle and continued heading uphill, until we were at the top of the mountain.  We had arrived at Sublime Point, and the name was appropriate.  There were unimpeded views all over the southern part of the west coast, from Le Morne in the very southwest all the way up to Port Louis.  We could see one of the islands just offshore that we were supposed to visit on a boat trip on Friday; it looked full of Ironwood trees or some other sort of pine.  We hung out up there for about 15 minutes or so, and then got back in the 4x4 to head back down the hill.  On the drive, at the switchbacks the vehicle actually had to stop and do 3-point turns.  We were happy it wasn’t raining, as we wouldn’t want to be driving on the concrete if/when it was slick.

At the bottom of the hill, back by the ticket office, the guide showed us some teenage tortoises, which were bigger than the young ones we’d seen on Curiese Island in the Seychelles, but still quite a bit smaller than adults.  The guide mentioned that the tortoises are a big help when they’re released into the wild, as they disperse seeds and they munch on all the weeds that grow where they shouldn’t be.   Back in the vehicle with Bernard, we were on that same windy road again, heading east from Chamarel to the Black River Gorges lookout.  There was a parking lot right along the road, and we walked across the road and then north to a lookout with a panoramic view over the gorge and well to the north.  We could see almost all the way to Port Louis, with nothing but green peaks and valleys in between.  We could see some white tropic birds flying around, as the white plumage was conspicuous against the green background.

We got back in the car and continued on our tour.  Of note to us was that Bernard always opened only Justin’s door, never Crystal’s.  We weren’t sure if this was cultural, or if it was just because Justin’s door was on the same side of the vehicle as Bernard’s.  From the Black River lookout it was just a short drive to the Chamarel rhumerie.  There was a working rum distillery, a large restaurant for tourists, and a nice garden surrounding both.  

The three of us had lunch together.  There was a very loud cat or kitten that was trying to get our attention, our neighboring table’s attention, anyone’s attention, and we couldn’t help but laugh at her.  When we ordered, there was confusion as to who was allergic to what, as they wanted to bring us one curry with chicken and prawns, and another with just chicken.  But they kept confusing who was allergic to what, and what would be okay, and we looked at each other and just said we’d swap plates if they screwed anything up.  They did end up getting it correct, and the food was good, not great.

After lunch we took a tour of the distillery.  We just missed seeing the distillery in action, as it runs between June and December, when the sugar cane is ready to be harvested.  Bernard had shown us some of the canes that were ready as we drove around - the canes have seeds sprout out the top when they’re ready to be harvested, and we could see some seeds here and there, so that explains why 1 June is the beginning of the season.  As it was, they were doing some repairs on the machinery, so our tour guide was trying to yell over the construction noise to explain how the distilation process works.  All of the other guides were doing the same, however, and we couldn’t make anything out.

At the end of the tour, there was a tasting, with 8 different rums and liquers.  The order of service was weird, however, as they started with the strongest stuff (the main rum), then went to flavored and spiced rums (the vanilla rum was quite good), and then to the liquers, ending with the weakest and lamest stuff - the coconut and coffee liqueurs were awful.

The day had turned out to be good weather.  It had been raining right when we woke up, but there hadn’t been any rain, and very few clouds, since breakfast.  After leaving the rhumerie Bernard drove us west to a lookout of the southern west coast, on a road that he said is currently closed downhill from the lookout.  He said the road goes from Le Morne up to Chamarel, but that it should be re-opening (at least one way) sometime this year.  We were both sleepy on the drive back to the hotel, between the rum and the Dramamine.  Since we knew we’d be on the Chamarel road again, we took Dramamine in the morning, and it was working, but with the side effect of making us very drowsy.  Bernard mentioned we were now experts on the windy road, but that this was the last time we’d be taking it this trip.

Justin checked the weather for tomorrow, and saw the prediction was even better than we’d seen earlier in the week - full sun and 0% chance of rain.  We crossed our fingers.  At the hotel, our room was clean and re-stocked, but they’d oddly undid some of our “redecorations”, including putting the ash tray back outside on the table.  We weren’t going to smoke, so we’d just put the ash tray away on one of the shelves inside, but they were convinced we wanted the ash tray on our outdoor table.  

Crystal had a Hungarian lesson in the late afternoon, and whilst she did that, Justin walked around the grounds to see what we’d been missing out on all week, including what our place looks like from the outside.  The layout is huge, with many rooms to the east of where we could see, around a point on the shoreline.  The rooms on the east side seemed to all be single level suites and villas, some with private pools.  Justin also noted there was a helicopter landing pad in the middle of a big grassy area.  We hadn’t seen or heard any helicopters using this, however.  There was another wedding right near our room, with even fewer guests this time.  We assume people can’t get a ton of people to come to Mauritius to watch them get married, and for some people, maybe that’s the point.

After Crystal’s Hungarian class ended, we went over to the beach bar and had cocktails on bean bag chairs as the sun went down.  As nice as our patio was, being outside was much better.  The tree next to us at the beach bar must’ve had at least 100 or so birds in it, all making a ton of noise as they returned from their busy days to take their spots in the tree for the night.  Whilst we listened to them, we watched one of the employees building a bonfire.  We aren’t exaggerating when we say he poured at least a liter of accelerant (cooking oil maybe?) into the cannister that had all the piled firewood.  Not surprisingly, the wood went up spectacularly.

Once the sun set, and the birds got quiet, we walked over to the Rum Shed for dinner and drinks.  We gave them the False Idol mug we’d been carrying all trip (and an extra week, just chilling in our room).  We explained False Idol was the most popular rum bar where we lived, and that it was commonplace for rum bars to have swag from other rum bars in their bars.  They found a spot for the mug right next to a bottle of rum that was designed to look like a Crystal Dodo bird, very striking.  We each ordered a smoky rum drink where they pumped in smoke, similar to the contraption they used at Boutiq Bar in Budapest.  Crystal was very tired, and wasn’t very hungry, not eating most of her steak.  Since we ordered the same thing, we swapped plates once Justin finished his, but then it looked like Justin was the one that didn’t eat.  The staff was mortified that he didn’t like his steak, and he just explained “he” wasn’t hungry.  We headed back to the room and saw Police Academy 2 was on, but we probably saw no more than 5-10 minutes of it before we crashed.