As some of you "guessed" (aka cheated), we traveled to Mauritius last week, which was part vacation, part mile run and our first trip to Africa. It doesn't really take 30,000 miles to get there, but we tacked on an overnight to Hawaii on the way back for no extra cost. This meant one stretch of more than 48 hours of flying (Johannesburg to Washington to Los Angeles to Kauai).
We got an unusually good deal on the tickets, which is why we ended up in Mauritius in the first place. (Not many Americans travel there or even know where it is.) And we used miles and points to stay at the Le Meridien in Mauritius and a hotel in Kauai. We stayed with friends one night in Johannesburg.
Below are a few pics from our four days in Mauritius.
Hot and humid every day with a few pleasant doses of rain and major condensation.
Free drinkies and snacks at sunset. We lived on this along with the included breakfast buffet.
Fresh flowers in tubs of water.
While we sat on our rumps and shoveled down food from the buffet, we watched this fisherman dive in again and again to haul lobster traps. (Note rainbow. Another shower had just passed by.)
Mango and papaya. Yum.
Two panoramas - one of the view from our room and the other of the Indian Ocean, which is a smooth as a puddle along the north shore of Mauritius due to a barrier of coral reefs. Mr. Bromeliad waterskied.
p.s. - Here is a fun video documentary about the whole mile runner community.