Saturday

Well, today was our 'typical' Saturday.  Karen spent last night with us so that she could go to the market this morning and that was really fun.  It is nice to sit on the front porch in the morning, have bread fresh from the market, and talk to an actual adult!

After we went to the market we headed off to Port Louis to finally buy the BIG model boats the boys have been lusting after.   Will got the 'Ranger' an old Americas' Cup sailing boat, and Sam got the USS Constitution.  Both (the boats,  not Will and Sam) will be packed up and shipped to America at a cost equal to the boats themselves.  NO way was I taking those back on the plane.  We wandered around the waterfront, shoved our way back through all the market traffic and caught the bus back to Quatre Bornes.

I thought we did not have any race day pictures (from two Saturdays ago), but Anna had taken some with her cell phone.  So - here are two nice shots from Anna.  In the top one you see the mountains that surround Port Louis, and in the bottom one the horses are warming up prior to heading to the gate.  The horses actually race in the opposite direction.  The rail on the left that the men are leaning against is the only rail separating people from the race track, and after each race folks hop over the rail and cross the rack to go to their cars.  Racing is only on the turf track - there is not a dirt track.

Sam took this picture as part of their 'Cars of Mauritius' collection.  A small portion of Mauritians (and South Africian ex-pats) have a good disposable income and they like to show off this wealth by driving very very nice cars.  Now, it is not a lot of people, and many of the cars are fleet cars (rentals) driven by ex-pats.  However, per-capita I've seen more high end Mercedes (Kompressors and the like), BMWs (we see several M3's every day) on this island that I would see in any given day in Auburn.  This is hilarious, as traffic is so bad and the island is so small (think of driving from the edge of Opelika to the edge of Auburn during game day traffic to get the same scale) that these high end performance cars NEVER get to show what they are capable of doing.  Basically, that 3 million Ru BMW M3 sites in traffic, right next to the 300,000 Ru Nissan March.  But I'd rather have the M3 too!  

This is an example of a largish garden tucked in on a lot near our house.  The gardens are beautifully tended, and all the produce is sold at market on Tuesdays and Saturdays.