May 11, 2025
Despite our small room in Mauritius, the boys have taken to playing hide and seek each morning while Kyle and I have a coffee. The hiding spots are limited but this hasn’t hampered their enthusiasm for playing. Today, Ollie figured out how to reliably find Len within 10 seconds no matter how clever his hiding spot. He calls out any toilet humor words he can think of; “Poopie head! poop face! poop pee pee pooooop!” and Len rolls with loud laughter giving away his spot immediately.
The kids are excited to go to London, but have shared how deeply they’ll miss the resort’s breakfast buffet. Len is particularly concerned about the availability of Nutella in other countries. “Is there Nutella in London? Spain? On mars?” Somehow we’ve deprived the kids of Nutella before this week in Mauritius.
The boys spent the late morning and early afternoon at the kids’ club so Kyle and I could pack up the room, get organized and enjoy some silence before our long trip to London. Our reprieve was cut short though when we received a call from the kids’ club that one of the boys was upset and wanted to get picked up. Kyle and I placed bets on which kid was upset but we both had our money on Ollie. And we were right. Ollie expressed concern that we’d forget to pick them up and then head to London without them.
After scooping the boys, we made our way towards the boat house to take the long awaited and final mini boat trip. On the way, Len insisted that he go “coconut hunting” and he was stoked to find a sizable one that had fallen along the path we were walking. Kyle then took to smashing the coconut with a rock to peel back the outer covering. Since we had checked out of our room at 12pm and our car didn’t arrive until 5:45pm, we were happy to have an activity to engage the kids that didn’t involve swimming in the pool. After about 30 minutes, the coconut was successfully opened and the boys were happily drinking the water.
We made it to the boathouse with 15 minutes to spare. The boys each took out a purple mini boat and Len was thrilled to drive one “all by myself!!!” Kyle and I walked ahead to the bridge over the inlet to toss coconut pieces down to the boys in their boats.
While waiting for our car to the airport, Ollie spotted a huge bat and we then went on “bat patrol” in hopes of finding more. Luckily the bats were out in droves at dusk and we saw a bunch of them. Len soon made his way to us and begged to join “bat patrol”.
On telling our driver about our bat sightings, he was happy to share a ton of Fruit bat facts with us.
Also called the Mauritian flying fox
Fruit bats are a protected species on Mauritius
They’re a megabat species and their wingspan can be up to 1 meter
They ruin ~20% of mango and lychee crops annually
Fruit bats don’t have stomachs so they don’t eat much of the fruit they nibble but instead take a bit and leave the rest of the fruit to rot
Our driver was happy to share a ton of Mauritian history and facts with us on the drive. The boys were in the backseat of the van and would interject on every 5th word asking for the driver to repeat whatever he was saying. En route to the airport, traffic was stopped by a religious ceremony and parade in the street. Our driver shared it was the Tamil community celebrating Thaipoosam Cavadee (had to google this after we got out of the car). He shared some celebrate by participating in rituals like nose piercings as a form of penance and devotion.
Just as we made it to the security line, we learned our flight was cancelled due to the pilot being sick. Without knowing when it would be rescheduled, we booked a room at the airport hotel and hoped for the best. It was a mess at the hotel with seemingly our entire flight trying to check in at the same time. Kyle stood in line for 90 minutes to check in while me and the boys made our way to the restaurant which was also chaotic. Kyle learned there was an issue with the booking systems and some people in line didn’t end up getting a room but we were lucky. Our food arrived just as Kyle finished checking us in near 9pm. Kyle told the boys, “We got the last room in Mauritius!” and they were so tickled hearing this. When we got to our room, Len kept asking if anyone could hear us before then yell-whispering, “I can’t believe we got the last room!!”
Before falling asleep, we got an email that the flight was rescheduled to leave at 11am the next day with a brief stop over in Athens. We should get in to London close to 10:30pm local time Monday evening. Fingers crossed tomorrow goes well!
