Mauritius Part 4: VV and the Ile Aux Cerfs

Somehow, Ile Aux Cerfs gets a rating in the Routard.  From what I could see it has been taken mostly over by a golf course and an expensive hotel, leaving only two small stretches of public beach and an expensive outdoor bar, restaurant, and shops for the other tourists who aren’t staying there.  I guess if you weren’t staying in a resort, it would be the closest to having a tropical island to yourself. 

I turn up in my small red Honda and even as I’m pulling up with my windows down, I hear someone shouting and running out to me: “Tickets! You go to Ile Aux Cerfs? Tickets!”

Running out to me. Really! I followed him inside the office to buy the ticket and to discuss the “extras”: the waterfall visit and a barbecue lunch.  I ignored his offer of a barbecue (mainly because I just wanted to see the island and also because it really wasn’t barbecue weather).

I buy just the boat ticket and a bottle of water based on his warning about inflated prices on the island.  My new friend seems to also like the idea of a drink, so he picks up a large cold bottle of Phoenix beer, and starts chugging on it right away.

Later whilst waiting on the beach I started talking to him a little. VV (his nickname – I can’t remember his real name, but it had two Vs in it) told me that he was like a tour guide for this island.  I tell him to pose for a photo with two V’s, which of course he obliged with glee.  The skipper of the next boat in the background of this photo looked on amused.

VV told me that he organised day trips to Ile Aux Cerfs, including lunches, boat rides, whatever.  He was a really friendly guy and we started sharing a little bit about our backgrounds together.

“So you’re like a salesman?” I asked.

“No, no, I organise things for people.  I give people a good time.  That’s why you’re here, right?”

We get on the boat and sure enough the skipper knows VV.  They have a couple of words and VV starts by identifying the foreigners on the boat and starts to make small talk with them, trying to work out I guess what he could organise for them. 

He then sits out on the front of the boat with his bottle of Phoenix.  He lights a cigarette under his shirt and pulls in long deliberate drags (even if the wind outside is burning out his cigarette quicker than normal).  All the tourists point to him and laugh a little: he’s just a little bit TOO cool there smoking and drinking on this tourist boat going to a tropical island.  VV motions to me to get out onto the bow, but the skipper shouts me down.

We get to the island and after about 45 minutes on the beach it starts pouring with rain.  Everyone leaves the beach like cockroaches scurrying for cover. It’s pretty miserable weather.   I don’t bother changing from my bathers and stay out in the rain, but I see a lot of others who have come here not even to swim: so this must have been disappointing.  Walking around the pier, I see another boatload of people arriving.  After the live party music on their boat and the driving rain outside, they don’t look too enthused to step off, but one by one, they do.

VV is still around the pier looking for tourists to help out.  After about one and a half hours on Ile Aux Cerfs, I tell him that I’m a little disappointed with the weather and that I’m going to leave.  VV nods, understandingly.  He’s had a hard time selling rides on donuts and on the parasails.  He calls out to the group of boat skippers and organises a lift home for me.  I haven’t had to show my ticket yet – he’s been excellent in just organising everything for me.  He seems to know everyone and everyone knows him.

Waiting by the pier are all the people I came to the island with.  It seems that we all hit our rain tolerance thresholds simultaneously.  The group of people who are taking the barbecue don’t look to enthused about eating; in fact they look pretty depressed about the fact that they have to hang around for another hour or two.  Another couple from Spain under their ponchos who had braved the weather but not come there to swim were clearly not enjoying the rain, and looked really glad they were getting back to the mainland.