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26 ROAD TRIP BEAUTIFUL MAURITIUS factories, which are gradually giving way to the cyber cities. In the skyscrapers of Port Louis, symbols of the economic miracle of the young Republic, which defy Queen Adelaide’s citadel. The layers of history accumulate, lives and cultures add up, but nothing is forgotten. Further afield The names of the villages – Pointe du Diable, Flic en Flac, Solitude, Bois Chéri, Trou aux Biches, Gris Gris – are like a string of pearls. Poetry is part and parcel of who we are. And it is accen- tuated by the mythology, which, all over Mauritius, steals into reality. The mountains are living beings. The characters in novels come from real shipwrecks. Paul et Virginie , the heroes of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, are buried in the Jardin de Pamplemousses. Baudelaire’s Dame Créole rests in the little cemetery by the church of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Grand Bassin is an extensionof the holyGanges. ThegreatMauritian author Malcolm de Chazal himself invented giants and a primeval continent, Lémurie. This rich imaginary world is made more intense by the many languages. Most Mauritians speak at least three: French, English and Creole, which is common to all. This is the mother tongue, the language of all the cultures: a mixture of African slave dialects and French, with additional words borrowed from Hindi, Tamil, and Hakka, with each wave of migrants. “Being in this world” This evening we will be in Sainte-Croix. The clear blue eyes of Father Laval look out from posters covering all the walls of Port Louis and the sur- rounding area. The annual pilgrimage com- memorates the death in 1864 of the Apostle of the Poor, a Breton missionary and doctor, beatified by Pope Jean-Paul II. Families, cou- ples, solitary walkers, all generations and faiths together, in silence, or reciting a prayer out loud, walk together towards the grave. They will try to touch the transparent case that reveals a statue of the priest and to lay a bunch of flowers before it. “This is not just a Catholic gathering. What brings us together is mainly the pleasure of being in this world”, explains Marie-Claude, a volunteer who is handing out tea and alouda (a kind of milkshake) to the pilgrims. The night draws on with the mass and the singing, then the chatting, and ends on the mats placed under the trees, a few hours before daybreak. In Mauritius, the world opens out to us and within us in its immense morning skies. In the Chamarel region, eroded volcanic rock reveals the rainbow colours of its minerals – the only example of this in the world. Dans la région de Chamarel, la terre volcanique érodée dévoile les nuances fauves de ses minéraux. Un phénomène unique aumonde.