Beachcomber Magazine 04

seabed is already lost. So we take risks. We go further out to sea for longer. You have to have nerves of steel to continue. ” A RESILIENT LAND The road winds its way along the steep shoreline, studded here and there with fields of onions and pineapple trees. The mountains become hills planted with sugarcane, which is still harvested using billhooks because the land here is too hilly for mechanical harvesters. Men carry the bundles on their backs to the dumper truck which takes the load to be weighed at Belle Mare. The remains of the past are scattered around the countryside: French cannons at the Pointe du Diable, mute now as they point out to sea, the Dutch Tower (Fort des Hollandais) with the small, outdated Frederik Hendrik museum, the ruins of the lime kilns, and the sugar mill chimneys buried in the vegetation. Then we reach Ville Noire at the mouth of the Creole River, its name taken from the dark stains of history. This village of mud huts was once a slave reservation, and is now Mahebourg’s creole district, accessible via Cavendish Bridge. The bridge spans the different epochs. On the other side, the so-called town of Mahé (“bourg de Mahé”) de La Bourdonnais, the French colonial governor who founded the place, stands proudly, although it can barely be called a town. The Monday markets here are fit to bursting with 8. Different places of worship co-exist in Mauritius. The Sagar Shiv Mandir Hindu temple, run by Ashvin Ghunowa, grandson of the architect who founded it in the late 1970s. 9. Jummah Mosque in Mahebourg, built in 1870. 10. The Catholic cemetery in Trou d’Eau Douce. 8. À Maurice, les lieux de cultes cohabitent. Le temple hindou Sagar Shiv Mandir, dirigé par Ashvin Ghunowa, petit-fils de l’architecte fondateur à la fin des années 1970. 9. La mosquée Jummah de Mahébourg, édifiée en 1870. 10. Le cimetière catholique de Trou d’Eau Douce.   9 10