Slow Travel In The Indian Ocean: Rodrigues Island

One in every of my favourite issues about Rodrigues Island is that the velocity restrict is 50 kilometers per hour (about 32 mph). The individuals who reside on the super-remote southern Indian Ocean island (governmentally a part of Mauritius, however with autonomous standing since 2020) know tips on how to reside calmly. Guests rapidly be taught to do the identical.

In recent times, “sluggish journey” has develop into one thing of a catchphrase, fashionable as a advertising and marketing time period and an Instagram hashtag. However Rodrigues is the true deal—substantively, not solely within the literal sense of driving velocity. The island is a two-hour flight from Mauritius (itself a seven-hour flight from Dubai) and residential to solely about 42,000 folks, most of whom work in tourism, weave pretty baskets out of palm fronds or catch and dry octopus to enter the native curry. There’s no must rush.

What logically follows is that the majority worldwide guests come to solar themselves on the white sand seashores and gaze out over the island’s wildly turquoise waters (typically with goats within the foreground). A very advantageous base for doing that’s the easy and peaceable Tekoma Boutik Hotel.

The lodge opened in 2012 with 15 freestanding rooms on a hillside overlooking the ocean. A current renovation additionally added 5 new beachfront cottages. After they’re completed, there might be 12 extra rooms on the hilltop, bringing the full to 32, plus a correct spa. (For now, they’re providing excellent massages in a visitor room.) That’s nonetheless sufficiently small to take care of the chilliness vibe, pleasant service and top quality of meals within the restaurant, which serves native and worldwide dishes.

Dinners in that restaurant have been nice, however lunch outdoors was arguably higher. The lodge organized a information to accompany me on a hike to Gravier Seashore for an island-perfect lunch of crab soup, octopus salad, recent fish and calmly grilled lobster—scrumptious!—overlooking the ocean. I’m positive cash modified arms, but it surely felt much less like an precise restaurant than a yard cookout with associates. A couple of kite surfers took flight as we loved our lunch.

Later, we went to the Francois Leguat big tortoise reserve, a powerful conservation venture. When Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues discovered the island, within the sixteenth century, its tortoise inhabitants was thriving—they lived in teams of three,000 or 4,000, and other people might stroll over their shells with out setting foot on the bottom.

A pair centuries later, famine in Mauritius spurred the settlers there to begin utilizing Rodrigues’s tortoises for meals. Unsurprisingly, after being exploited for some 100 years, they have been practically extinct. Issues stayed that method till 2004, when a gaggle of conservationists set about rewilding the island and reintroducing the tortoises. It took two years earlier than the primary child arrived. Now greater than 6,000 have been born right here.

When you see that, there’s not all that a lot else to see on Rodrigues. There’s the market in “city,” formally the municipality of Port Mathurin, the place fruit preserves, dried fish and octopus and the beautiful wicker baskets are on provide.

You will get a little bit of adrenaline flowing by crossing the Cascade Pistache suspension bridge, which hangs some 325 ft over the bottom beneath at its highest level. It’s supported fully by the cables positioned excessive above, which makes the crossing somewhat wiggly and thrilling. As a onetime aspiring trapeze artist, I eagerly trotted throughout, however had second ideas concerning the pendulum leap from 100 ft excessive. The climb again out of the ravine seemed a bit difficult.

A better supply of journey is Caverne Patate, which at 1000 meters (practically 3,300 ft) is the longest of the 30 or so caves on the island. A go to is a brief however fascinating (re)orientation right into a world of stalactites and stalagmites.

After the cave, there was lunch. Resto la Caverne is a particularly unprepossessing place. Up a flight of stairs, the eating room is easy, with the most effective seats on the terrace, and drinks ready to be pulled from a fridge. The menu is very simple: octopus in lots of varieties (recent, dried, salad, curry) and konokono (snails), that are most likely an acquired style.

Forgot the meals. What my lunch companion needed to say about Rodrigues is extra attention-grabbing. He identified that the island has no McDonald’s, no KFC. Its lagoon is clear. The greens which might be grown on the island are virtually fully natural—not as a result of it’s at the moment trendy however as a result of the farmers have by no means recognized every other method.

And so, whereas the “stress of doing nothing” is seemingly someway actual, Rodrigues is a spot that appears remarkably free from stress. It’s not a business island. It’s solely artisanal. And genuine, and mild, and considerate, and above all, unhurried—ever since method again earlier than “sluggish journey” turned a factor.