Mauritius

Hello all and welcome to the first post of April...which brings some nice recently and not so recently received cards..

and for starters here is a nice one from Mauritius sent by Alvin last year...more precisely, last January...yeah it is really cool during the cold gloomy winter days to retreat to a place like this...and Alvin really makes some cool winter travel destinations :)

well here you can see some different pictures from the island, starting from beaches, crystal waters, to flowers and iguanas....not my favourite type of animal, but as long as it is on a card, I don't mind :)

a very nice stamp from the  2014, 3-set Flora and Fauna issue, showing the Rodrigues flying fox or Rodrigues fruit bat. At first glance it looked like an eagle to me, but when I took a better glance, it is a bat indeed.

Alvin, thank you! :)

Chamarel Falls, Mauritius

What a beautiful fantastic day outside! We've been blessed with some sunshine during the past few says and even though it came as a drastic change, I love it! So before I step outside in my backyard and read something or write a letter in the sunshine, lets make a quick update along with the morning coffee.

This beautiful card came from Hemal in Mauritius. One doesnt often see written and stamped cards from Mauritius, so these are always welcome :)
The card apart from showing a cute pink pigeon, represents the Chamarel Falls. Chamarel is actually the name of the village, but the falls and the so-called coloured earths of Chamarel is what attracts the tourists here.
The Chamarel waterfall emerges from the moors and primeval vegetation and is startingly beautiful. The water tumble from the St. Denis River in the Black River Mountains from a height of about 83 m. They are the highest waterfalls in Mauritius.
I dont know about you but I keep reading them as 'charamel'....it's nothing new that I keep misreading certain places for food :)

The stamp on the right is from a set of 12 flower definitives issued in 2009 while the turtle stamp is from a set of 4 issued also in 2009.
Thanks a lot Hemal, for the beautiful card and the beautiful stamps too.

Mauritius

Oh yes, a fantastic map card! And you know just how much I love to brag with these :D

One of the numerous great surprises from Sissel.
I had this map card on my wishlist for a longish time and now I have it in my collection!

I think that the winning combination here that captured me is the deep-blue ocean colour...being my favourite colour, blue on cards often contributes for me liking them a lot....and if any of you here is well-acquainted with the personality stuff (like, since blue is my favourite, what does it say about me) feel free to give me an insight into it...just curious :)

The card also has a number of small pictures depicting some of the paradise-places in Mauritius.

Some of the interesting facts about this country are that the majority of the estimated 1,300,000 people are Indian, but there are also many people of African descent on the island. There are also European and Chinese minorities. It is the only African nation where the majority religion is Hinduism although Christianity and Islam also have significant populations.
This island is also renowned for having been the only known home of the dodo.

If anyone has a postcard with the dodo, I would be really happy to accommodate it in my collection!

Le Morne, Mauritius

Mmmmmmmm.......Mauritius....


this makes it country no. 74....well, actually 75, coz i had overlooked one in the collection and hadnt noted it down...so its 75
and apart from being a new country, sent from Mauritius itself, its as well a UNESCO site...how was that saying? I killed two flies in one shot? :P

Le Morne Cultural Landscape, a rugged mountain that juts into the Indian Ocean in the southwest of Mauritius was used as a shelter by runaway slaves, maroons, through the 18th and early years of the 19th centuries. Protected by the mountain’s isolated, wooded and almost inaccessible cliffs, the escaped slaves formed small settlements in the caves and on the summit of Le Morne. The oral traditions associated with the maroons, have made Le Morne a symbol of the slaves’ fight for freedom, their suffering, and their sacrifice, all of which have relevance to the countries from which the slaves came - the African mainland, Madagascar, India, and South-east Asia. Indeed, Mauritius, an important stopover in the eastern slave trade, also came to be known as the “Maroon republic” because of the large number of escaped slaves who lived in Le Morne.