Biryani @ Le Pouce ...

Day 10 Sep 2010 (Friday) Time 10:15AM and it is EID today. My phone rings. JP is on the other side. He says we have got a long week end; do we have any plan to go out? Answer was negative but we were ready to go any where. I told him that I would call him in next 15 minutes. I came home as I was enjoying sweets at Riyad’s place, opened map of Mauritius on google and started looking for the place where we could go now… Meanwhile I had a chat with Mahesh and asked for same. River Gorgeous was the first idea which came in mind but was dropped as it was very late for that. Next moment I had in my mind, let’s go to “Le Pouce”. Little India had already denied for this and it was perfect chance for us.

It was 11:00AM when we had our destination. JP asked for food. Fortunately I cooked Biryani and it was good enough for three of us, so food was all set. We decided out meeting point Rose hill bus terminal. Let me tell you about “Le Pouce”. This the second highest mountain of Mauritius and its height is 811M. Le Pouce mountain, located in Moka, offers some very good views over the North West of the island and on a clear day, the coastline of the North and East of the island can be seen.
It is a moderate climb as the route is steep in some places but can be accomplished by any level of climber given enough time to rest. Since the mountain looks like a thumb in sky it is named Le Pouce “The Thumb”.

Time 12:00 Noon: I am at Rose hill terminal and in another 2 /3 minutes JP reaches there and Mahesh. Since we did not know the exact place, where the trek starts we asked the traffic controller about the bus and the place. He boarded us in to the bus and we were dropped on a bus stop from where we took another bus for the right place.

Time 12:48PM: we are at the trek. We did not find any body there so we started the way which was straight. We were lucky another 10 minutes we found few people coming down so sure we are on right trek. The day started as a sunny day but slowly-slowly it was changing its mood. Anyways who cares!!! We were wrong here as another 10 minutes changed our mind and we started thinking about the trek. It was completely slippery and full of mud. Final decision was to carry on since we were already out for it and fully charged.

As we were going high the views were amazing and we were enjoying the trek. But the Sun and the clouds were in full mood to play Hide & Seek with us, the three poor guys. With the height the trek was getting tougher as we were completely in clouds and the way was wet and slippery because of drizzling. More over quite some way of the trek was like 1 or 2 feet wide line of mud and u have got big grass and other forest plants on your both sides. By now our shoes were all gone and we were 60-70% wet. But we were enjoying it as a long time pending desire was coming true, to trek in rain !!!

Time 2:30PM: Hurray !!! we are on the peak of Le Pouce, we conquered it. It was full of black clouds by that time and we were not able to see any thing just 5-6 meters down. The space on the peak was also quite small , even less than the half of the Le’ Morne. Now it was the time to celebrate the victory. We were having the Biryani at the peak, in rain J…

Another 10 minutes and it was time to come back, the most difficult part... it was all wet so we had to be much more careful. I know all of us were scared of it but no one talked about that. Slowly-slowly with more careful steps we started back. This time we were the only three guys coming down. No one else was there on the mountain. In some time we cleared the dangerous part of the mountain and came in to the open area. Here the biggest comedy (as well as grace of God) happened. It was full raining now and the area was slippery like any thing. My shoes were dead shoes and the sole was all plans, because of that I was slipping like a drunkard. I say thanks to God it happened in a non dangerous area. This time I was not the only one to slip all of did. But of course I was the champ in that. But now we were more careful and we were walking holding the branches / roots of plants there.

Time 4:30PM: WOW!!! We are back in single piece. By now Sun was teasing as the rain stopped completely and sky was clear. Since we were full dirty with mud and no bus would have allowed us in that condition, we asked a gentle man there to give us some water pipe so that we could come in a better shape to ride a bus.

This was a real adventure this time. Now we think Le Morne was easy to trek as most of the trek it has got rocks and it less dangerous. But Le Pouce was a night mare at some moments of time for us. After all risk and slips it turned out to be an fun and adventures trek…

Here a new phrase for Little India comes in… “ We can trek any time and any where” ~ by great Amit J…

Details about the mountain & trek:

http://www.fitsy.com/mauritius-gps-routes/34-articlesguides/48-le-pouce-mountain-gps-route