...a few scenes from my hands-down favorite mauritian village, congomah, which is nestled into the stunning farming foothills of EXQUISITE mountains. gaaah. i can't even describe to you the beauty of this place. the bus winds up through thick forest and tiny villages until it reaches a point where the road becomes too narrow for the bus to keep going.twice last week we traveled to that point and hopped off the bus to wander along the road with the stunning hills and mountains to our left and spectacular volcanoes off in the distance to the right. the village is raised up in the hills, as i said, so it looks down on a valley below which stretches out to the sea ... a gorgeous, gorgeous sea. honestly, i've never seen anything like it. it's just exquisite.

one day (a day i'd left my camera behind because sometimes i just want to experience things instead of capture them), we went walking along and i decided to make friends with some farmers in the fields who were cutting down sugar cane with machetes ... they showed me where the best trails were to follow up the mountain. the trails loop through all the foothills, which are covered in an amazing variety of mauritian crops--fields of pineapple, ginger, sugar cane, mint, and other funky herbs we couldn't identify. the trails are so exciting ... wandering through thick (THICK) patches of jungle greens onto the crop-filled clearings ... chopping off some sugar cane with our pocket knife and sipping the juice from inside ... making it to the top and being completely overwhelmed with the view ... feeling the warm sunshine on my face as i laid down on a stretch of giant rocks ... spotting rain in the distance and watching it near us ... getting caught in a refreshing and splendid rain shower ... hiking back down and scoring a cheap and incredible mauritian meal at a restaurant down the road (where we got a balcony seat overlooking the valley!) basically it was a dream.

and all that before heading to work for the afternoon. :)

(the next photo is my favorite, so it gets to stand alone.)