50% British, 50% French, 50% Indian… Mauritius is un petit peu confused by son histoire et sa culture (and oui, this doesn’t add up to 100%, that’s deliberate. Odd place!). For example, while you drive in kilometres per hour, you also drive on the left, though you read most road directions off “France-style” signs and you’ll also see hundreds of giant god animal statues all over the roadside. It’s a lovely mix of cultures but also one hell of a surprising one!

I was there for work (yes, horrible life etc) though this is about running, so I’ll stick to that (plus, I wrote my notes up 3 months ago and I’m only just typing them up, so this can’t wait much longer…).

This said, as a brief intro, Mauritius is a pretty small place, roughly 45km wide by 60km long (slightly bigger than London, slightly smaller than Luxembourg). Big hills/mountains in the middle, lovely sandy beaches on the outside. And, also, a very convenient finance sector with advantageous tax rules so is quite a big draw for a lot of big businesses which has helped it become one of the most developed African countries. All in all, it’s a lovely place.

Pamplemousse, however, is a shit shit place to run. This is where I was for the first week, in the northwest of the island (not far from the 5-star beach resorts, but far enough!). Cute name though.

It almost felt surprising based on how nice the rest of the island was to find somewhere so unsuitable for running, but I managed: the hotel was somewhat off the main tourist hotel road, so I guess we were in an area where actual humans got to live too, and not just tourists. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but the narrow busy roads, the lack of pavements, the hundreds of stray dogs (though, to be fair, none of them ever bothered me), the sweltering humidity and heat: bleh.

I did, however, anecdotally (though I’ll presume it’s a common occurrence) have a car drive by with a monkey hanging out, feet on the door, one hand holding the frame, the other hand sticking out as if he wanted a high five at 50kph. I did not high five it, though I did double take to say the least!

So those weren’t a few great running days. Once work was over (to repeat, I was there for work, honestly!), I had a few days off and headed to another part of the island. I looked for other options but there weren’t that many “not too hard” 20km running trails or so: there were a lot of trails up/down mountains but I know my limitations + this remains a tropical country, I don’t want to be jogging up a mountain at 11am. 

So I looked for an alternative.

Le Morne Brabant: a 556 block of basalt sticking out in a peninsula at the extreme southwest tip of the island. “extremely dangerous and slippery when wet”, according to the online reviews. Well, what could possibly go wrong within a few minutes of an hour-long tropical rainstorm just before I try to “race” up it? (spoiler alert: nothing actually, sorry).

The starting point for “your walk” is in a small, sheltered carpark, just by the coast. It was only 8am and you could also eat the humid air in that carpark so … that was promising!

I set off.

Within 100m, my heart was almost leaping out of my chest. Maybe this was a very stupid idea (it was). Thankfully, this was just a little tease by the national park to weed out people who couldn’t do any sort of climbing, and the next couple of kilometres were easier.

This was mostly a gentle – though relentless – climb through the forest along the rabbit paths. It was well-marked so easy to follow, and I could easily whizz past a number of people giving me confused looks. Admittedly, they were all kitted in hiking boots, backpacks, walking sticks for many and I had a running vest and a 50cl bottle of water in each hand, so it was fair.

My quads were burning for abit but, strangely enough for me … I was actually quite enjoying it!

After these first – not too hard – two kilometres, it got a little harder, then a bit harder then actually seriously dangerously hard. I could now see what the warning signs about being able to kill yourself by being an idiot meant: this was a real vertical scramble! Even for me at almost 2m tall (and reasonably fit / nimble), this wasn’t easy.

Running, clearly, was out of the question but – (very) sensible – speedy-ish climbing wasn’t so onwards and upwards (literally), off I went. I zipped past a group (in the photo) which was clogging up the hardest point which was quite satisfying as it would have killed the vibe a bit to have to wait for 30 people to baby-step their way up.

It was around that point I bumped into a French guy from Marseille who was equally impatient, so we more or less blazed each other’s trails on the way up which we both appreciated.

It was quite fun doing on-the-spot calculations to find the best grip and pushing past people sat having a rest, though I was also being very careful. With the rain, the soil had developed a clay/muddy texture which isn’t ideal on a 70/80° surface and falling down some sections was both figuratively and literally deadly.

I was also quite chuffed that I “ran” up with so little gear – it’s nice sometimes to run a little more “lightly”.

The real reward, however, is the view at the top – wow!

From the top and after I’d managed to smack the top of my head on the giant cross that marks the spot (ow), you get a 270° view of the ocean and its turquoise waters, the island and its yellow beaches and dramatic mountains and, cherry on the top, I even got a rainbow too!

After 10-15 minutes at the top and before the large group turned up (though, with hindsight, I think they still had a way to go!), we headed down with the French guy: we had both gone up quite comfortably but were both aware that we couldn’t be stupid so it seemed safer/smarter to go down keeping an eye out for each other than not.

In the most dangerous spots, customs would normally have you climbing down “facing the rock” but, oddly, it just seemed to work better to crawl down like spiders which worked well. In the end, it actually wasn’t as lethal as I expected, though we were extra careful.

In the end, it took 52 minutes to get up and 51 to get down which is probably a bit slower than usual for a 6km run! Admittedly, there’s 500m of elevation gain over just three kilometres (and I suspect most of which is over barely one). A better runner could probably have knocked 10 minutes off both ways but, beyond that, it would seem almost impossibly dangerous to go any faster: you’d have to be built like a goat and know the course off by heart to be willing to go faster.

Once down, I added a 5km loop of the peninsula (well, part of it) to see what else was on show (mostly luxury hotel construction works).

I got chased by 3 dogs. They were terrifying.

I got back to the carpark just as a group of 10 or so people were walking back from the trail: one was being carried, one had a bandaged and bloody knee, and one had an arm in a sling! Oof. I’ve no idea what they got up to but maybe it was indeed dangerous after all!

Not one to shy away from danger, I then jumped in the sea to “shower” (I did, indeed, smell pretty rank by then and had a 10-hour flight home) before, extremely conveniently, breaking my toe on a sandy beach (on a hidden piece of concrete). 2 months later, it’s still a bit sore and swollen. Maybe I should stick to wet, windy, slippery, cliff faces after all!

Injuries (post run)

Scenery

Difficulty