ALL PHOTOS COURTESY BEACHCOMBER RESORTS
Clockwise from left: Good things come in threes, like the beachfront senior suites at Trou aux
Biches, the location of Paradis in Le Morne, and the ocean front setting at L’Oasis restaurant.
did their best to track them down. Yes,
they were on the flight. Yes, they had
disembarked. But after that, poof, they
had disappeared.
Just as I began walking to the airport
police to report them missing, I saw a
couple, big and small, in the distance. A
small girl with a wild skip to match the
bounce in her unruly curls, followed by
a woman pushing a luggage trolley, her
posture screaming exhaustion.
Somewhere between customs and
luggage collection, Noa’s passport
had been lost. Not a great start to our
all-girl, inter-generational family holiday
in Mauritius, but far better than the
scenarios that had stampeded through my
paranoid mind over the past hour.
We headed to customs police, where the
duty officer, Youdish Dabydeen, reassured
us: “Don’t worry. If it’s in this airport,
I’ll find it. You go enjoy your holiday.”
Gratefully, we piled into our tiny rented
Hyundai and did just that.
FIVE-STAR FUN
cope with an excited and rambunctious
pre-schooler was anyone’s guess. As it
turned out, the checking in, customs,
security and flying was a breeze for them;
the final few steps to the finishing line
turned it into disaster.
Nervously waiting for them at the
airport, I had no idea why they hadn’t
emerged from arrivals. Lost luggage?
Missed connection in Jo’burg? Or worse,
had something happened to one of
them on the flight? Panicked, I tried to
cajole security to let me through to the
luggage area. No luck. Seeing how frantic
I was becoming, the Air Mauritius staff
It was only the next morning
that we fully appreciated
our luck, awaking in a
suite as big as a two-
bedroom apartment
Arriving late at night at the five-star Trou
aux Biches Beachcomber Golf Resort &
Spa, exhausted from the passport drama,
we didn’t really take in the significance
of the words, “We have a surprise
for you – we’ve upgraded you to a
Beachfront Suite!”
It was only the next morning that we
fully appreciated our luck, awaking in a
suite as big as a two-bedroom apartment,
with a gigantic bathroom leading onto a
jungle-like outdoor shower. As silhouettes
morphed into recognisable features at
daybreak, we realised that the gentle
swishing sound we’d fallen asleep to the
night before was not caused by trees, as
we’d thought, but by the ocean, mere
metres from our suite. It got better as a
bougainvillea-shaded deck with sun
MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE // 49