Ebony Forest Reserve Tours and Tickets

We enjoyed our journey. Saw quite a bit of the island. Lunch was good. Our driver/guide was good and gave us information about the island.

I was particularly excited for this tour because 1. I didn’t have to drive and 2. I was going to learn a lot about Mauritius. Anil, our driver and tour guide picked us up promptly at our hotel at 8:30 am. As my wife and I got to know him, we found him very pleasant and easy to talk to, very knowledgeable, and his English was very easy to understand. As we drove around to the different sites, we felt at ease enough to ask him all about Mauritius. We asked lots of questions, some of them personal questions about his background, his family, etc. The day was going along fairly well, until we hit a traffic jam in Chamarel because of a religious festival. We had to just park our car a mile away and walk to our lunch spot. It was really cool to walk through the festival and get a taste of local festivities. However, when we got to the restaurant, it was closed because of the festival. We had to find a different restaurant that was open. That caused our schedule to be delayed by 2 hours. When we got to the Seven Coloured Earth, we had to rush through it a bit before starting our jeep safari. Once we got to the jeep safari, we found out it was fully booked and we weren’t able to go. We ended up hiking to the raised walkway on our own in the pouring rain. We were annoyed at this because we felt the tour company should’ve booked our tickets in advance to reserve our spot. After that, to salvage the day, Anil took us on a scenic drive along the southwest before going back to our hotel. We got back around 6:30 pm. Wow! What a long day! Glad we had a good driver/tour guide. Anil is great and we’d highly recommend him! We gave him a healthy tip for spending the long day with us and taking care of everything!

This was a tour we were most looking forward too, however the weather was so terrible for the first part of trip the views were very much hindered by the rain and mist. Our driver though, looked after us with umbrellas to keep us dry, to try and make the best of the moments. The reservoir was much larger than we imagined. From there we went to see the impressive statue of Lord Shiva the Temple and the sacred lake. This was a beautiful place though the weather was at its worst so our views were spoilt and our time here was rushed to get out of the rain. The Black River Gorge was next however our views again were spoilt by the mist, but we could see the waterfall so our driver explained what was behind the mist. The Alexandra Falls were fantastic to see and we managed to get a few photographs before the rain worsened again. The Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth was next and with all the rainfall the colours were not very vibrant, you could see slight colour changes in the Earth but it was not very clear. Lunch was next at a local restaurant which was nice. After lunch there was a break in the weather which meant we had a wonderful end to the day in the Ebony Forest. The jeep safari was very enjoyable enabling us to travel more easily especially as the ascent was very steep. Our guide through the forest was very knowledgeable and he also pointing out wildlife on the way such as spiders, Giant Tortoises and Fruit Bats.There are sections of the jeep ride where you get out and walk along metal walkways with steps and a section of stone stairs to climb back up to get to the jeep. This is not too difficult to do, however if you have any mobility problems ascending the stone stairs may be an issue as the steps can be a little uneven and large. Overall the Ebony Forest was our best part of this trip but this was mainly because of the unfortunate weather on the day.

We had a great day out. Our driver manu was very friendly and helpful. We saw all the sites…. Some through the mist as the weather was a little mixed on the day but we made the most of it. The sun came out for our 4x4 tour of the ebony forest. Staff were very passionate about their work. Luckily we saw the seven colours in the afternoon as it dried up enough to show the soil colours. I’d recommend walking all around so you get to see the brilliant colours. They don’t show from some angles. All in all a very good day out. One suggestion to improve is to offer a choice of restaurant for lunch. We ate at a local place which was fine (interesting!) but then as we drove off after lunch, passed a fantastic mountain top restaurant with panoramic views. We’d of happily paid extra to add that to our experience.