Mauritius island

Island of many faces. Crowded with tourists as well as with locals. Locals are multicultural, as majority of inhabitants are of Indian, Arabic, African, or Chinese origin.

Island provides beaches with white sand, culture in cities, rich world-shaping history, steep mountains covered in rain-forest. Nature is beautiful above the sea level, but also beneath it.

When it was discovered, Mauritius was the home of a previously unknown species of bird, the dodo, descendants of a type of pigeon which settled in Mauritius over four million years ago. With no predators to attack them, they had lost their ability to fly. Weighing up to 23 kg, the dodo was a welcome source of fresh meat for the sailors.

Large numbers of dodos were killed for food. Later, when the Dutch used the island as a penal colony, new species were introduced to the island. Within 100 years of the arrival of humans on Mauritius, the once abundant dodo became a rare bird. The last one was killed in 1681.