A basket pre-tour as experienced by a pipeliner
In May 2022 I was privileged enough to be able to go to Mauritius for 2 weeks with my loving partner and most of my fellow tablers, and that’s about where the formalities stopped until AMI.
Juan Botha spared no effort in organising a series of adventures that the ladies spent their morning hangover hours curating into an Instagram feed that made pretty much everyone we know jealous. A few highlights include; sightseeing in the south of Mauritius, day trips to private islands eating lobsters, snorkelling, and catamaran trips with the Mauritian & Reunion Island tablers (which my wife-to-be loudly and repeatedly explained as “a day on the boat with a bunch of hot french guys”, thanks bae). The local food is delicious, on-time is usually at least an hour late, the local rum is more dangerous than Thabang Maahlo on the prowl, and against a backdrop of a violet, lilac, tangerine and teel sunset, the beer with friends wash away the sweat from the busy days.
A word of warning, after many repetitions of Juan Botha saying “what time is it?” and my fiancée responding with arms in the air and howl of “TEQUILA TIME!!!” we learned to look at the prices before ordering 40 shots of Jagermeister, 16 shots of Tequila, 15 beers, and an assortment of cocktails at a beach bar. That hurt more than the cumulative hangover of the corpses strewn over the apartment the next day.
On numerous days we had multiple drunkards acting as each other’s stabilisers in order to walk without bailing, to elaborate I had to dog-walk my fiancée by her jersey, I also made the unfortunate mistake of 2 accidental coin drops and then accidentally passing out on the way to retrieve my vape, which netted a strange vienna + tomato sauce Simba video of which I was the victim. Despite legally smuggling in more than 30litres of booze, we still had to buy more, thankfully we discovered Xquisto, a dodgy-looking blanco tequila that tastes like banana but goes down like water.
During the AMI AGM I had the privilege of meeting many influential tablers and getting an opportunity to hear their stories and challenges, which gave me an invaluable insight into the different value systems of the member nations.
Despite the sheer bragging rights of the activities, they paled compared to the open hearts the Mauritian tablers had in welcoming us into their circles, homes and lives—the depth of the conversations that I was able to have left me seriously heartsore on the plane back.
To end, we had such a good time surrounded by so much love and adventure that my fiancee and I nearly got married, and my only regret is not doing so while being surrounded by soo many people that have forever made an impact on our lives.
YIT
Rijnhard Hessel
Sandown 150 Pipeliner