Flic-en-Flac

Flic-en-Flac takes its odd name from the Dutch period of the island's history: it is generally explained as a corruption of an old Dutch phrase describing free, flat land, adapted by later French and Creole speakers into the form used today. Whatever the exact origin, the coast it describes is the same — a long, low shore of sand and casuarina backed by dry plains, with the Black River mountains standing behind.

For most of its recorded history this was a marginal place. The west coast was dry and difficult to farm compared with the wetter centre, and the settlement lived from fishing, the salt pans at Tamarin to the south and sugar cane, which still covers part of the village's land. British fortifications went up along this coast in the 1830s — the Martello tower at La Preneuse, a few kilometres to the south, survives — built against a possible French return that never came.

The change came with tourism. The beach, one of the longest on the island, became a place where families from across Mauritius spend their weekends. Hotels followed, concentrating at the southern end, while blocks of flats and guesthouses filled the streets behind the public beach. The result is unlike the resort enclaves elsewhere on the island: a working village and a holiday strip sharing the same sand.

The defining local ritual is the Sunday picnic. From early morning, families arrive with cool boxes, folding tables, pots and speakers, claim a patch of shade under the casuarinas, and stay until evening, cooking, swimming, singing and dancing to sega as the sun goes down over the lagoon. It is one of the clearest demonstrations of how thoroughly Mauritians use their own beaches, and visitors are simply part of the crowd.

The village reflects the island's mix. Hindu temples, churches, mosques and kovils stand in the settlement and the villages behind it, and the festival calendar runs through the year: Cavadee in January or February, Maha Shivaratri, when pilgrims walk towards the sacred lake in the highlands, Eid, Divali, and Christmas on the beach in the middle of summer. Creole is the everyday language, French is spoken by most people and dominates the media, and English is used in government and education.

The sea supports a second local culture. Divers come for the caves and wrecks off the reef, and there is a long-standing trade in boat skippers, dive guides and fishermen who work the lagoon at dawn. Dolphins are seen regularly in the bay at Tamarin to the south, which has made early-morning boat trips to watch and swim with them a fixture of this coast.

Flic-en-Flac is a village rather than a town, with a modest resident population, though it swells enormously at weekends and in the holiday season. Most people who work here live in it or in the villages nearby, and much of the plateau's population is within half an hour by road.

The local economy is almost entirely tourism and services: hotels, guesthouses and flats, restaurants, dive and boat operators, supermarkets, and construction. Behind it, the older economy of cane, market gardening and fishing continues on a smaller scale, and a growing number of residents commute to jobs in Port Louis and the plateau towns rather than working on the coast.

The rhythm is set by the sea and the heat: boats out before dawn, the beach quiet in the burning middle of the day, and the shade filling again in the late afternoon for swimming and football on the sand. Weekends are entirely different from weekdays. The village's pressures are those of rapid, unplanned coastal growth — traffic on the single beach road, drainage and water supply, litter after busy weekends, and the health of a lagoon that carries heavy boat traffic, and beach erosion that studies have linked to rising sea levels.

Eating here is Creole and casual. The counters along the beach road sell the island's street food all day: dholl puri, the split-pea flatbreads folded around a curry of large peas and tomato sauce; gâteaux piments, small chilli fritters; samosas and boulettes, fish balls and meatballs served in broth. Alouda, the Mauritian version of the falooda milk drink, and fresh juices are drunk against the heat.

The village's restaurants concentrate on what the boats bring in. Grilled fish of the day, octopus — curried, in salad, or as vindaye, pickled with mustard and turmeric — prawns, and smoked marlin appear on almost every menu, alongside rougaille, the tomato sauce eaten with fish or meat, and fried noodles and bol renversé from the Sino-Mauritian tradition.

Sunday picnic food is a category of its own: briani cooked in large pots at home and carried to the beach, chicken and sausage grilled over portable barbecues, bread and rougaille, and cake for the children. Local rum and Phoenix beer are the usual drinks, with tea, a taste the island took from the British.