5 Items to take when Hiking to Les 7 Cascades, Mauritius

Hiking is a very physical activity which can be hard but very much rewarding.

Watch as many videos as you want. Nothing can come close to as ‘living the moment’ yourself.

An unplanned hiking can easily spoil your whole experience. Here’s why I decided to write about the items needed for a nice hiking experience.

Items To Take

The order in which the items are listed do not reflect their respective importance. All of the items listed below are of equal importance.

1. Water

The very strict minimum is 1 litre per person. Juices do NOT count as water.

2. Back bag

Where are we going keep our precious bottle of water? In our hands? Nope! Hiking is NOT jogging on a track. You’ll need your hands to be free all the time

3. Light lunch

Hikings are not a feast. Biryani-like types of lunch are not recommended. You’ll want something light, easy to carry, easy to consume while listening to the water falling and admiring the view. Don’t overcomplicate your own lives 😉

4. First Aid Kit

Mishaps can and will happen. No denial in that. It’s part of the thrill actually. However,  we need to take maximum precautions so that no one gets hurt. A first aid kit is necessary.

5. Shoes

Forget about Sandals and high-heels. We need high-gripping shoes to be able to cope with sandy soil, hard soil, dry rocks, wet rocks, algae covered rocks etc.

6. Optionals

6.1 juices/fruits: for quick energy

6.2 Cameras

Do take pics for your own personal records and social networks. But but…

Don’t spend all your time watching through your 2 inch screen. Look up! The view is much more amazing. 4K is nothing compared to what our eyes can see.

Items NOT to take

Everything not listed above is unnecessary and will add weight to carry and can make your hiking experience unnecessarily painful. Before adding anything in my bag, I think whether the items will eventually get consumed or not? At the beginning of the hike, you’ll have the most amount of energy. You can carry a heavy bag. As you progress, your energy level will decrease. The more difficult it will be to carry a heavier bag. Basically you want a situation like this:

screen-shot-2016-12-01-at-12-10-13-pm

Ok. Here’s the non-exhaustive list:

  • Makeups: Eye liners, Foundation. Really no need for these. A smiling face is prettier than uhm…everything.
  • Sunscreen: Apply beforehand. No need to add a bottle of 400grams in your bag which will not get used up completely.

Want to go Hiking at Les 7 Cascades but don’t know how to proceed?

Feel free to contact me for if you need an experienced guide.

Changes to Road Traffic Act Mauritius

According to L’express, today the Ministers were supposed to discuss about changes to Road Traffic Act: Amendements à la Road Traffic Act: ce que risquent les chauffards

vlcsnap-2016-11-22-21h43m52s26

The article states:

“Conduite dangereuse entraînant la mort

Un individu qui a causé la mort d’une personne en se rendant coupable de conduite dangereuse sera passible, après condamnation, d’une amende variant entre Rs 25 000 et Rs 50 000 et d’une peine d’emprisonnement ne dépassant pas cinq ans.Actuellement, l’emprisonnement maximal est de trois ans pour ce délit…

Conduite imprudente en état d’ivresse

Un conducteur reconnu coupable d’avoir causé la mort d’une autre personne alors qu’il était en état d’ivresse sera passible d’une peine d’emprisonnement de cinq ans au maximum, au lieu de trois ans.”

Dunno actual the benefits caused by keeping someone in jail for 2 more years on the expense of Mauritian tax payers.

“En cas d’accident

Jusqu’à présent, le conducteur impliqué dans un accident a quatre heures pour le rapporter à la police. Ce délai sera ramené à une heure.”

Hmm. Purpose?

Le rôle d’un magistrat

Un magistrat aura désormais la possibilité de suspendre le permis d’un conducteur arrêté avec un taux d’alcool au-dessus de la limite autorisée, à la demande de la police et avant même qu’il ait été reconnu coupable en cour.

What? Can’t understand anything. What’s the difference between “reconnu coupable” and having higher alcohol level in blood? Either you broke the law or you did not. WTF?

Anyways, forget the Ministers and their shows. What do YOU think will really reduce accident on Mauritian roads?

My thoughts:

  • Replace roundabouts by flyovers. Might cost a lot but much less than what the ministers spend abroad in 1 year alone.
  • Add more reflective road markings.
  • Remove humps on the roads to reduce stress fir drivers.
  • Add more speed cameras but increase the speed limit so as to still make it drivable. Some places the speed limit is at 60km/h for no reason despite the car naturally wants to go at 80km/h.

 

Trump Wins. Make USA great again. Let Planet earth live in peace.

I didn’t want Trump to win the election. Just wanted Hilary Clinton to lose. She been in duty for so long. What has she achieved? Well, lots of death in the middle east countries.

screen-shot-2016-11-21-at-10-30-07-pm

Trump might have used a very unconventional campaign but I think he did whatever in his power to get heard. I hope he will now make peace with all countries in the world most importantly Russia. He’s stance towards China might be a bit harsh but what can he do? He wants to compete with them in terms of manufacturing. Not nuke them up.

Anyways, hoping for the best. Peace

Iot Series: Internet of Things (IoT) in Mauritius!

I reach home from work when it’s already dark. I got to park my car in front of my house. I said to myself wouldn’t it be awesome if I could light up the house exterior light using my mobile phone? I bought some WiFI enabled switches from the internet and installed it. Here’s a diagram of the installation.

iotarch

‘All iz well’ except for 1 problem. Nayar’s highness has stop his car, unlock his phone, launch an app, press the LIGHT ON button, then reverse his car. Nayar is not happy!!!

So I had to make a system such that whenever Nayar reaches home, the exterior lights up automatically? Makes sense right? How did I achieve this? Simple but not so simple.

img_20160923_210617.jpg

The Wireless Switch was vendor locked in; meaning it works with their cloud service and Android/iOS app. It doesn’t give me the flexibility for I need. Had to do the following steps in order to be free:

  1. Flash an Arduino firmware (from github) to the wireless switch.
  2. Create a home automation server on a raspberry pi (which I dropped in favour of cloud hosting)
  3. Create an Android app which whenever I connect to my home WiFi, I sends the TURN ON lights on

After lots of research and development, trial and error, it finally worked 😀


Is it over? Nope. Who’s gonna turn off the lights when I enter home? Ofcourse I put a 3 minutes timer in it 😛

And the Laziest Award 2016 goes to?

Coming soon. Very soon:

  • Control garage doors (R&D stage)
  • Temperature and humidity sensors (prototype stage)
  • Get status of windows/doors status: open or closed (R&D stage)
  • Home Camera Surveillance (waiting for materials)
  • Smart TVs integration (prototype stage)
  • Solar Water Tank monitoring and control inflows (R&D stage)

Wanna get into the world of Home Automation too? Wanna turn on your coffee machine from your bed and more? Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.