Chamarel is a farming village folded into the hills of south-west Mauritius, and getting there is half the fun. The road climbs from the coast near Case Noyale through sugar cane and then bends upward in tight, short hairpins, with the tarmac sometimes uneven and the verges thick with palms, vanilla and flowering trees. The air gets cooler and wetter as you rise, and you will smell wet earth and woodsmoke before you see the village. It is a gentle, rolling kind of riding, with surprises, with a local bus or a pickup always round the next bend.
The reason people come is the Seven Coloured Earths, a patch of dunes in reds, browns, violets and greens that formed from the weathering of volcanic rock. The colours settle in layers and, as the guides like to say, do not mix even in the rain. A short way off, the Chamarel waterfall drops about a hundred metres into the forest, and you see it from a platform. The site charges an entrance fee, and there are giant tortoises from Aldabra wandering about in an enclosure, which is a good reason on its own to stop. The coffee grown in the surrounding hills has a following, and the village also has a rum distillery that opens to visitors, in case you need a story to tell your friends about the afternoon you tasted rum on a motorbike. Do the tasting after you ride, not before.
The island's history is written in these hills. Maroon communities, escaped slaves, used the mountains of the south-west as refuges during the French and British colonial periods, and Le Morne, the great rock on the coast, is a monument to them. The forest you ride through now was once a wall behind which people disappeared.
For fuel, do not assume anything on the plateau. The pumps are down at the coast and along the main roads, at places like Chemin Grenier and Case Noyale, so fill up before the climb. Rain showers move through any time of day, even in the dry season, and the polished tarmac on the bends gets slippery. Aim to arrive before the tour buses, which usually reach the earths late morning.