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On a cherry glazed bus that swept through the waves of Mauritian streets like an uncompelled pirate hunting for a treasure known only unto himself, I found myself a willing passenger in the third row. There was no clear destination or logic toward the situation. I naively climbed aboard and gave my day up to the curious creature (for the bus was a creature) that arrived with a hum of adventure and a hash of an engine at the Flic and Flac station. The bus driver, tamer, looked like an ill casted fit for the bus. Where one of the pair, from an innocent glance roared with thrill, the other sat a quiet and simple old man. Perhaps, I thought to myself as I went to find a seat, he had seen everything by then. He did not need to look like a great adventure because he had already lived a thousand. Immediately the bus took off with me as the only passenger. It felt like being a part of a great kept secret. After traveling for a few minutes, a deep French accent approached me to ask where I was going. A tongue eager not to disappoint the brooding ticket master said Port Louis. I knew very little about the city, except for the fact that it was a city of very little within very much. And so the bus sailed. We dipped and dived and new travelers came on and left in heartbeats of time. Each stop brought with it a new bouquet of diversity. There were the young people, who looked tired of the old people but still gave up their seats regardlessly because it was important to do that. The men who dripped in sweat and perceived authority. The woman who carried flowers and sang soft Hindi prayers. I was lucky enough to enjoy and not enjoy quite so much, the company of a few. The old lady who looked at me with simultaneously happy and sad dark and light eyes (for she had one of each. Maybe one of each emotion too) reminded me of the ruthlessness and rush of life. The young boy who sweat and slept on my evidently multipurpose shoulder made me realize that not all people have had the luxury of personal space. We gazed at the extensive rolling green fields of sugar cane and wondered about their hidden trails. We shuffled through winding streets that left only vague memories of French colonial architecture and modern Hindu temples brightly splashed with fresh paint. We longed for the ocean that every so often would remind us of her presence. And we blocked our noses when the bus invited us to areas of pungent sewage. It was not about any single one of those things though. Not the dualistic nature of the island, or any isolated part. It was about everything as the sum of its parts. Not one was defining. Not one made me think, ‘ah, yes now I have seen Mauritius.’ This is the problem with vacations, I thought. We do not see the whole. And so when I stepped off to greet Port Louis, I invited the full picture of Mauritius in a decided way. And I would always be thankful to my cherry bus for allowing me the wholeness of the island. Perhaps, I came to understand as I began walking into yet another unknown, the treasure is actually the map itself.