In June, I wrote about getting lost in the labyrinthine botanical gardens in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, where I wandered for hours. As we entered the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden just north of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, I did not feel the same capacity for meandering. That isn’t a knock on the garden itself: though perhaps not as magical as Peradeniya, its plants, bridges, and flowers were well worth the visit. As we made our way around the park, we noticed a number of plants and plaques dedicated to famous statesmen visits, many of whom were Indian — not surprising, given the close connection there.

Splitting off from the main group, my friend and I found a bench under a shady tree and sat for a few minutes. Or so we told ourselves. Our conversation winded from family stories to campus connections and, of course, our assessments of the trip thus far. From our vantage point, we could see pockets of our classmates drifting around the gardens as the four-color Mauritian flag fluttered in the wind in front of a stately colonial building. I felt calmer and relaxed as our debrief covered the intellectual whiplash we’d experienced bouncing from site to site each day. Eventually, we wandered over to another section of the park and met a few of our classmates. Friendly dogs lounged in planters, their ear muscles relaxing as we pet them and talked some more.

Leaving the gardens, I actually felt far more at ease than I had after Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, when I had been dehydrated from the summer sun and ready for a siesta. Instead, I spent the hour-long bus ride back to the southern tip of the island working on my travel journal. I felt better equipped to reflect, having taken time to decompress. Perhaps, then, that is the purpose of being in nature — not observing to the point of fatigue, but connecting with something that has long sustained the human spirit in diverse, mysterious ways.