Tamarin is the village with the strongest surf spirit in Mauritius: an open bay on the south-west coast where one of the island's best waves breaks, with a relaxed, bohemian feel and fewer tourists than the north. It is also the dolphin-watching capital: every morning, hundreds of bottlenose and spinner dolphins come into its bay.
The landscape mixes sea, mountains and the traditional Tamarin salt pans, where salt is still harvested by hand as it was centuries ago. The beach is 'wilder' than the sheltered lagoons of the north and has waves (that's why people surf here) and lovely sunsets over the Indian Ocean. Around it lie the Rivière Noire (Black River), the National Park viewpoints and the striking outline of Le Morne.
As a base in the south-west, Tamarin is ideal if you are after nature, sport and authenticity rather than resorts. From here you can reach Chamarel (the Seven Coloured Earth and the waterfall), Le Morne (a World Heritage mountain), Casela park and Black River Gorges National Park in minutes. A beach with character, dolphins, surf and mountains: a different side of Mauritius, much loved by travellers who come back again and again.
A former fishing and salt-making village in the Black River district, Tamarin keeps its historic salt pans and a bohemian surfer vibe. Its history, along with the story of how the island was settled, is on the Tamarin history page.
Read the full history ↓The area around Le Morne mountain, a refuge for runaway slaves and a World Heritage Site, together with the volcanic landscapes of Chamarel and the island's last native forest.
Read the history of The west and south (Chamarel and Le Morne) →If you only have one day, take a guided tour on the first one: it sets up the rest of your trip and saves you a lot of walking. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. There are not many in Tamarin, but the ones there are worth it. Tap the cards below and have a look.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Tamarin is a charming anomaly on the map of Mauritius. While the island became famous for its calm lagoons and resorts, this south-western village built its identity on three wilder things: the salt harvested by hand in its century-old salt pans, the waves that made it the cradle of Mauritian surfing, and the dolphins that visit its bay every morning at dawn.
That distinctive character has historical roots. Tamarin belongs to the district of Rivière Noire (Black River), the most rugged and least populated region of the island, a land of mountains, forests and a coastline open to the ocean. Here the history of Mauritius (settlement, slavery and the mixing of peoples) unfolded with its own accents, closer to untamed nature than to the colonial salons of Port Louis.
Like the rest of Mauritius, the south-west had no human inhabitants until the colonial era: the island was completely uninhabited when the Europeans arrived. The Dutch were the first to settle, in 1638, and named it Mauritius in honour of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Their time here left the island's saddest mark: the extinction of the dodo.
The dodo, a large flightless bird with no fear of humans, was wiped out by sailors and by the animals they brought with them; by the late 17th century it had already vanished, becoming the world's symbol of human-caused extinction. Defeated by cyclones and pests, the Dutch abandoned Mauritius in 1710. In the mountains and forests of the south-west, however, endemic species survived and are now protected in the nearby Black River Gorges National Park, such as the Mauritius kestrel, rescued from extinction at the very last moment.
In 1715 France took the island, named it Isle de France and turned it into a sugar colony worked by thousands of enslaved people brought from Africa and Madagascar. The Black River district, with its steep terrain, became the setting for one of the most dignified chapters of that history: 'marronage', the flight of enslaved people into the mountains.
A few kilometres from Tamarin rises Le Morne Brabant, the mountain where, according to oral tradition, many runaway slaves took refuge. Legend has it that when an expedition climbed up to tell them slavery had been abolished, they, fearing recapture, threw themselves off the cliffs. Whether history or collective memory, Le Morne became a universal symbol of resistance to slavery and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. The serene beauty of the south-west thus lives side by side with the memory of one of the most painful episodes in the island's past.
In 1810 the British conquered the island, which in 1814 was renamed Mauritius once again. They allowed the French settlers to keep their language, religion and customs, which is why French and Creole still dominate in the south-west. That British era left traces such as the Martello Tower at La Preneuse, next to Tamarin, one of the stone fortifications built in the mid-19th century to defend the coast.
After slavery was abolished in 1835, landowners brought in hundreds of thousands of indentured labourers from India, who landed in Port Louis and spread out across the plantations. That migration gave rise to the island's Hindu majority, alongside Muslim, Chinese and Creole communities. In Tamarin, besides sugar cane, a unique trade took hold: sea salt production. The salt pans, with their geometric basins where the sun evaporates seawater, have been in operation since the 19th century and are still harvested by hand today, one of the last living traces of that past.
Mauritius became independent from the United Kingdom on 12 March 1968, under the leadership of Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, and was proclaimed a Republic in 1992. While the country diversified its economy with textiles, finance and tourism, Tamarin took a more alternative path. Its open bay, with a groundswell that is unusual on an island of sheltered lagoons, drew the first surfers.
Tamarin became the cradle of Mauritian surfing, and its fame grew when its wave appeared in classic surf films. Far from the big resorts, the village developed a bohemian vibe of low-rise houses, cafés and boards under the arm that sets it apart from the rest of the island. On top of that appeal came the tourist discovery of its dolphins: morning dolphin watching in the bay became one of the most sought-after excursions in the west, with the still-unmet challenge of doing it without harming the animals.
Today Tamarin is the heart of a different Mauritius: more natural, sporty and authentic than the one on resort postcards. In its bay, surfers at dawn share the water with dolphin-watching boats and Mauritian families on the beach; next to the village, the salt pans still glitter in the sun as they did a century ago, and the Martello Tower keeps watch over the coast. All around stretches the island's most spectacular south: Chamarel and its seven-coloured earth, Le Morne and its mountain steeped in memory, and Black River Gorges National Park.
That contrast (wild beauty and a difficult past, surf leisure and fragile ecosystems) neatly sums up what Tamarin offers travellers: a Mauritius that doesn't end at the turquoise lagoon, but invites you to look at the mountain, the salt, the waves and the history too. In this corner of the south-west, the island shows its most honest face and, for many, its most memorable one.
It is no coincidence that Le Morne, so close to Tamarin, was chosen by UNESCO as one of the world's great memorials to slavery. Mauritius was a key piece in the Indian Ocean slave trade and, later, the testing ground for the indentured labour system that replaced slavery throughout the British Empire. Acknowledging that history (of the maroons in the mountains, of the Indian cane cutters, of the Creole fishermen and salt workers) is part of what makes a trip through the south-west more than beaches and dolphins. In the salt pans still harvested by hand, in the stone tower watching over the coast and in the sacred mountain outlined to the south, Tamarin keeps alive the memory of how the rainbow nation that Mauritius is today was built, through pain and through mixing.
