Seychelles
Monday, March 26th

I flew to Seychelles on Thursday, March 22nd and it was a great flight. While both leaving Mauritius and arriving in Seychelles three hours later we had some fantastic views of the islands and the Indian Ocean. The water is a beautiful colour ranging from blue to turquoise to green. No one was at the airport to meet me even though I had paid for an airport transfer but one of the other tour companies gave me a lift to my hotel. I guess it’s a small enough place that the look after each other and us tourists, which is nice.

The drive to the resort only took about half an hour but what scenery. First there were great seascapes and beaches, then small towns, then winding highways up and back down a mountainside through thick rainforest areas with incredibly lush vegetation, and then back to small towns, seascapes and beaches. And all within 30 minutes! The Seychelles island of Mahe is the largest island of the chain of over 100 islands in the group and it is only 27 km by 7 km in size and from zero to 900 metres in elevation.

The resort is on the coast and there is a small beach on the north side around a natural lagoon. There are rocks around the rest of the property and the waves sound and look powerful as they crash into the rocks – quite a contrast to the peaceful calm of the water in the lagoon.

You enter the resort at level three from the inland side. Level two opens on to a big pool area and the restaurants and lounge surround it. You can go down a flight of stairs outside to level one and then another flight of stairs to the beach and garden, which is very large and green. There are seven stories in total in the resort and all rooms have an ocean view so it’s very relaxing to sit on your patio and enjoy the view and the sounds at any point in the day.

Oops, speaking of patios and any point in the day, I am sitting on my patio right now and it is March 30th and I forgot to note the date in this blog. The sun is setting behind the nearby islands and it is a quiet evening. The sunsets have been incredible every night and I have taken way too many pictures. Luckily tonight’s sunset is nice but not spectacular so I’m trying to control my picture taking. It’s about 6:15 p.m. and the temperature is still probably over 30 degrees Celsius and there are still people in the pool and in the lagoon. Not me though. I came up to start my packing am now writing and enjoying the sunset before I go down for dinner. And then tomorrow morning I’m off to South Africa.

So what did I see and do in Seychelles? I visited three islands: Mahe for 5 days, Praslin for 3 days and while in Praslin I did a day trip to La Digue. Praslin is the second largest island in the Seychelles but it is very small. I never saw a road sign with anything higher than 10 km on it and the guidebook when talking about trails said not to worry about getting lost because you would cross any point of the island in an hour or less so it was impossible to get lost. La Digue is even smaller and it’s the third largest island. Some of the other islands have no inhabitants but these three have 30,000, 6,000 and 2,000 respectively.

I started and ended my stay in Mahe, which is where the international airport is located. The resort had a free shuttle service so I made use of it. On Friday the 23rd I went to the sister resort in Baie Beau Vallon, which is on one of the largest and nicest beaches in the Seychelles. It was indeed very nice. The water is calm and the sand is white powder. I took some pictures but obviously didn’t feel comfortable walking on the beach because I spent the afternoon at the poolside, which was very nice. It rained for while but I was safe and dry under my umbrella. It amazes me how quickly the rains start and end here. Sometimes no one even cares because it’s so hot you dry off instantly anyway. However sometimes it’s such a torrential downpour that you are soaked instantly and definitely wouldn’t dry. I guess that’s the joy of living in the tropics. Anyway, I read the afternoon away, didn’t even get in the water as they had no step, only stairs, then I caught the shuttle back to the hotel.

Since it was my birthday I got slightly dressed up for dinner. The previous night they had a cake and sang happy birthday to a German lady and took lots of pictures and then split the cake amongst everyone in the dining room. She was travelling alone and couldn’t figure out how they knew it was her birthday. They told her they got it from the registration info so I knew I’d get a cake too and be centred out at dinner. I figured this was a good thing, as I would get my picture taken with my cake and candles to mark the occasion. Well how disappointed do you think I was when I sat in anticipation throughout my entire dinner and nothing happened? Even the German lady stopped by to say how sorry she was because she didn’t understand why they’d give her a cake and not me. It was quite bizarre at the time but only she and I were expecting anything so we were the only ones disappointed. I left after they brought me my drink bill – I even splurged for a glass of wine for the celebration – and went to check e-mails just so I could find someone to wish me a Happy Birthday and sure enough some people did. I guess this cakeless birthday makes up for some of those years where I had 3 or 4 cakes! And it was a great birthday and very memorable anyway – nice and relaxing and in a beautiful place I will probably never visit again.

On Saturday, March 24th I took the shuttle into Victoria, the capital city with a population of 20,000. I went straight to the market as it was only held on Saturday mornings. It was indeed a very busy place and also a very large place in about three different areas. I don’t know if some of it was daily, as opposed to just Saturday, but all of it looked busy. Fruit, vegetables and fish were the main items for sale and they all looked very fresh and delicious.

I wandered around a few streets and into a few stores but it was so hot I decided to take it easy for a while. At 12:30 I went into the museum but she said they were closing at 1:00 so I might want to come back another time. The library was right next door so I went in there to rest for a while and read the paper. Well, they closed at 1:00 too so soon kicked me out. It seemed like the whole city closed at 1:00 on Saturdays so there wasn’t much to do and the shuttle wasn’t going back until 4:30. Well, never fear. There was an internet café nearby so I spent 2 hours clearing e-mails since I hadn’t been on in over a week, and then I went to a restaurant for something to eat.

So I didn’t see much in Victoria – the market, a few stores, the entrance to the museum, the reading area of the library, the Pirates Arms Restaurant that was very busy, and a few street scenes and statues. The city is quite nice and modern and very easy to get around in. The only downside was the fact that most things closed in the afternoon and the fact that it was incredibly hot and humid, which made the visit quite unbearable. I should note that they had an incredible torrential rain while I was in the internet café so it was a bit cooler when I came out.

On the 25th I flew from Mahe to Praslin – a quick 15-minute trip that provided some incredible views. Praslin has lots of beautiful beaches and the same thick lush rainforests as Mahe in the interior. The resort is on the beach but back quite a ways from it. The main restaurant and bar and reception are back by the rooms but there is one open-air restaurant right on the beach. As I was up early for my short flight I had lunch on the beach and it was wonderful. The food was delicious and the beach view was very relaxing and beautiful. The shade and breeze at the restaurant also made the temperature very bearable.

While at this resort I went for several walks on the beach as the sand was a fine white powder and well packed. The beach is long and curved around the coast – technically not a bay but pretty close. The palm trees around the edge provide some shade at some points in the day but not a lot. And most of the time the beach was totally empty because it was just too hot. Mornings and late afternoons were the busiest times. I went in the water a couple of times – one morning after a walk and one evening after a walk. The water is so warm it’s unbelievable. I’ve had cooler baths and showers. And the water is very clear and there are fish swimming around you at times. With hat on and in water up to my chin, it was a great place to cool off.

The pool at the resort was small but nice. I also spent some time around it the one day. It’s always good to be under one of those nice umbrellas when the torrential rains come and boy did they come when I was on Praslin. I’ve never seen so much rain at one time.

On the 26th I went by bus and boat and oxcart for a tour of La Digue. Very few vehicles are allowed on this island so oxcarts and bicycles are the main modes of transportation. While I would have preferred to be on a bike, I figured the oxcart would be safer for me and my feet. The boat ride between the two islands is about 30 minutes so we had about 7 hours on the island. It’s small so you don’t need much time but when you’re moving as slowly as an ox moves, you need all the time you can get. At least the cart was covered so we had shade. We certainly weren’t going fast enough for a breeze!

We rode along the coast and through tiny villages until we reached L’Union Estate. The old plantation house was beautiful and overlooked the ocean and a beautiful green lawn surrounded by all the servants’ huts. Apparently the boss liked to see his workers at all times. The former prime minister used to use the place as his holiday house but the current one has a place in Praslin instead. The house’s other claim to fame is that the movie (?) “Emmanuel, Come Home” was filmed here. Needless to say, no one on the tour admitted to having seen the movie – a porn flick.

They gave us a demonstration on how to make coconut oil. The coconuts are gathered and piled in one location where they are husked. That they do by pounding the coconut many times on a wooden stake in the ground, and it looked like hard work. Following that the coconuts are cut in half and the milk drained. The coconut halves are then baked for several days in a huge walk-in oven about 8’ by 15’ that has a big brick fireplace on the outside with heat pipes in to the oven. The coconut halves are then removed and the coconut shell just falls off after the baking. The coconut half is broken into pieces and these are put into the press and ground to get the oil. The copra press is turned by an ox pushing a wheel around in a circle – at least it was in the old days and still is now for tourist purposes. The baked coconut is called copra so this was an old copra factory. Eating raw coconut is okay and using coconut oil is okay in moderation, but apparently you don’t want to eat the copra itself or you will be sitting in the bathroom for several days.

The estate was huge and also had vanilla vines but it was the wrong season to be harvesting vanilla. There was a huge area for dozens of adult giant tortoises and a very small pen for the younger ones who have to be separated so the heavier adults don’t crush them. There are more tortoises in Seychelles than people. I think the count was 1000,000 to 80,000 respectively.

There is a beautiful beach area at the end of the estate – Anse La Source D’Argent. They said it was easy walking access but not for me in my bare feet. I would have been better off with my hiking boots. There were lovely bits of sandy beach but they were amidst granite boulders and required some tricky access. I retreated back to the main area and just relaxed and waited for the others to return. We had lunch at Chateau St. Cloud, a resort in the interior of the island. It was a good meal and we were lucky to be in a covered area because we had another torrential downpour for over an hour.

After lunch I went to the beach as planned while the others went shopping since it was still cloudy. The English speaking guide and I went for a walk on the beach which was very level and had well-packed sand. We watched a fisherman bring in his trap of wood and netting. He had 10 – 12 fish in it. Some he threw back into the water and the rest he threw on to the sand to die. He put papaya and coconut and leaves in the trap as bait and he sets and retrieves the trap daily. The trap is only in about 4’ of water so it’s a very easy process with very basic materials and yet it seems to work well.

I was supposed to go to Vallee de Mai on a tour the one day but it got cancelled. I really wanted to go so I took the local bus on the last day, did the tour myself, returned on the local bus and then showered, packed and left to fly back to Mahe. It was a rush but I’m glad I did it.

Vallee de Mai is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. It includes the world’s only coco de mer forest. There are paths clearly marked through the park, which is very small. The guides told me which route to follow for a one-hour walk and I did it in two hours with lots of stops along the way. The path was great in some places and rather tricky in others. We had another torrential downpour while I was there so that didn’t help the path any. At times it was like a river running down the path way and the rocks you had to climb over were rather wet and slippery. However I made it.

Vallee de Mai is definitely a hilly rainforest area with thick vegetation that almost totally blocks the sunlight but unfortunately not the heat or humidity. I was soaked totally before it ever started to rain. The rain was at least a bit cooler.

The coco de mer tree is huge and the nut produced by the female tree is the largest seed in the world. It also just happens to look very female, like the female buttocks and pelvis to be precise. And the male tree has a large appropriately male catkin.

I also saw and heard the elusive black parrot that is only found here. However, he wasn’t very cooperative about having his picture taken. It was a fun walk and I’m glad I did it even if it was hard work and at times I really wondered if I’d make it. I guess the fact that it’s the world’s smallest World Heritage Site helped those of us with walking problems.

Just a bit more about the coco de mer: Male trees reach 30 metres and female trees 24 metres in height. The seed can weigh 20 kg and the fruit inside takes 6-7 years to ripen. The leaves of young trees can be 15 metres in length and a trunk doesn’t form until year 15. Maturity is between 20-40 years and they live for 200 – 400 years. They are now planning the trees on another Seychelles island just in case something disastrous happens on Praslin. Obviously it will take a long time, if ever, before the new site reaches the maturity of the original one.

There were other plants as well that are only found in Seychelles, too many to mention and most of which I don’t even remember. Some with roots outside the trunk and about 2-3’ above the ground and some with roots or trunks that come down from the branches in many different places. There were also lots of vines and creepers covering everything and mosses and ferns covering the area as well.

Other parts of the islands remind me of bayou country along the gulf between Texas and Florida. The roads here are often through wet swampy areas and the roads are elevated to stay above the water. The trees and bushes in the water are thick and there are lots of “knees” or “elbows” or whatever those roots are that stick up everywhere in the water.

Other aspects of the Seychelles remind me of that area as well. The Seychelles is definitely Creole country and the food and music and language reflect that. If my regular French was bad, my Creole French is totally nonexistent. I can’t even understand the basics half the time. Even simple words like bonjour and s’il vous plait are totally lost in their heavy Creole accent. The music has a very Acadian feel to it and I guess that makes sense too since a lot of our Acadians went to Creole country in the southeaster US. Obviously that is the type of music these folks all enjoy.

The last few days in the Seychelles were wonderful and relaxing. On the 28th I flew from Praslin back to Mahe and on the 29th I took the hotel’s free shuttle to Port Launay and the beach at the lagoon of the Marine Park. I wasn’t sure what I’d do there for five hours so I had change to catch the regular bus back if needed. However, in the end I could have stayed longer. It is a beautiful beach with beautiful white powder sand and a very level and gentle slope into the water. The water is perfectly clear and incredibly warm. There were beautiful fish all around so I didn’t even need snorkel gear. Most of the time I just sat on the beach on my towel and enjoyed the scenery. It was wonderful.

Over the lunch hour some college students, about 30 males, came down in a bus and they were most entertaining for about an hour. They had an organized game of ball in the water – kind of a mix of basketball and rugby and football – but fun to watch and good for many laughs. After their game they got into gymnastics and back flips and pyramid building and just plain silliness, which kept everyone on the beach entertained. It probably also scared the fish a fair bit.

The rest of the time I just relaxed and read and it was very cool in the shade and very quiet and nice. The same can be said for the 30th when I simply went to the lagoon beach at the hotel and relaxed and read most of the day. This part of the trip definitely felt like a holiday – finally!

As usual, there are a million other things I would like to have seen in the Seychelles but tours never seemed to be running when I was available. It’s their “off season” so not very busy which has both good and bad sides. On the good side it is quiet and there are no crowds around but on the bad side, many of the tours and other tourist attractions are not available when you might want them.

Seychelles is right at the equator and they are beautiful. Again their history is diverse with Portuguese, French, English, Arabs, Indonesians, Dutch, etc. all involved. As well as Creole, people speak English and French and those in the tourism area also speak German, Dutch, Spanish, etc. as needed. Pirates once frequented the islands and there are stories of buried treasures. I didn’t find any gold lying around anywhere so I guess I’ll be going back to work when I get home. And that I think just about covers my visit to the Seychelles. They are beautiful islands and one could spend weeks exploring all there is to see. Needless to say, I certainly didn’t see everything so I guess a return trip will be required some day so I can see the rest of the islands.