Seychelles II: Island Hopping and Sunsets

Day 2 (Saturday)

We learned to live with house lizards, and other surprise visitors as well. On our second morning, a bird flew into the kitchen through the open door but he, fortunately, found his way out the window. That same night, a June bug-like, loudly buzzing insect had us batting it towards the door. The lizards were “regulars” and Ethan quite enjoyed capturing a few, especially the small babies. They are found day and night climbing on the ceiling and walls as they search for bugs to eat. These are apparently regular house guests that do not faze any locals. Spiders too. Fortunately, there are not any poisonous spiders in Seychelles. I guess our regular “guests” don’t do any harm or cause any mess; more helpful than not.

On our second full day, our lovely new friends, Linda, and her daughter, Lyn, took us on the local bus to show us the route around the island. We were shown where to get off the bus in order to get to popular destinations. We were able to see the mountainous side of the island by following the narrow road that hugs and curves, switchback style, into the town of Baie St Anne, where the ferry had brought us a couple of days ago. We continued on, past elite resorts such as Ruffles where I’m sure the rich and famous must stay while visiting Praslin. The route ended at the top of Zimbabwe, the highest point on the island, where we were able to see beautiful blue-green waters edged by white sand coastlines. Other small islands could be seen in the distance with boats dotting the tropical oceans aplenty. My pictures did not do this sight justice.

We continued back and switched buses to take the bus up into the mountains through the center of the island and tropical forest where the world’s heaviest seed, the Coco de Mer, is found high in the treetops. There is a nature reserve called the Valle de Mai that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the top of the incline. As I looked deep into the forest after the reserve, I spotted a movie set waterfall trickling from high above, and took a “memory photo”.

We learned a lot from Linda and Lyn today about their way of life and their love for their home. I learned from Linda, who also has Joshua who is 17, that kids and teenagers in Seychelles are much the same as in Canada. They grow independent, test their boundaries, spread their wings and sleep late if allowed. I love that there is this connectedness that people from all over the world can make, if one allows it to happen. Seychelles is the perfect example of connected diversity: “The Seychelles Islands are a little corner of the planet where people of all colours and races live peacefully in lush tropical gardens in the middle of a vast ocean aquarium of hundreds of species of colourful fishes.” I loved this description from a local tourism booklet as it summed up this piece of paradise on Earth.

Schooling in Seychelles is set up somewhat differently than in Canada. Lyn is Primary 6, and will go on to Secondary 1 next year, which will be equivalent to Grade Seven in Canada. She attends a public school but all students wear uniforms, which parents like because it levels social status at school, and there is no need to buy as many clothes. At school, she does the core subjects and has gym class, and can do an Arts class. She is in a voice class but wanted to do drawing class instead. She took English from Primary 1, and in Primary 3 she started taking French too, as it’s different from her native Creole language. Joshua just finished his last year of Secondary and wrote exams to see if he qualifies for Post Secondary School, and if he passes, he will go to the main island of Mahe and have his post secondary studies fees covered by the government.

We learned a little about traditional music and dance, as Ethan completed a project on both the Arab and Seychellois cultures. There are three types of traditional music and dance that we saw performed which are called Sega, Moutya and Maloya which incorporated guitar and drums. Sega was originally performed by slaves brought to the islands, typically around a fire and often had messages about oppression and a desire to be free. One’s feet will often stay planted as the the body moves in time to the music. Maloya was often connected to political messages and has an element of “shout and response”. It has slower tempo. Interestingly, the Maloya was banned for awhile due to is political nature. The Moutya starts with a slower tempo but then increases to a faster pace. It, too, was, in the past, performed barefoot around a campfire, often to the beat of a single drum. The female dancers often wear brightly colored, flower patterned, ruffled dresses, which enhances the visual effect. The Moutya dance we saw had the male dancers trying to “attract” the females by lowering their bodies to seem more vulnerable and the females flirtatiously enjoying the courting.

Day 3 and 4 (Sunday and Monday)

Everywhere I go, if plausible, I aim to find a spot to take in the local sunset. I’ve been lucky enough to see the sun set over the sea, high at a cliffside restaurant on the island of Santorini, Greece, off of Rainbow Wharf in picturesque Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, from the Olympic grounds high on Montjuic overlooking the city of Barcelona, or closer to home, across Mattatall Lake, where we’ve just bought some land. In Seychelles, I was able to walk across the road and spend the the last moments of day with the most surreal surroundings. As the sun dipped low, there often was a colorful windsurfer zipping across the glowing orb with the waves ebbing towards the white sand and a tropical breeze rustling the lush trees along the shore. Ghost crabs, with their funny, protruding eyes, busily zipped across the sand, darting in and out of their holes while fish jumped out of the water just a couple of meters out into the water. All this, as the sky turned from blue to orangy-yellow, to orangy pink.

On Sunday, we wandered around Baie St. Anne, where the jetty for the ferries is found, got some more groceries, and stopped for a treat at CocoLicks. We lucked out and ordered a fish and chips dish that was the most delicious fish. We enjoyed the shade and the view of an outtake leading to the ocean with boats bobbing on the blue green water. Even stopping for lunch was an experience.

On Monday, we had a divine day of rest and there was time for Ethan to do some school work. Trips to the beach were still easy and a fresh batch of limeade made from the limes in the backyard was becoming a refreshing habit.

Day 5 (Tuesday)

A must do while in the Seychelles is to visit La Digue, the third most populated island. Until fairly recently, there were no cars in La Digue, and now there are only a few for tourist transport, deliveries and construction purposes. The most popular, and fun, way to travel is to bike, and when you get off the ferry, there will soon be someone to help you locate a bike for the day, at a very reasonable price. The roads in La Digue consist of beautifully maintained pavers or concrete and are perfect for biking. That being said, despite its beauty, La Digue did have that feeling of existing purely to please the tourist and lacked an air of authenticity. But I still highly recommend spending a day here, as its level of comfort makes it a highly enjoyable place to visit.

Biking to see the sights of this island is easy and scenic, and you can definitely see the whole island in a day, but to revel a bit at each spot, I would highly suggest coming early and leaving as late as you can. You could even book some overnight time, if your pocketbook allows (it can be quite pricey). There are several beaches to see, and out of the three that we stopped at, they were all very different, and alluring.

The beach Source D’Argent was the beach to see and has the reputation of being the most photographed beach in the world with many commercials, famous photo shoots (think Sports Illustrated Swimsuits), and advertisements. Barcardi Rum has passed this beach off for the Caribbean which seems ironic to me. It was an interesting walk in with peeks at the shore along a tropical forest trail bordered with tall granite scuptured rock formations. Once on the beach, I didn’t find the water and swimming conditions as nice as some other beaches we’ve visited with a seaweed ocean floor, but the large smooth edged boulders made the surroundings memorable and intriguing.

We also stopped at Grande Anse beach which was an expansively sandy crescent beach bordered by the iconic granite rocks. The surf was a bit challenging with fairly large waves, and, although we didn’t see the sign until we were leaving, there are warnings to swim at your own risk and to watch undercurrents. But the ocean and the waves beckoned Ethan, and as there were many people swimming, he jumped in and I had a hard time getting him to leave in order to see the rest of the island in the precious time we had. This beach also had an on site restaurant with some alluring BBQ smells coming from it, but we didn’t stay long enough to sample the wares.

As we progressed along on our bikes, we were treated to a few roadside cows, a couple of mama hens with several baby chicks and one large tortoise greeting tourists in front of an inn. There was quite of bit of new construction, interspersed with spots to visit with historical interest. We did visit L’Union Plantation which is a still working farm that produces vanilla, a variety of spices such as cinnamon, curry, and pepper, and coconut oil. They have a large population of giant tortoises which live in a very large pen in front of Giant Rock which is a sight in itself. There were foliage branches available for you to feed the tortoises and it was quite comical to see some slow moving tortoises ‘hurry’ to come over for a snack. A nursery was also found on site with many babies to be seen. It was through L’Union Plantation that one found the road to Source L’Argent beach, but the fee was fairly reasonable to visit the well maintained historical site.

As we started to think about our bellies, we were reentering the town of La Passe, in order to venture to the north side of the island. I was looking for a “takeaway” as suggested by my friend Christine, but we, surprisingly, saw our new friends Jose, his son Joshua and Arnold, selling their daily catch of fresh fish. Arnold was quick to point us towards a tucked away area of shops that had a couple of places to eat including a Creole takeaway. But, Ethan spotted La Digue Pizzeria, and so we order a “Perfect” Pizza, with ham, bacon, mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Freshly cooked and too hot to eat right away; it was delicious.

Our time was running low, so we managed to venture far enough to the north to see a beautiful VIP resort, a terraced and flowered cemetery, and Anse (beach) Severe where fresh fruit drink stands were dotted along the route. We started uphill to what looked like a cliffside resort area which would have led us to another couple of known-to-be beautiful beaches, but it was time to turn around in order to catch the ferry ‘home, with time to catch the sunset once again.