Our last post! Seychelles - Cerf and La Digue

Welcome to our last post for this trip!

We wanted to see a few different islands in the Seychelles so we left our lovely little hotel on Mahe and caught a boat to Cerf Island. The boat left from a small island of reclaimed land attached to Mahe. This area was so swish! It seemed very out of place to me.

We had ridiculously expensive drinks while we waited for our boat then had a pleasant 10-minute ride to Cerf Island. I hadn't realised how close it was to Mahe when I booked it!

Out of the three islands, this was the one I was looking forward to the most. The place we were staying at had rave reviews and everyone commented on how peaceful it was so we figured we'd be well away from barking dogs and the hustle and bustle of Mahe. We need to be careful what we wish for. Cerf had nothing happening! Out lovely hosts were elderly and we were the only guests. It was all self-catering or we could eat at the larger hotel a bit further down the beach which was ok but nothing special. Oh well. At least we got caught up on things!

The jetty we arrived at was so beautiful.

That's Mahe in the distance. Its so close that it completely blocks any sunsets from our place. Noooooo!!!!!

Enormous old trees stood at the front of the property.

On our first snorkelling outing we discovered a new fish for us. It had a head like a seahorse and a body like a snake or worm. It turned out to be a pipefish, which is a relative of seahorses.

One morning we took a kayak out to a nearby small island and went snorkelling from there. We found three reef sharks, one of which took way too much interest in us. It was a bit scary for a while but John bravely put himself between me and the shark then swam at it like he was the predator, not the prey. It gave up and left.

We went for a short hike early one morning before the worst of the heat. We hiked to the top of the island (which wasn't very far, lol) and had lovely views over other islands.

A local dog joined us for the walk which was lovely. On the way back we saw this young eagle ray just hanging around in the shallow water. We didn't even have to get wet to see it.

We noticed that tour boats were bringing snorkellers in to a part of the reef that we hadn't been to so we headed out that direction for a snorkel. It was great! There was more coral than we'd seen for a while and there were so many fish.

Not long after we got there, a family of those large batfish came quite close. We soon realised they must get fed by the tour boats as they just followed us along for the rest of the snorkel. They were super friendly.

The batfish reminded me of the dog that just tagged along with us on that morning's walk. These were just like little puppies!

Hundreds of burgundy-coloured parrotfish with a few others mixed in descended on an area near us. The sound of all those fish eating was amazing!

Another reef shark cruised by but this one didn't pay any attention to us.

We snorkelled for ages and still our little puppies kept following along with us!

We were still amazed by how much English is spoken here. We thought that Creole and French were the most spoken languages, but apparently English is too. We met one woman who told us that her adult son can't speak French at all as he grew up watching movies in English. We often hear locals talking to each other in English.

Cerf Island was lovely if you wanted to do nothing but swim and read a book but it was a bit quiet for us. We only had three days here and we were happy enough to move on when the time came.

We caught the island boat back to the mainland and caught a taxi to a larger boat to La Digue island. The queues for this boat were incredible. First we had to line up to drop our bags off. The queue was 95% tourists. We then had to line up to enter the boat. It started to pour rain but they are obviously prepared for this as we had a roof over our heads most of the time. Inside, the boat was chock-a-block full and the aircon couldn't keep up. We sweltered for most of the trip.

Part of the appeal of coming to La Digue is that it has few cars. Most people get around by bicycle. It had a lovely laid back atmosphere yet was still full of life.

Old building - and bicycles - in the heart of the town.

Some tourists stopped this local woman and asked for a photo. I would never ask someone like that but she happily obliged so I jumped in too. They all chatted away in French and we soon realised that French is spoken more here than we've seen on other islands.

Our first night here was the last night of the Creole festival and a group were singing and dancing on a beach next to a beach bar. The band weren't slick but we liked that it was a local effort. It was a no-brainer that we settle in for a bit with a cocktail and watch the sun set! 

We rented bikes from our accommodation and explored the island. Every bike on the island - and there are thousands of them - had these baskets on the back. The road ran out in both directions though so we couldn't spend hours riding. We passed lovely beaches with beach bars set up under coconut trees. The speed of the bikes meant we had a bit of a breeze but we still got very hot.

Parking our bikes at a beach among so many others!

We had a couple of snorkels here but the visibility wasn't great. It was a bit disappointing to finish our trip without wonderful snorkelling. This stingray was enormous though.

Our accommodation was stunningly beautiful and very swish compared to what we usually book. It was run by staff though, not an owner, and it lacked that personal touch that we had found at our other Seychelles accommodations. We heard thunderstorms on our first night and our remaining two days here would be a mix of storms with some clear patches in between. This daytime storm went on for hours. Listen to the thunder!

There were a few fruit bats around on La Digue, but we didn't expect to find them on the menu!

On our last night We had last cocktails at yet another bar where we could watch our last sunset. The bartender proudly told us that he designs his own cocktails. John tried a rum one that had spices in it. It had cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks and cloves, some of which had been blended into the drink with a blender! John said it was like drinking bark. He then tried a different drink instead. Check out the expression on his face when he tasted it.

My cocktail was lovely though, as was the sunset.

The three islands we stayed on were surprisingly different to each other and there are plenty more islands here to explore. Much to my surprise, Mahe, the main island, was my favourite by far. I found the other two islands had less local life. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a single local person we met on Cerf or La Digue. Most of the staff we met were Indian or Sri Lankan. Someone told us that there are 30,000 Sri Lankans working here. Most of them go a year or two between visits home and some of them have husbands, wives or kids waiting for them at home. It's pretty tough.

We loved the Seychellois people we did meet. They were quick to laugh and had a very laid-back attitude.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the garden of our flash place in La Digue, waiting to catch the ferry to start the long journey home. The sweat is running down my back which is not great as we won't be near a shower until late tonight. We are taking three days to come home to avoid overnight flights.

Looking back on this trip, it has been truly wonderful. It has been a trip of extremes, in both weather and variety of experiences.

Some of the highlights were:

Portugal 

- Exploring medieval villages that have barely changed for centuries.

- Seeing the jaw-dropping scenery of the Douro Valley.

Iceland

- The incredible variety of natural features and scenery, all packed into one small island.

- Despite the huge tourist numbers and unpredictable weather, this country spoke to me.

Greenland

- This felt like one of the world's last frontiers. 

- We saw incredible icebergs and calving glaciers. We walked inside an ice cave and on the ice cap. We watched whales work together to round up schools of small fish. 

- Go now, before this country gets overrun with tourists like Iceland!

Albania

- Seeing spectacular views in the incredible Accursed Mountains.

- Experiencing a vast range of natural beauty and Albanian hospitality.

- Again, go now! Albania has been "discovered" but it's only early days. I can see this country getting swamped by tourists in coming years.

It's been a hell of a ride but we are now looking forward to catching up with family and friends that we haven't seen for six months. 

Thanks for following along and hope to see you soon!

Heather and John

Seychelles - Mahe

One thing about modern travel is that you can get on a plane and end up in a completely different country and culture. We flew from Tirana in Albania to Dubai for a one-night stopover. We had the family from hell behind us on the plane. There were four kids and they screamed, banged the seats and raced up and down the aisles and the parents did nothing about it!

We overnighted in a hotel near the airport then got back on another plane the next day and flew to the Seychelles for some snorkelling on the way home.

We didn't really know what to expect. Seychelles' economy is very tourist-driven so we thought we'd find the people jaded and unfriendly but we were so wrong. It only took a short time for us to realise that the Seychelles has wonderful people. They are so laid back and so friendly! 

The Seychelles has a short but very interesting history. It has never been inhabited by indigenous people. The islands were first seen in 1503 by Vasco de Gama but it would be another century before anyone set foot on them. The Seychelles became an important port for slave traders needing to restock food and water and repair their ships. Slaves were often traded to pay for goods. It’s estimated that around 115,200 people were trafficked through here to Mauritius and Réunion between 1770 and 1810.

Over the years the islands were claimed by the French then the English, with both countries leaving their stamp on the language and culture.

Today, the Seychellois (the people of Seychelles) are a mix of the descendants of African slaves and French colonisers with Indian and Chinese rounding out the mix. The wonderful result is called creole, the amazing, fun and easy-going people we meet today.

Creole has become a language (a mix of French and African languages), a style of food (coconut curries, spices without being spicy, Indian-style lentils and a variety of fruit-based chutneys) and a culture. It has taken the best from a number of cultures and made a new unique one. We soon learned to love everything about it!

Our first week would be on the main island of Mahe where most of the population live. We rented a car and found the narrow roads with car-wrecking gutters a bit tricky but we had just had five weeks of practice driving on tricky roads in Albania so it was all ok.

We stayed at the small hotel run by a friend of a friend and it was perfect. A small beach was nearby and it was drop-dead gorgeous. Most of the Seychelles' islands are granite and these huge boulders look really cool on the beaches.

We had amazing views over the ocean and watched some incredible sunsets from our balcony.

Like many countries, the Seychelles has to import labour to help with the tourism industry. We met many wonderful people from the Indian sub-continent here.

We explored as much of the island as we could in a week, working around doing nothing strenuous in the hottest part of the days. First up was a hike to a beach in the National Park. We went early to avoid the worst of the heat but I still struggled a bit. 

The lush greenery was amazing. Apparently they'd had a lot of rain in recent months.

Almost nothing but vivid blues and greens.

The beach was stunning. A simple beach cafe sold curries and rice but we were too early for this sadly. I had a lovely swim and subsequently coped much better with the heat on our walk back.

We had bought some snorkels and masks and jumped into the beach near our hotel. On our first swim we saw a turtle, heaps of fish and these elegant eagle rays.

There were some big schools of small fish.

Sadly, a lot of the Seychelles' coral has died due to coral bleaching in recent years. I had read about what is supposed to be the best location on the island for snorkelling so we headed there. Old ruined buildings were scattered along the road in. The lush rainforest immediately tried to claim them.

Crabs and their holes were everywhere.

These gorgeous red birds, that look very much like a red sparrow, are called the red fody or Madagascar fody.

Again, the beach was stunning!

A park ranger happened to be there and she explained that the beach was shallow for a long way. She wasn't wrong. It must have taken us an hour just to get out to where the interesting rocks and fish were. During that hour we snorkelled over lots of dead coral so I suspect the info I had read that said how good this spot was for snorkelling might have been written before the coral bleaching.

Some rocks in the bay were home to young sea birds that baked in the sun.

On the way we found this tiny beach. There was nobody around and we had it all to ourselves. It was good to get out of the water for a bit of a rest. Amazingly, a freshwater creek ran down the beach to the sea and it was perfectly drinkable. We rested up in the shade on our own gorgeous little private beach then continued on.

I think this is a striped snake-eel. Apparently they like to be half hidden like this.

The granite boulders make for fun snorkelling!

Batfish.

These different type of batfish were huge and there were many of them!

There were heaps of these colourful guys.

By now we had been out in the water for about two hours and we were getting tired. We also realised that we hadn't put sunscreen on. We pulled back into "our" secret beach on the way back for another drink and a rest in the shade.

It took us nearly another hour to return to where we started. On the way we saw a few of these weird clusters of shells. I know that an octopus can cover itself with shells to hide from predators and I could see sucker-type things underneath but they didn't look like octopus suckers. I did some research and I think they're a type of anemone that covers itself with shells at low tide to protect itself from the sun. Amazing!

We had to walk the last bit as the water was so shallow. Something cut John's foot a bit but it wasn't too bad.

By now we were starving so we headed to the nearest town. A man heard us saying that we were looking for food and he asked us if we would like a beach bbq, It turned out that he ran a tour boat and had just fed his clients and we could have what was left - for a price. It sounds terrible that we ate someone else's leftovers but it was absolutely delicious! John had fish, I had chicken and it was all served with a simple salad on the beach. It was wonderful!

We sat at a table and chairs on a gorgeous beach and had wonderful food!

Navigating our way back. You've got to love a country that has a road called "No Worries" Rd!

We saw churches in most towns. The walls were often fully ventilated to let breezes through. It must be pretty hot here sometimes!

There were a couple of restaurants nearby that we ate at. One was a very overpriced creole buffet but at both places we watched some amazing sunsets. What is it about sunsets in the tropics? Every one we saw was stunning!

We snorkelled a few times at our local beach. There were hundreds of these small fish in very shallow water.

In one area the water was thick with millions of tiny plankton-like creatures. It was like swimming through soup! You can see them against John's dark rashie.

I'm really going to have to limit the number of sunset pics in here!

Mahe is the largest of the Seychelles islands, but it's still not that big. One day we drove around most of the island and it took maybe 2.5 hours, although the narrow roads were often busy and were slow going. We passed many beautiful beaches on the way.

One stop was the Jardin du Roi. This 170 year old spice garden contains all sorts of interesting spice plants, most of which are not native to the Seychelles. We saw cinnamon trees, nutmeg trees, pepper plants and the famous coco de mer. This rare tree is only found on certain Seychelles islands. The nut of the coco de mer is the largest seed in the plant kingdom and is oddly shaped, being the shape and size of a woman's buttocks on one side, and a woman's belly and thighs on the other side.

The front side.

The back side (pun intended!).

Red fody in the garden.

Much to our surprise, they had giant tortoises here! These live on a number of Seychelles islands and this particular species is only found in the Seychelles. They were very tame.

We saw a group of local kids all dressed up with flowers in their hair. We later heard some singing and found this. Christianity is clearly alive and well here!

Next stop was a historical plantation house called Domaine de Val des Pres, built in 1870 during the British Colonial period. There is supposed to be a museum here about the history of slave trading but we never found it. Why? Because this property happened to be the venue for a day of the month-long Creole Festival that was happening at various locations around the island and around the country. We targeted coming here on this day so we could see the festival.

The grand house showed none of its sad history. Instead it was surrounded by merriment and a real party atmosphere was prevalent.

Ladies sold crafts under the wide verandahs.

Plantation shutters were essential. I simply can't imagine what it must have been like for English people to live here without aircon!

Local stalls, mostly selling food and drinks, were set up in the grounds. One guy had a game where you had to throw hoops over bottles of drink. The guy in the blue t-shirt kept buying more and more rings until he won all the alcohol he was after. I suspect it might have been cheaper to just buy the bottles from a shop.

Large pavilions were decked out for festivity. A band was playing at one end and people danced the afternoon away inside.

From what I could learn, this type of dancing is called kanmtole. This is the creole version of the dances that the colonists used to do. 

Many people wore very bright clothes.

The event finished at 6pm and, as the afternoon wore on, the dance floor got more and more crowded. John and I had a dance and the sweat just poured off us. The Seychellois can really dance but nobody made fun of our feeble attempts :)

We bought curries from food stalls and ate them on the beach, chatting with families who were picnicking there. We then headed home, hot and tired but happy.

That night (it was Saturday night), a huge party happened somewhere near us. We had put up with barking dogs for all the previous nights but this one took the cake. Not only was the music loud but the dogs all barked at the music as well....

Sundays seem to be family days at the beach. We snorkelled from our local beach around to the next one, called Sunset Beach, and it was lovely to see groups of people out having a good time. 

We had fun watching this group play tug-of-war. (The women won.)

The beach was really lovely.

We finished the day with another drop-dead-gorgeous sunset.

We saw fruit bats everywhere. Some flew really close to our balcony. They were more active in the evenings but we could always see some during the day too. They were quite interesting to watch.

That night we drove to Beau Vallon, a popular town on a beach a few kilometres from where we were staying. We explored the area a bit and ended up at a famous beachside pub called the "Beach Shak". It was packed. It was really hard to order anything but eventually we ordered food and drinks. A band was playing and people were really getting into it. The Seychellois music was great! After a while, a young woman who had been dancing a lot dragged me up. She had long black dreadlocks and looked amazing in a little white dress and matching white smile of perfect teeth. Luckily, she got me up just as the music switched from local to western. I could dance to that at least, haha. At one stage her equally dreadlocked brother joined us. I was the only tourist on the floor. There weren't many tourists in the place at all, and everyone was really friendly. After a few songs the music switched back to local music and my new friend tried to teach me how to dance Seychellois style. Basically it involved gyrating your bum continually while moving your feet in complicated dance steps. There was no way I could coordinate all that! It was a truly wonderful evening, even if my clothes were sodden with sweat.

The capital city of the Seychelles is called Victoria. There's a famous creole restaurant there called Marie-Antoinette. It's located in another old plantation house and Henry Stanley is reputed to have stayed there while he waited for the boat to take him back to England so he could tell everyone that he found David Livingstone (as in "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"). The restaurant was founded in 1972 and is now a national monument.

We had a lovely dinner here one night. I have very happy memories of driving home afterwards. We had the aircon off (a rare treat!), the windows down and the warm air blew gently in our faces. John had one arm out of the window, savouring the night air. When we passed likely looking culprits walking on the narrow roads he would call out, "Egghhhh, kadou?" (Whassup?) in a Seychellois accent. (These are the only Seychellois words we've learnt that aren't French-based.) It was very funny.

On our last day we explored Victoria. There is a strong Indian community here and there's a gorgeous Hindu temple.

The famous clock tower was erected in memory of Queen Victoria, shortly after her death.

We were thrilled with our stay on Mahe. Ok, so the heat kept us indoors a lot and the coral bleaching was disappointing but the people were amazing and the culture was so interesting!

We are looking forward to exploring this further on two more islands over the next week.

Hooroo!
Heather and John