We spent two days in the Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. The correct pronunciation of the name is Say.shells’. Our first day was spent in Victoria, the capital and largest city.
Our first stop in Victoria was the botanical gardens. The coco de mer is found only in the Seychelles and is their national fruit. The seeds (the large green items) are the largest and heaviest seeds in the world at 16 to 20 inches diameter and up to 55 pounds. You don’t want to picnic beneath this tree!
The gardens were full of unusual tropical plants. There were a number of fruit bats throughout the islands and our guide shared her favorite recipe for curried fruit bat. I didn’t see Susan taking any notes.
Large tortoises are common and most parks and even hotels have a collection. They gave us plant stems to feed them.
The clock tower is located in the center of Victoria.
This building houses the national history museum.
The Seychelles was the cleanest and best maintained country we visited in Africa. It is the least populated, but has the highest GDP of any African country.
There was a vendor selling dried fish across the street from the market.
The country is primarily Catholic, and this is the cathedral.
Finally, we rode to the other side of the island for a beach break. On the way, we got a hint of the beaches we would visit on the next day.
The water was very warm compared to home, but it still felt good compared to the hot, humid air. We had a beautiful sunset.
On the second day, we were in the much smaller island of La Digue. It has a population of 2800 making it the third most populated island in the Seychelles and the forth largest by land area. We had no tour, and elected to visit Anse Source d’Argent, rated by many as the most beautiful beach in the world. The island is a granite island and the land and beaches have a number of large granite boulders. The options to get to the beach were walk, bike, or taxi. We elected to walk the mile or so to the beach despite the heat and humidity.
Of course, there was a nice church on the way.
We also passed an historic cemetery.
There was also a turtle pen with large granite rocks. I had never heard a turtle make any noise before the mating male in the picture.
After a walk of over a mile, we reached the beach. From palm trees, to large granite boulders, to fine white sand, to clear blue and green waters, to colorful fish you could see without snorkeling, the beach did not diasappoint. The water temperature was similar to our pool water in August, but it still felt good compared to the air.
So is it the most beautiful beach in the world? Even though we only saw a small part of it, we give it our vote.
This is a very small island near where our ship was anchored. We would love to come back, but it is a thirty hour plane ride to get here.