Seychelles, a little piece of heaven!

My sister and her husband recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. So we asked my brother-in law Daniel if he could write a story about their 10 day stay in #Seychelles. Below is his story...

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To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary I made plans to go somewhere pretty special. You need to know that I am not your average Canadian dude who travels to Cuba, Mexico or the Dominican Republic. I just like to go to different places where I’m less likely to bump into a bunch of other Canadian or Quebecois tourists. Remote far away places that are sometimes unheard of around here…Places like Seychelles…Where the heck is that that place is what I get all the time. I first heard of Seychelles about twenty years ago when I purchased a “ Beaches “ yearly calendar. This calendar featured the most picturesque beaches in the world….most of which I had heard of before except for those jaw dropping photos of the Seychelles beaches featured on that calendar. I knew I just had to go there one of these days and see those mind boggling granite-based islands. If you're unfamiliar as to where this little island is, it's located in the Indian Ocean, off East Africa. Seychelles was originally a French colony back in 1756 then Britain controlled the islands from 1794 onwards then they eventually became an independent nation in 1976. What makes this group of 115 islands so special is that 45 of those islands are granite-based making them the oldest islands on the planet…75 million years old and the only place on planet earth with granite rock boulders spread all over those islands. Now that’s what I call somewhere special and unique that I just had to see once in my lifetime and what a better time to go then to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary.

After a pretty grueling flight from #Montreal to Chicago to Doha, Qatar, to Victoria, Seychelles my dream come true vacation was about to get going with my wife Maricar. My plan was to spend visit the three most attractive and visited islands….Mahe, Praslin and the best of all….La Digue.

On day one we landed at the international airport in Victoria, the capital of Seychelles. Took a twenty-minute taxi ride in order to check in at #VickysHolidayApartment. We then took a short walk and headed over to Beau Vallon Beach…the most popular beach on #Mahe. Very nice and not to crowded. We just lazed here for the rest of the afternoon then had some take out chicken for supper. Must say that restaurants here are crazy expensive but then again I knew that before coming here but I’m not that fussy with food and neither is Maricar and so any over the counter chicken, pork fish, rice or noodles will do just fine. Funny thing though there are absolutely no fast food chains here in the Seychelles which is perfectly okay with me.

On day two, we took a 45-minute bus ride to the southern part of the island to a place called Baie Lazare. We laid our towels and stuff in the shade under a huge granite boulder. Spent the day here at this gorgeous beach with nice warm calm water and hardly anybody on this beach. Day three, we took a shorter bus ride to the north east coast this time around to a place called Anse Nord Est….very nice but the water was a little too rough to do any swimming. Took another bus back to Victoria where we just roamed around town a little and had lunch at a local fast food place. In the late afternoon, we headed back to Beau Vallon beach to check out their night market. Maricar had freshly grilled fish and I just had grilled chicken for dinner. Stuck around to watch the nice sunset.

On our fourth day, we got on the Cat Cocos for a one-hour smooth ride to Praslin where we transferred onto the Cat Rose ferry for a 15-minute ride to La Digue. Our guesthouse manager who picked us up in a golf cart greeted us at the ferry terminal. You see La Digue is a very small island with an area of about ten square miles so the majority of the people get around on bicycles…and some golf carts and very few motorized vehicles. We checked in to Zerof Guesthouse then got on our bicycles and headed to Anse Severe….a mind-boggling place with these crazy beautiful granite rock boulders on the beach.

On day five, we biked to the northern end of the island then biked back down the east coast passed Anse Grosse Roche all the way to the end of the road at Anse Fourmis. On our way back we stopped at the cool beach at Anse Patates. This is where we bumped into two really cool giant turtles just laying by the side of the road. These giant turtles are only found here in the Seychelles and they are very docile. Maricar and I fed them fresh leaves and small bananas.

We got on our bikes once again and headed for Anse Source D’Argent the next day… The highlight of this vacation and probably the most photographed beach in the world. This place was again just much more then mind boggling…I sometimes felt like pinching myself to see if I was dreaming. Anse Source D’Argent is definitely heaven on earth. I have been to most of the Caribbean Islands as well as Mexico Hawaii, Fiji, Cook Islands, and Thailand and I have seen many many gorgeous beaches but none and I mean none come close to the sheer beauty of this crazy beautiful beach filled with the granite boulders that just look like they were carved with a knife.

My camera was just going off every other minute snapping pictures left and right. Then I just had to take a selfie of Maricar and I using my tripod and a 10 second timer. So far so good until I slipped and fell and banged my head pretty good. There was some blood coming down from my head and I was a little dizzy but I knew it was nothing major. Maricar took a photo of that tiny cut on my head and was completely freaking out. I just laughed and told her…

"Hey if I died I would be okay since I’m already in heaven"

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If you know my brother-in law, he is one that doesn't really like much attention for himself. He loves to talk, but hates if someone fusses over him. So naturally, he dimissed the idea of going to a clinic to get checked out. Of course my sisters and I however we were worried. The sisterly advise was to keep an eye on him for the first 24hrs and monitor symptoms of concussion.

Iodine, gauze or any other medical paraphernalia wasn't really in my sister's home brought medical kit. She settled with the good old way of rinsing the cut and towels to clean up the blood. However, the blood ceased to stop. Luckily, she brought her #QRestore. It's a topical ointment that can be used for minor cuts, lacerations, abrasions, skin irritations and 1st/2nd degree burns. It's made of nano-silver ingredients which is a great disinfectant and antibacterial. She applied this wound dressing gel to his cut, the bleeding stopped. She then gave him a 8 sprays of the #QRelief and watched him rest. You can barely see his silhouette in bed in the picture below.

After 2 days, the laceration on his head started to heal. He felt much better and he was back to continue the adventure!

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On day seven, we biked once again to the southern part of the island this time around. We parked our bikes at Grande Anse and then we did about a forty-minute hike to Petite Anse and later to Anse Coco. Very nice and deserted since it was still early in the day. We hiked back to Grande Anse where we spent the rest of the day.

Day 8: we took the Car Rose ferry to Praslin. From the ferry terminal we grabbed a taxi to the Villa Confort guesthouse…did the check in then took a short bus ride to Mont Plaisir where we did what we thought was going to be an easy short hike. Well it ended up being something like a one hour hike just climbing up this mountain all the way to its peak then back down to the coast to finally end up a the beautiful Anse Georgette beach. Spent the rest of the afternoon here and did an alternate less demanding route back to our guesthouse. Simply hiked back to the resort hotel near the beach where we took another bus back to our place.

The next day, I leased a small Kia Picanto with the steering wheel on the right hand side. Yep since this was once a British colony….you must drive on the left hand side of the road…no big deal…I had done this before. Well at least the car had an automatic transmission and so I didn’t have to mess around with shifting gears. Must say that they have crazy winding roads that are pretty narrow also. Maricar would just close here eyes every time I came to a crazy narrow curve but I was very cautious and kept my speed way down. Anyhow, we just toured the greater part of the island and ended up at Anse Lazio beach in the afternoon. This is another awesome beach and probably the next best one after Anse Source D’Argent.

On day ten…the last on one here….I still had the rental car and we once again toured the island going through Vallé de Mai National Park this time around. Spent a bit of time at Anse Volbert which is a big tourist hot spot. Nice beach but a little too crowded for me and so I headed to another beach nearby…Anse Government. A really really cool place once again where there was a tiny island about 100 meters from the shore. Maricar and I just walked to the island in waste high water. Another crazy beautiful place where I just shot so many photos.

Overall, it was a very nice vacation, the locals are very friendly and the place is super clean. Every day we would see people with blowers and rakes cleaning mostly leaves off the road. And every restaurant, grocery store and gift shop we stepped into was just spotless. I guess they live off tourists and want them coming back so they keep the place clean. Most tourists I bumped into were Germans with quite a few from France also. I bumped into just one Canadian dude with his spouse and that was in La Digue.The weather was warm, but not too hot and humid…just perfect with absolutely no rain the whole time we were there! Too bad Seychelles is so far away since I would definitely come back here more often. However, its one destination off my bucket list.

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