Seychelles

We just spent the last two days in the Seychelles. Now if you’re anything like I was a year ago you may not have a clue where in the world the Seychelles are. The Seychelles are a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa and just north of Madagascar. Tourism is the main industry here but I was surprised at how few tourists we saw. I think one of the draws to this country is the fact that you can still find pristine beaches where you feel like you are the only one around.

The Seychelles was one of our break ports – which means we are only here for a couple days and there are no Academic Field Programs happening. Really these break ports exist to break up our really long legs so we don’t have to be at sea for longer than two weeks. It was really nice to sort of have a weekend.

I stayed on the main island – Mahe – for both days. It’s actually quite large and has everything you’d want. My only goal was to find a beach and camp out – I didn’t have any grand interest in going to other islands or doing anything adventurous like diving or exploring the interior of the island. I definitely met my goal.

The unfortunate part of our two days in the Seychelles was that we arrived on a Sunday when pretty much EVERYTHING is shut down – including shops and restaurants. So two other staff folks and I negotiated a cab to take us to the closest beach and we spent the entire day there. We were at the largest and most heavily populated of the beaches on the island. There were still wide stretches of beach with no one – “heavily populated” is definitely a relative term. Since it was the weekend there were a lot of local folks out enjoying the fabulous weather and gorgeous water. It was nice to be on this “busier” beach on a Sunday because we were able to find a couple of restaurants open for lunch and dinner.

Money here is interesting. Their currency is Seychellois Rupees (no relation to Indian Rupees) and everything is advertised in Rupees but a new law took effect in January – foreigners can ONLY pay in US Dollars or Euros at most restaurants, shops, hotels, etc. You can have fistfuls of rupees and you can’t spend a penny. Here is the kicker – if you pay in US cash or Euros you get your change in rupees. Some places enforce the rule and others do not - it’s kind of weird and can be confusing and frustrating. Luckily I brought a lot of $1 bills so I always had exact change but unfortunately I had also exchanged money so I had to be very strategic in spending rupees – dollars here, rupees there. It was strange.

On our second day we joined a faculty member and his son who had rented a car. We drove down the coast and lounged on another beach all morning. For lunch we headed up into the mountains of the interior of the island to a Spice Garden (it’s kind of like a botanical garden of all spices). We didn’t actually go into the garden – it didn’t look like it was worth the $6 entrance fee but we ate lunch at the restaurant. Another weird thing here – they openly post and charge VERY different prices for locals and foreigners: the entrance fee for locals was only 24 rupees ($3). I know a lot of tourist places try and rook foreigners and charge a lot more than normal but I’ve never been to a place that is so blatant and the tiered rates so institutionalized.

Lunch was great – the outdoor restaurant had an AMAZING view of the coast and we were surrounded with gorgeous trees, flowers and plants – hibiscus, gardenia, guava trees, orange trees, bread fruit trees, etc. There were these really cool animals – flying foxes – that were flying high above all the vegetation catching insects. Flying foxes look like enormous, graceful bats. They were pretty cool. There were also some brilliantly colored birds – reds, oranges and white.

My favorite part of lunch was dessert. They made homemade ice cream on the premises and we got the house special – three scoops of their signature flavors – cinnamon, spearmint and lime. Sounds like a weird combo but they were delicious and all made from fresh spices in the garden. Yummy.

Next we drove across the island and up the west coast – we found a fabulously secluded beach – there was almost no one else around. The water was unbelievable warm and there were lots of pretty shells and old coral along the shore. It was the perfect way to wrap up our time in the Seychelles.

These two days have been very relaxing and I’m thankful that I got some beach time in – this may be my last chance to hit a beach for the rest of this voyage! I think I feel about the Seychelles the same way I did about Tahiti – I’m glad I got the chance to come here and it was a nice diversion from the normal chaos of the ship but I don’t think I’ll have any burning desire to come back here again. It’s a beautiful place and it just makes me more thankful of ALL of the tremendously beautiful beaches and places I’ve had the opportunity to visit throughout my travels.