Seychelles - Mahé

Last but not least we headed back to the main island of Mahé.  We stayed in a cute boutique hotel, Bliss Hotel, on the northern side of the island.  Upon arrival, we found out we had been upgraded to a room that was beyond stunning.  Unfortunately, the waves here were really rough during our time there, so we didn’t get to really enjoy the ocean, but we still had a fabulous time and a gorgeous room with a stellar view.

Our upgraded room!

Enjoying our last night at the beach.  For more photos from the trip, check out our SmugMug.

When we weren’t enjoying the beautiful views from the hotel, we headed down to the main town, walked the beaches, and ate as much seafood as humanly possible.  Only being able to access tilapia and Nile perch for the last year and a half has been rough as we really like our seafood.  I’m pretty sure we had some kind of fish every single night on this vacation and it was glorious.

Beautiful views from the hotel.

After a wonderful vacation, it was time to head back to Uganda, which meant Kenya Airways.  Since they have become my all-time favorite airline since moving here (severe sarcasm), it’s no surprise that we ran into issues with our flights.  First, our flight departure time had been bumped up and we only found out because we checked our flight details the night before, no email or anything from the airline.  Upon arrival at the airport, our flight couldn’t take off initially because some guy coming from Nigeria was forced to board our plane and was none too happy about it.  Seychelles is very strict about ensuring that when you arrive that you have a return flight, hotels, and the proper immunizations.  The guy was going crazy because he forgot his yellow fever paperwork and the Seychelles wouldn’t let him enter the country.  This meant he was being put on our flight out of the country even though he had literally just arrived.  This all happened right in front of us as we were sitting on the plane and the pilot actually threatened to leave the guy on the tarmac if he didn’t calm down and take his seat.  Then, people brought way to much carry-on luggage onto the plane that they literally left it in the aisle and the plane couldn’t take off until it got sorted and put under the plane.  Finally, we made it to Nairobi only to find out our next flight no longer existed and that we were now on a flight from Nairobi, Kenya to Kigali, Rwanda and then to Entebbe, Uganda.  The man at the gate could not understand why we were upset by this because our new flight left 20 minutes earlier than our old flight.  Which is great in theory, except with the new layover we were now landing an hour and a half later than we were supposed to.  I will not get into all the nitty-gritty because just thinking about it makes me so mad.  So, end of story, I HATE Kenya Airways with a very very very strong passion and I’m starting to really hate the Nairobi airport.

Seychelle's - Praslin

Being our honeymoon and all, we decided to stay at a fancy resort on Praslin, which normally isn’t our style, but it’s nice to spoil yourself once in a while.  I was tempted to go all out and book a resort where each room had its own swimming pool and your rooms were practically mansions, but since we haven’t won the lottery yet we decided to not spend a mini fortune and go to a place that still had amazing views of the ocean and tortoises on their grounds!

Look how cute our room is.

Our first day there we decided to hit Vallée de Mai, a nature reserve and UNESCO World Heritage site.  Some believe that this spot is actually where the Garden of Eden was.  Vallée de Mai is known for the coco de mer, which happens to be the largest seed in the plant kingdom and can weigh up to 42 kilograms (92.6 pounds).

At the Vallée de Mai.

A really cool bird.

The leaves are so big!

The coco de mer.

One of the deciding factors for staying at the resort we chose (Le Domaine de LaRéserve) was that they included a complimentary excursion to Curieuse Island and a snorkeling trip.  We lucked out and had just one other couple with us for the trip.  We set out after breakfast and were soon in the water snorkeling.  Unfortunately, during our entire Seychelles visit there were apparently storms off from the islands that caused a lot of waves, which made snorkeling difficult near the shore, but being far out from shore it was much better and we got to see tons of fish.  We kept ending up in this big school of fish where they kept nipping at us as we swam around, something that’s never happened before.  After the fish had enough of us, we headed to Curieuse Island and to my surprise it is the home of more than 300 Aldabra giant tortoises!  We got to see them from tiny babies all the way up to grandparent aged.  It was pretty cool to see so many walking around and we were even allowed to pet them.  We got a tour of the island and got to take in the many beautiful sights before having to head back to the hotel.

It was gorgeous where we went snorkeling.

Greg with his turtle buddy.

On Curieuse Island.

Our time on Praslin was up and we needed to head back to the main island of Mahé.  Before we left our resort though, we made sure to take some extra fruits from the breakfast buffet and feed the tortoises one last time.  For more pictures from our entire trip to the Seychelles, check out our SmugMug page.

Beautiful views of the sunset from our room.

Seychelle's - La Digue

While we have never really regretted taking this job, it has caused some difficulties like having to speed up our wedding plans significantly.  While everything has worked out perfectly, romantically getting married and moving halfway around the world left us with no time to have an actual honeymoon.  Since I love planning trips and have wanted to go to the Seychelles ever since I saw it on an episode of House Hunters International years ago, we decided this would make the perfect spot for our long overdue honeymoon.  The week of Memorial Day we also had a Ugandan holiday, so it was the perfect time for our getaway.

We arrived on the main island of Mahé on May 26^th and just needed a place to crash as we were getting up bright and early the next morning to take the ferry over to a small island called La Digue.  La Digue Island is the fourth largest island in the Seychelles, however the third largest inhabited island and we decided to spend 3 nights on each of the 3 main islands so as not to miss anything.

Our first night in Mahé, you can see the ocean!

Since the island is so small, the main mode of transportation is by bicycle.  Nowadays they do have some vehicles on the road, but they were few and far between.  Our first afternoon we rented bikes and literally road around the entire island (well the parts with actual roads).  The island is also known for its giant land tortoises, which I came to love.  We found our first ones during our bike ride, including one that was missing a leg.  The tortoises were hanging out in front of someone’s house and wandering around as if they were the Seychelles’ version of squirrels!

Turtle!  He was missing a leg but got around no problem.

One of many turtle friends on this trip.

We're actually in the Seychelles!

Since we don’t know how to relax, we were up at the crack of dawn the next morning to head to the beach.  Unfortunately for us, we didn’t know the L’Union Estate (where the beach entrance is) opened at 7:00 AM, and we had arrived a bit too early to get in.  A pack of stray dogs kept us company until they opened and we made our way to the most photographed beach in the world, Anse Source D’Argent.  The beach lived up to its reputation!  The water is the most beautiful shades of blue and turquoise you ever saw, beautiful white sand, tons of palm trees, and the coolest boulders coming up from below the sand.

Greg on a boulder in L’Union Estate.

Katie feeding some of the resident turtles at L’Union Estate.

Anse Source D’Argent, the most photographed beach in the world.  For the rest of our photos, check out our SmugMug.

We spent our days trying to relax at the beach, though we might have gone all over the island searching for hidden beaches, hiking through the woods, and snorkeling with a pup who decided to go for a swim in the ocean.  La Digue was a beautiful laid back island with good food and wonderful beaches.  Looking back on it, I wish we spent more time here but we were off to our next adventure on Praslin.

Paradise!