Beautiful Seychelles

After a wonderful evening and night spent with my friends, Jo and Diets, in Johannesburg, I boarded an Air Seychelles Airbus A330-200 to fly from Johannesburg to Mahé Island in the Seychelles. I was so relieved to find that Air Seychelles have replaced their ancient Boeing 767-200s with these new Airbuses. The five hour flight was not bad at all and we had quite a smooth landing which makes a change from the way we used to slam into the runway before. I had asked for a window seat on this flight and the only one available was situated at the rear of the plane which meant I was last off the plane and last in the queue to go through immigration. I am carrying a food supplement with me to make up for my rather poor diet on this trip and I debated long and hard with myself about whether to declare it on entry into Seychelles. Eventually I decided that I should mark on the Customs form that I have a plant derivative in my bag and then see what happened. Well, nothing happened! The Customs official didn't even look at my form and my suitcase was not marked for searching so all that internal debating was for nothing. But I think it is better to be cautious than illegal.

My driver was waiting for me and we got away quickly and, with a short stop at an auto-bank,  it wasn't long before I was settled in at the guest house. I am staying in a small place called Villa des Roses in Beau Vallon which is only about 8 km from the capital city, Victoria. I stay here every time I visit the Seychelles and am usually in the same room too. As soon as I had put my suitcase down I hightailed it diagonally across the road to get, what is for me, the best burger in the world. Sun Coco Take-away makes these burgers that have cheese and a type of coleslaw salad on them and they really are wonderful. I keep on meaning to take a photo of one but I usually wolf them down way to quickly for that! The place is open only for a couple of hours at lunch time and again for a few hours in the evening so timing has to be right and luckily for me it was perfect on Sunday evening.

Monday was fairly quiet. I caught the bus into town (5 rupees) and sorted out a mobile internet connection. I was hoping that I could get an Airtel sim card that I can use in all the countries that I am visiting over the next two months but apparently it is only available on post paid contracts. I don't want a contract so I will just have to get a new sim card in each country. Anyway I am sorted for this week so I am happy. After returning from town I did a little grocery shopping to stock my fridge: milk, fruit juice, etc and then settled down to continue with some data analysis that I started on Friday. In the late afternoon I went to the beach for a swim. I was expecting flat tiny waves that are the norm here but the sea was producing big waves and it was a lot of fun playing in the water.

The workshop for the Seychelles got underway on Tuesday. It is such an easy workshop because everyone knows what to do and they get on with it. My role here is what is should be - just ensuring that the information provided is in the correct formats. So no having to explain any basic fisheries terminology this time!

After work I went for a swim again. The water was so warm and the norm had returned i.e. no waves. After a little while in the water I got a bit bored because it was like lying in bathwater so I went for a long walk along the beach. It was very pleasant and when I returned to the starting point it was wonderful to go for another swim before returning to the guest house for the evening.

For the next few days I will be in this routine of work, swim and sleep. Not a bad routine at all especially in such a beautiful place. I leave you with some photos of Beau Vallon Beach.



Location: Victoria, Seychelles

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