Dust sprinkling Islands 400,000 km² between Maldives and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles archipelago represents the absolute fantasy of most of our urban populations seeking to forget the stress of working life in the shade of panels display and blows of decibels. Before the weekend, and to better enjoy it, let me take you on one of its most admired islands, the most photographed, and the most peaceful island of the Seychelles, La Digue.
Lagoon of La Digue, Seychelles
Here you live day to day, to the rhythm of the trade winds, under the caress of the sun.
A journey of a short half hour takes you from Praslin to the another island, the concrete pier in La Digue, under the radiant sun. We refuse the offer with a smile a few savvy Seychellois who stormed the twenty hesitant tourists, offering bikes or horse carts because there are very few vehicles engines. Until the 1970s oxcarts were the only means of transportation on the island.
A more detached Seychellois draws our attention: sitting on the bench of his chariot to beef, it awaits visitors without haste and perfectly suits our simple goal, our modest ambition: to see what is still dreaming of millions of Earthlings. A negotiated rate quickly, quickly agreed, and here we are with a driver of a special kind for the day. Despite his warning “Caution head”, I knocked on a beam by climbing on the back of the tank with two large wooden wheels that oscillate on irregular road. Comfort is frustrating but the reward is there: the click of the tongue of our rasta dreadlocks with long is the only sound that disturbs the atmosphere and the smell of wet earth advantageously replace the air conditioning.
Chugging along, we pass the tourist shops that sell everything that can be stamped “Seychelles”, then the police station, post office, the last wooden houses painted in white, pale green. The gardens are blooming, lush; ginger flowers and birds of paradise compete with thorny bushes fuchsia bougainvillea cascading in heavy clusters along the road. Voluntarily, we let tourists already the premiere of the visit to the giant tortoises in enclosures parked lacking poetry.
The colonial cemetery of La Digue, Seychelles
One or two kilometers away, it’s an old colonial cemetery is exceeded: crooked gravestones, the inscriptions in French diluted by time, testify to the Seychelles stories …
At the junction of a road we turn to the left onto the avenue of land of an oil mill located in an old coconut plantation. A stop for almost obliged coconut oil extraction demonstration, with all stages of processing coconut, which requires us to the memory of former slaves chained to the heavy millstone now driven by an ox …
Colonial house in Seychelles, La Digue
A jet of wheels, it is the colonial house that served as the setting for the latest film in the series of Emmanuelle before us (photo above). Besides its impressive palm roof and huge veranda, it is with a half smile that our rasta driver reports that it belongs to the head of state Seychelles.
But by returning, we note especially small palm wood huts about two meters by three meters, bordering property, which housed the slaves of this house. In the air floats a sweet vanilla scent whose plump pods clinging vines in the trunk of some nearby trees; the shelves in front of the old huts of slaves, they turn brown in the sun, exhaling the smell of baking grandmothers …
La Digue Island, Seychelles – Granite blocks
As of this point, we will walk and not have us pray on a narrow path in the shade of huge boulders that shelter scented frangipani trees and bushes allamandas with lemon flowers. At the discretion of our lazy walk we arrive regularly on tiny private beaches that are rattling the triggers of our cameras. Here the blue of the lagoon edge on the pink granite. A way as any to remember that when it was discovered in 1744 by Lazare Picault, the island of La Digue was named “Red Island” because of these huge rocks nestled on the beaches and taking a reflection flamboyant at sunset.
Further, it is a famous palm tree that stops us with a leafy head licking the foam that comes to die on the pristine sands, its trunk bent humbly yet has seen pass the rear of the most famous supermodels in the world. A perfect setting for the biggest fashion photo sessions, especially for summer bikinis with numbers branded on white sandy bottom.
Finally, we arrive at the legendary Anse Source d’argent Beach. And we understand why it is regularly listed among the ten most beautiful beaches on the planet …
Anse Source d’Argent, La Digue Island, Seychelles
A long ribbon of sand flour winds before a shallow lagoon to the boulders of pink granite rocks, fallen from the mountains in ancient times. Corals offer flush with the surface of shadows and light translucent handle and I guess reef fish frolicking safe from large predators. If the landscape leaves us silent for a moment, we decided very quickly to follow through down there, and get lost between the famous rocks.
This morning few tourists have made the effort to follow the sandy path so far and we come across a dozen vacationers too happy to share the coastline in peace. But no one goes to the end of the beach, where the pink granite rocks cut the road to the most daring. And I want to touch these stones polished by the wind, I want to touch the worn leather, leather shaped by centuries of erosion, tanned by the spray and the heat of the sun.
The rising tide caress our knees but we go even beyond, until the ripples blow us to turn back otherwise we roll into the water with our bags and cameras …
We went at the end of Anse Source d’Argent, at the end of our dream …
From that day we will feed another …
