I’m sitting comfortably at breakfast on this snowy last Saturday before Advent and imagine that the white outside is not snow, but a snow-white sandy beach in the Seychelles – then I open the daily newspaper – and stumble across an article about the Seychelles! If that’s not a sign! But even intensive browsing did not reveal a flight ticket… 😉
Seychelles – Nature as a luxury good
Adam’s skin feels like sunlit stone: dry, rough and warm. He calmly puts up with the crawling. At 120 years old, the giant tortoise has the serenity of old age. The animals, which were thought to be extinct, can live for up to 200 years. Ron Gerlach, a South African who has lived in the Seychelles for over 40 years, found the last specimens of the “Seychelles Giant Tortoises” in 1996 and founded a project on Silhouette to preserve their species. Adam is still actively involved in this project. When the giant tortoises are six years old, they are released in isolated locations. “They then weigh 25 kilograms and are too big to fit in a rucksack and too heavy for flight luggage,” explains Gerlach.
There are no roads and no cars on Silhouette. Apart from Ron’s house, the turtle enclosure, the Labriz resort and a village, the island, 90 percent of which has been protected as a national park since 2009, is uninhabited. With the densely overgrown, 700-metre-high Mount Dauban, whose summit is shrouded in haze, it looks as if completely different animals that were thought to be extinct still live here – a piece of “Jurassic Park”.
The 120 islands of the Seychelles are a classic destination for Europeans fleeing bad weather and busy desks. The greatest luxury of these photo wallpapers that have become reality is not the high-tech resorts with outdoor showers. It consists of the feeling of stepping onto a terrace in the morning. It’s five or six meters to the beach, which shines white against the turquoise ocean. There is not a soul to be seen. This remains the case for the rest of the day on Silhouette, the loneliest of the inhabited islands. Such prospects are worth ruining yourself for. Every tree that was felled for the construction of the 120 Labriz villas had to be replaced. The environmental policy of the state, which became independent from England in 1976, is considered exemplary. People here have understood that nature and landscape are tourist assets. What’s more, you want to preserve the most beautiful spots – preferably for yourself.
When another secluded bay on the main island of Mahé was taken over by a five-star resort, this also gave rise to resentment. Nevertheless, the Four Seasons Resort opened in 2009 in the bay of Petite Anse, a beach several hundred meters long that is so perfect that not even the powder-fine sand gets hot here. In the meantime, things have calmed down, especially as the bay is still accessible via a coastal path and the resort has done a lot to protect the environment. The trees that stood in the way of the construction of the 67 villas built on stilts on the steep slope were dug up, cared for and later replanted. The resort is surrounded by a forest of palm, takamaka, flame and mango trees. The drinking water comes from the sea and is treated in a desalination plant. If you pay as much for a night here as the average basic rent in Germany, you can enjoy the thought of not doing too much damage to the place. Man is merely following the example of nature, which performs impressive miracles on the islands.
Only on Praslin and Curieuse do the sea coconut palms, known as Koko Dmer in Creole, grow. The age of the highest on Praslin is estimated at 800 years. Only when it is 25 years old does the plant bear the fruit that has always captured people’s imagination. This is because the shape of the sea coconut resembles a woman’s pelvis. The fact that male and female palm trees usually stand next to each other gives rise to all kinds of myths – such as the one that the plants approach each other at night. “If you see this, you’ll turn into a black parrot,” warns Thomas, a guide in the Vallée de Mai. The black parrot really does exist – and, like five other bird species in the valley, nowhere else in the world.
The sun’s rays barely make it through the leafy canopy of the Vallée de Mai. Huge spider webs are stretched across the paths. Birds make noise, geckos scurry over tree trunks. The valley has been a nature reserve since 1966, and Unesco has listed the unique palm forest as a World Heritage Site since 1983. In addition to the Koko Dmer palm, various other endemic plants grow here. On Praslin, you can get particularly close to the flying foxes that live in the Vallée de Mai. Steve Esther, herbalist and operator of the Praslin Museum, keeps several in an aviary. The animals with the furry heads on a body that seems to consist mainly of wings and claws let visitors feed them mango. In the restaurant “Chez Batista” on Mahé, however, they are on the menu as “Bat Curry”.
“Every house needs protection,” explains herb doctor Steve – for example with the Bois Malgacha, which is planted at all four corners of a building to ward off evil. The Bois Sandal, native to Silhouette, helps against the activities of the “Bon homme du Bois”, an herb wizard who can get others into serious trouble. The belief in magic, which probably came to the islands on slave ships, persists to this day. Steve chats about herbs for nightmares and heart problems, serves sweet potato chips and coconut, and demonstrates traditional musical instruments. Before the visitors continue on to Praslin’s most beautiful beaches, Anse Lazio and the Côte d’Or, he reveals that there are still many pirate treasures on the islands. Some simply cannot be found, although their existence is considered certain – presumably due to ancient magic. “If you want to go treasure hunting here, you need strong magical powers.”