Around 65 million years ago, when God was still a novice at planet creating, the Earth's giant continent of Gondwanaland shattered into pieces.
As South America broke away from Africa on one side with Madagascar, India, and Australia on the other, an archipelago of 115 islands came to rest in 1,4 million square kilometres of water.
Thrusting up from the Indian Ocean are the mountain peak remnants of this ancient continent - also known as Lemuria - where birds and reptiles ruled unchallenged for aeons, long before land mammals were even thought of.
The first people to see the granite boulders and coral atolls of the Seychelles were Arab traders, who probably planted the first coconut palms. Centuries later the splendidly isolated islands gave rum swilling pirates the chance to careen their vessels and bury their bounty.
One of these was the rugged, bandanna-wearing Olivier le Vasseur (the Buzzard) who unsheathed his cutlass from many a scabbard. In 1721, he and his men attacked the Vierege du Cap, a Portuguese vessel, laden with gold nuggets, chests of gold coins, diamonds, pearls and silks.
On board was the Archbishop of Goa with his regalia, to which Le Vasseur took a particular shine. The plunder from this ship - Archbishop's regalia included - is believed to lie buried around Bel Ombre on Mahe, the main island. Today it is worth more than 700 million Euros
According to Herve Dubosque, general manager of Sainte Anne's Resort & Spa, the locals also speak of a boat arriving at Beau Vallon bay, and its occupant burying something in the area before leaving the next day. While feverish digging has turned up all sorts of pirate artefacts, no significant treasure has yet been found.
The real treasures, of course, are the islands themselves - the diamond-studded night skies, gold sunsets and silver fish glinting in the sapphire seas of the marine reserve surrounding the islands of Sainte Anne, Moyenne, Cerf, Long and Round.
I was excited about my first visit to the Seychelles. After all, they are the stuff daydreams are made of, but nothing could have prepared me for the primordial emotions that assailed my senses on arrival.
The real thing is simply more stunning than anything you could imagine.
The Seychelles are not just heaven, they are heaven on hallucinogens.
It's difficult not to trip over clichés, especially considering an anagram for Seychelles is "cheesy sell" so let's just get them out of the way, and I'll try to not to use them again. Here goes: Paradise! Eden! Swaying palms! Powdery white beaches! Azure waters! Spectacular sunsets!
The Seychelles are all of these, but oh, so much more.
Our base was the island of Sainte Anne, the most important nesting site for the rare hawksbill turtles where the females come ashore to lay their eggs.
Here, towering citadels of granite overlook a 220-hectare cinnamon and banyan forested knoll, surrounded by the Marine National Park, founded in 1973.
At its heart is the newly refurbished Sainte Anne Resort & Spa, a Beachcomber hotel. With 87 private villas, each with a gazebo and outdoor shower, it's a Mecca for hedonists and sybarites with deep pockets.
What a joy to read pirate stories next to my own salt pool, surrounded by scarlet hibiscus flowers and tall coconut palms, my supine companion a luminous green gecko on the wooden deck, looking more like an exotic bauble than a living creature.
Then, to totter into the air-conditioned cool of my huge suite and collapse into a big cane chair with squishy lemon-yellow cushions, or onto my king-sized bed to succumb to Sainte Anne's soporific spell.
Part of the magic of these enchanted islands is that everything winds down as gently as it begins.
Sunset is between 6 and 7 pm and the swift shutter of Equatorial nightfall allows no twilight. Even though the islands are less than 10 degrees south of the equator, the heat is tempered by constant trade winds and welcome rain showers that don't last much longer than about 20 minutes.
We took a boat to La Digue, the fourth biggest island framed by buxom boulders of granite dating back 750 million years. Its beaches, with the seas changing colour from the palest greens to the deepest blues ,are the kind you could bottle and sell to Dreams Inc.
Most of the 3 000 inhabitants of this laid-back island travel by oxcart or cycle around the sun-dappled jungle paths. Our guide, the erudite Thomas Lebon from Masons Tours, showed us around L'Union, a coconut and vanilla estate, home to a community of giant tortoises.
Here we saw the copra mill, operated by a woman with a bored-looking ox, where furnace-dried coconuts are turned into oil and the remnants fed to cattle and pigs. No part of the coconut goes to waste. Lebon even showed us how he fashioned boats from coconut shells as a child, providing hours of amusement.
From La Digue, we took another boat to Praslin, the second largest island in the Seychelles ringed with more gorgeous beaches and a coral reef. One particularly beautiful white crescent of forest-surrounded sand sloping down to turquoise waters is the site of a new Beachcomber hotel to be built next year, joining other resorts and fishing villages dotted around the dazzling coastline.
We drove through the World Heritage-listed Vallée de Mai forest reserve; a twilight zone where creepers roam freely, orchids spring from moss-covered trees, and the undergrowth rustles with wildlife.
It is also home to about 4 000 coco de mer palms, which reach up to 30 metres from the dim green valley floor. Male trees sprout flamboyant phallic catkins while the huge, bilobate seed of the female tree uncannily resembles a pouting pudendum, complete with pubic tufts and rounded buttocks. Indeed, one prudish shopkeeper in Mahe had judiciously dressed his window-displayed coco de mer seed in a pair of yellow panties!
These lubricious nuts that fell into the sea (hence the name) were popular with sex-starved 17th century sailors and even today tourists pay thousands of rands to lug them home as erotic souvenirs.
Smuggling them could result in a jail term of up to 15 years, which may sound harsh, but it's a symbol of the government's serious intent to put the environment first.
Indeed, the Seychelles has embarked on the delicate pas de deux of increasing tourism while reducing its deleterious effects.
It's a complicated ballet, this less-is-more business, and while the building of new resorts provides work for the locals, we can only hope the government continues to protect what is left of its delicate and precipitous environment. Exotic fauna ranges from the world's smallest tree frog to its heaviest tortoises. And every summer Bird Island hosts more than a million sooty terns, noddies, foodies and plovers. Indeed, almost every island teems with avian life.
High-rise hotels are banned, thank goodness, while a moratorium on spear fishing has ensured that the opulent and varied marine life can be remarkably tame.
Indeed, just from the jetty in the marine reserve around Sainte Anne we saw bat rays and a baby turtle.
Snorkelling further out in these warm waters among parrot fish, striped sergeants and several other specimens in rainbow colours, was like swimming in an aquarium.
And even if snorkelling's not your thing, though it sure beats a day in the office, you can take a semi-submersible boat and view all the fascinating coral and marine life through thick glass windows.
We ate a delicious lunch at Praslin's Bonbon Plume beach restaurant where crumbs from our table were deftly removed by bright red Madagascar fody birds.
We also shared our bread rolls with the ubiquitous Barred Ground doves, before leaving for Praslin's tiny airport, suffused with the heady scent of tropical flowers for a 15-minute flight to Mahe, the largest of the islands rising to nearly 900m and home to around 87 000 descendants of pirates, freed African slaves, Indians, Arabs, Chinese and Europeans.
Independent since 1976, the islands have only really been inhabited since the 18th century. They were French for a while, then British, and almost South African - had the late Mad Mike Hoare succeeded with his abortive coup in 1982 - and all the islanders speak excellent English, French, and their native Creole.
After a brief sojourn though the tiny capital, Victoria, and a browse through the markets selling fish, vegetables, sarongs and shell ornaments, Lebon drove us up narrow forested hairpin bends to Jardin du Roi, owned by the Georges family since 1854, with spectacular views over a vast bay. Here scented frangipani bushes scattered their pink, white and yellow blossoms and Allamanda flashed purple trumpet-shaped flowers. Tropical birds swooped like kites among mahogany and nutmeg trees and a couple of rare coco de mer palms.
The fifth generation owner, Micheline Georges, lives on the property tending to the numerous plants, tortoises and a couple of fruit bats. There is a family museum on the property and a rustic restaurant where we feasted on grilled Red Snapper, spiced with special herbs from le Jardin.
I tucked into at least two helpings of the breadfruit dish, mindful of the tradition that anyone who eats a tropical breadfruit will return to the Seychelles. I intend to return to this place of marvels, sooner rather than later. In truth, I could happily live here!
If you go
- Visa: South Africans don't need a visa to visit the Seychelles. Your passport will be stamped with a delightful depiction of the coco de mer seed.
- Getting there: Air Seychelles offer two direct flights a week from Johannesburg on Fridays and Sundays. Tel: (011) 781-2141
For reservations call your travel agent. or e-mail [email protected] or visit www.beachcomber.co.za
- Getting around: Smaller turbo-prop aircraft serve the outer islands and atolls. A 15-minute boat transfer at regular hours takes tourists from Sainte Anne to Mahe where daily ferries run between Mahe, Praslin and La Digue. An extensive bus service operates on Mahe. Bikes or ox carts are available to rent on Praslin and La Digue, or just walk.
- Tour Guides: I can heartily recommend Masons tour operators for great guided tours, hotel bookings, car rentals, island hopping, sailing and yachting, scuba diving, handling of flights or walks and trails.
For more information e-mail [email protected] or visit their website at www.masonstravel.com
- Accommodation: We stayed at the wonderful Saint Anne Resort and Spa, a Beachcomber hotel. For more information call Beachcomber Tours on 0800-500-800, e-mail [email protected] or log onto www.beachcomber.co.za
- Cuisine: Creole cuisine fuses elements of French, Indian and
Oriental cooking. Seafood and rice predominate, with local favourites such as coconut milk curries and grilled squid with chilli, ginger and garlic.
- Climate: with almost the whole archipelago lying less than 10 degrees from the Equator, the temperature is between 24-32C all year around.
- Caroline Hurry was a guest of Beachcomber Hotels, Air Seychelles, and Mason's Tours and Travel.