Hello good people of Journeyville, I have missed you. I know you are rolling your eyes at me and thinking in your head, “no post in 1 year…a whole year! Nah, this Journeyman doesn’t rate us.” Honestly, issnor like that. A lot of life changes happened and I got lazy. This is the plain truth. But, I am back now and I have goodnews. I got married to the LOML. In true Journeyman style, we jetted off to Paradise aka Seychelles to enjoy some honey on the moon. Now, this has been the best trip of my life. As always, I will be giving you all the juicy gist here. Let’s go!
We Move!
This lovely adventure to Paradise began from Abuja aboard Ethiopian Airlines with an overnight stop at Addis Ababa. A surprise was waiting for us in-flight, as we got a seat upgrade & got served champagne (When we were checking in, the flight attendant asked if we were newly weds and promised us a surprise). Btw, champagne is bitter. Yuck! I used to think it was sweet. I couldn’t even sip half of my cup. The layover in Addis Ababa was 9hours+ and we got checked into a nice hotel and continued our trip the next day. I guess I can add Ethiopia to the countries I have visited.
One of the most beautiful sights you will ever see is when you are flying into Seychelles. Seychelles is made up of 115 islands. Three (3) are currently inhabited – Mahe, Praslin & La Digue. The main Island is Mahe & this is where the airport is located. Imagine this: flying over a long sea stretch and then you happen on this huge vegetation, just underneath you. You think, oh, we are just flying over this and then the plane circles around & faces this huge vegetation, head on. You peep down and see stacks of houses, from top to bottom. It is literally like the vegetation opens its “arms” and let’s you into Paradise.
This description I gave pales in comparison to the actual sight, but that is the beautiful welcome you receive on arrival in Seychelles. Immigration was a bit long, because they had to call our Airbnb host to confirm we had a reservation & had paid in full (green passport issues). Well, we finally got through immigration, met our driver and drove up slim, winding roads, till we got to our Airbnb. Our host was a lovely middle-aged woman named Celine. Our Airbnb was a beautiful studio apartment with a terrace view. We settled in nicely, had dinner and caught some sleep. Waka-waka began the next day.
Exploring Victoria
We decided to start our Seychelles adventure by visiting all the places of interest in Victoria, the capital of Seychelles. The Seychelles Tourism board has a cool tourist app which shows you all the tourist places within the city. There are two ways to commute in Seychelles. You either rent a car (50 Euros per day) or public bus (7 Seychellois rupees – approx 200 Naira) to any destination on Mahe Island.
We decided to use the bus, as it would afford us cash to do other stuff. This meant, we had to plan our outings with bus timings (Celine, our host handed us a map with the bus schedule). A small trade-off which we happily indulged. Our first stop was Mirante La Misere. It is an observation deck on the Island that offers you an amazing bird eye view of Mahe. It was just a minute’s walk from our apartment. I stopped there, everyday.
From there, we went to the market, saw the marina and stopped at the statue erected for the first President of Seychelles. One distinct thing we noticed, as we gallivanted around town was the loud music blaring from cars. You can be sure that lots of Naija tunes were blaring from those speakers. We ended the day by having some delightful spaghetti and chicken stew for dinner.
Vitamin Sea
Today was beach day and first beach of call was Port Launay beach. This beach is so beautiful and extremely popular among tourists. I still can’t swim very well, but when I saw the crystal clear water, I said YOLO. I jumped in walked in, gently testing the depth of the water and getting some much needed vitamin sea?. The tide was very low, making it perfect for swimming or whatever they call what I was doing in the water.
As usual, I had to take all the perfect pictures of my wife, at all the right angles. Awon pepper dem gang. Let’s just say, we spent the whole day at this beach, lounging and doing mushy things. I wanted to go zip-lining but when they told me the price, it suppressed my adrenaline (Everytime they told me the price for something, I did the maths in my head, converting to Naira to determine if I should proceed or not).
Time Travel at Baie Lazare
Another beach day! This time, the beach had historic significance. It is the beach where the man that did the most extensive exploration of Seychelles, first set foot. He was a French explorer named Lazare Picault and the beach is named Baie Lazare in his honour. The tide here is higher and nobody told me to just respect myself and chill, after I stepped in a couple of times. Some boys now came to show themselves. They set fish traps deep in the sea and they just walked into the sea to go and retrieve their traps, which was filled with lots of fish. At first, I thought I was going to watch a “disappearing into the sea” act, because of how confidently they were strolling into the sea (blame it on Nollywood).
This particular beach was at the extreme end of the island. I think it took us an hour plus by bus to get there. I was actually looking for another beach, but I messed up the map & we ended at Baie Lazare. My wife kept rolling her eyes and asking “Are we there yet?” Thankfully, I was in charge of itinerary, else we won’t have gone to this beach. We ended this day by retiring to our Airbnb and enjoying a little sunset, before the rains came pouring down. It practically rained all night.
I know you are enjoying all these juicy Seychelles gist, but this is where the first segment of this two part travel series ends. The second part will be up in a couple of days and you will be the first to know, if you click here. I have more juice for the part two (insert intense action movie soundtrack). P.S If this is your first time visiting this site, please check this out: All About Journeyman
Seychelles was such a great place to visit, nicely writted????
Thank you, babe?.