Perhaps it was for the best that we went to bed early. We were woken up by the neighbors — the roosters. Later on the chickens got pretty rowdy too. After a makeshift breakfast of toast and local bananas washed down with a boxed mango juice, we mounted our trusty bicycles and set off on the open road.
After about a fifteen minute ride, we arrived at Grand Anse, a nice large and open beach. This was not our end destination, however. We were headed toward Anse Coco beach, which is not as easy access. It required some hiking through the jungle and climbing up and down a rocky pathway. It first led us to Petite Anse, where we briefly looked around at some more boulders and pristine beach before continuing the trek toward Anse Coco.
Because there is a bit of effort and physical fitness required to reach these beaches, we did not encounter many other people. Nicole and I enjoy not being around other people if that wasn’t already made clear. After marching through the jungle and climbing up and down a rocky peninsula, we finally emptied onto Anse Coco, where we were almost the only ones present.
I don’t know why the boulders intrigue us so, but they do. They create a nice contrast with the bright white powdery sand. While an argument could be made that the Maldives and Seychelles are both beach vacations and thus too similar, I would argue that they look completely different. The Seychelles are full of different colors and contrasts, lush forests and blue oceans with dark boulders hugging the shore.
Between the sun, heat, and extensive hiking, we were getting a bit hungry, thirsty, and tired and decided to start heading back to our bikes. It was a slower process than anticipated because each time we looked at the beaches enroute, we couldn’t help ourselves and took the cameras back out and started snapping away.
Eventually we got back to our bikes and walked them a bit due to some steep hills and finally arrived back at the Cocotier where we promptly opened some beverages and consumed them with rapidity. I made a trip back to Rey & Joshua’s for some lunch and more beverages. I chugged a Fanta down in no time, ate a spicy fish curry, and promptly needed another beverage to cool my mouth down. After a long pause of recovery from our morning activities, we elected to head back to Anse Source d’Argent since the lighting was a bit more direct today.
For whatever reason, it was a lot more crowded today, and day trippers from Praslin seemed to all be arriving at the same time. I ventured into the ocean with my water camera to try and eliminate some of the crowds from my shot, but I could only do so much. There were many amateur photo shoots going on involving the worst kind of people. There were countless people wearing much smaller bathing suits than their body types allowed. We had to avert our eyes, but we couldn’t stop our involuntary outbursts of “Yikes!,” or “That was a gamble!”
Because the crowds were annoying us so greatly, we continued on a pathway that paralleled the beach. We ended up seeing an area that we hadn’t seen before. Like Italians who immigrated to the United States and just stopped once they got to New York/New Jersey, most people just stop at the first point on the path and say, “Good enough!” A short walk up the way, however, brought us to a relatively quiet and empty beach in comparison to what we had just observed.
We lingered there for a while enjoying the lack of crowds, but eventually had to turn back into them. Bricole don’t like a crowd. We fought through the tourists and day-trippers one last time before returning to our bikes. We pedaled into “town” for the first time to look at some tchotchke shops. We still need to find an ornament, but some of our other items have been purchased including a tasteful magnet with the butt-shaped Coco de Mer on it.
As it was now just after five, and we were quite thirsty, I took Nicole to the Le Repaire, the one Italian restaurant in town. We split a pizza while aggressively drinking beverages. Conveniently, we finished our meal just in time to watch the sunset from the attached beach.
It was a very active day on La Digue — much of it either on our feet or on the saddle. We were grateful to arrive back at the Cocotier to relax and drink more beverages. The sun has a way of really wearing you down and making you quite thirsty. Tomorrow we hop on the ferry back to Praslin and we have a scheduled PCR test at noon. We hope for a smooth crossing and a smooth jabbing.
passports & pepto bismol 