Seychellic Park.

The second-largest famous thing of Seychelles is its giant tortoise. Specifically it’s from the Aldabra atoll, one of the Outer Islands of Seychelles, but it’s now featured on many of the other Seychelles islands too. Lovely creatures – and they don’t mind your taking their pics or even touching their shells :-):

You can also see turtles like this in Zanzibar. But in Seychelles, specifically on Curieuse Island – Curious Island! – there are more of them and they’ve more space to crawl around in. They’re such funny animals, wriggling about here and there in no rush at all, nibbling on this or that or just lying still. Tourists are encouraged to feed them with branches with leaves which the guides give out:

Even more fun is stroking the tortoises. You can scratch the backs of their heads and their necks and they just love it. They stretch their long necks as far as possible out of their shells and even stand up on their hind legs so that you can get better access to the most itchy parts :-).

The tourists also get fed! They really like the coconuts, which get plucked from the very tops of the palm trees by a brave local who serves the Seychellois ‘fast food’ dish in minutes.

A walkabout around the island is also a must. An elevated path along the beach and through the palm trees and mangroves… and in the sand there are huge holes out of which coconut crabs’ pincers poke through; we didn’t take a closer look ).

Beautiful rock formations can be found dotted around the island – almost as if they’d been imported from Shillin in China!

But – ooooohhhhhh – it’s hot in Seychelles. And humid. Sticky. Wet t-shirt tourism :-). Still – the views all around make up for the slight physical discomfort. I mean – just look!:

Btw, here’s Curieuse Island from neighboring Praslin:

Aaaahhhh. After all that stickiness, what better than a dive in the ocean? And, oh – what an ocean. Heavenly comfort – the perfect temperature. But of course that’s what you get with an equatorial-tropical climate – 24/7 and all year round. I mean, just how can they live like that? I can’t imagine :-).

There’s just one fly in the ointment threat in the ocean that can put a spoiler on things: toxic – albeit not lethal – jellyfish. They give tourists electric shocks through their tentacles. Ouch! Sadly, we found out the hard way:

A sting of this kind needs treating without delay: rinsed with clean water and gently wiped with lemon. Hours later it disappears with no side effects. Phew. You can imagine our alarm though at first…

All the photos from Seychelles are here.