Baie Lazare

Our first trip was to see leaning palms. It got higher priority, because we have seen some photos from Baie Lazare and none from other islands.

We arrived to Baie Lazare afternoon and it was rather cloudy. Not bad for swimming, but a bit worse for taking photographs. We have found nice spot with Takamaka tree to hide from occasional occurrence of sun.

Later on local family arrived and they were taken aback by our presence. Clearly they wanted to stay at our spot. Eventually they settled at other side of tree and started to smile. That's a language we like to speak to strangers :-)

I don't have many unique photos from this place, just variations of the others, so I am going to show only a few.

Takamaka tree, watch your head! And enjoy shade it offers.

Finally some leaning palms. I was looking forward to see them.

Originally I had hoped to stay there only shortly and move to Anse Takamaka. But then we realized it is quite far to walk and there is not enough time. It also occurred to us it is better to return to bus stop we know instead of searching for it at other place. We even did not wait for sunset (which would not be good due to clouds), because last bus I knew about was due at 18.35pm. Just about 20 minutes after sunset. As I mentioned in Seychelles - self-catering 101 locals insisted to wait at other side of road and our bus sped past us. Fortunately they "knew" what they are doing and another bus arrived in 15 minutes. Going around was presumably better route than passing through mountains. Otherwise I don't understand their approach to wait for later bus.

Petit Anse

Following day we planned to go to Anse Intendance. We arrived to Victoria terminal, found correct platform for bus #6 and stood to the end of queue. Shortly before bus arrived I got an idea to ask locals around if it is correct platform we are waiting at. They were confused and not sure. I thought it is because there is no direct bus there, we need to get off the bus at Quatre Bornes and that's it. What can go wrong when we passed through Quatre Bornes yesterday by bus #6? Well, you have to spend more time in Mahe to understand all intricacies of their buses.

Nagging doubt in our heads that something is wrong lead us to quickly decide to which place we would go if we will not get to Quatre Bournes. Petit Anse won it. And as predicted, bus did not go around the island, but through mountains. So we decided we will get off in Baie Lazare and will walk to Petit Anse.

It is about 2km from Baie Lazare (town). When you get to the top of hill you will find a gate to Four Seasons Hotel which spreads around Petit Anse. Just tell security you are going to beach and they will let you pass. It is not suspicious to them you have a backpack (long time ago I read Seychelois or their authorities don't like backpackers, but I am not sure it is true). Lonely Planet also suggests to wait for golf cart to take you down. We came quite late and did not want to waste time by waiting and security guard did not offer us a lift, so we walked. There was one cart passing along us as we were walking, but we probably answered his question incorrectly if we are OK. We said yes.

It was not long walk from gate to the beach.

This is one of a few photos where I had clear shot of a local bat. There will be more later.

Four Seasons hotel spreads on hills around the beach. Nice place with astronomical prices if you ask me.

We finally arrived to the beach at 5.30pm, just 45 minutes before sunset. It was the best beach we have seen at Mahe and I really liked it. Fine sand, clean water, not too shallow. Perfect place. Pity we have only "couple of minutes" before leaving to catch the bus at 6.50pm. Well, 2km walk takes some time.

I went shortly into sea, then hurried to take photos. Again short submerge into waves, to dry, put clothes on and go, go, go! This time we were more lucky, because golf cart took us uphill.

Following photo is the last one I took that day. It was taken shortly after sunset that we had to skip due to lack of time. It is from road to Baie Lazare. Just 10 or 15 minutes later we needed to pull out our headlamp and flashlight...