So on to the main events for the day, booking some diving and investigating Beau Vallon beach. Doris and Mick are friends with Gillie at Big Blue Divers and therefore recommend them accordingly. For the divers amongst you, they are also the only local PADI 5* outlet. Booking 5 dives each gives you 10% discount and the local tourist brochure proffers a further 10%. Over all you can buy 5 dives each for £350 or £35 per dive, including any equipment you may not have managed to fit in thr suitcase. For me that is normally a second wetsuit for water temperatures under 30c. Not exactly on a shoestring, which is why everything else needs to be, but our main hobby. With two days diving sorted by 9.30am there is just a day on the beach to worry about.
To say the Beau Vallon beach is spectacular would be an understatement, squeaky white sand, turquoise water like a bath and shaded by palm trees, it is idyllic. If you want to be negative you can't rent a sunbed which then involves a day of sand and suncream scrub and there are apparently Palm Spiders in the trees the size of dinner plates. If absolutely honest we had hoped for sun bed rental of the squishy sofa kind, this time not to avoid the striped stick of rock look (due to being covered in sand by to the wind) but because we quite fancied sleeping on something resembling a mattress, as the offering at our apartment, like so often happens when we are away, has the comfort quality of sleeping on a breeze block. So sand castle beds it has been although the purchasing of two Lilo's is imminent which can double as a night time sleeping impliment, although the air con will have to be on max so the heat induced sweating does not result in sliding off!
Nothing for it but to settle into a door wedge of a Marian Keyes book of chick lit, apart from I forgot it!! Not so bad if your room is on the ground floor, really bad if you have to trudge back up the 900m cliff face, called a road. Nothing for it but to dig deep and set off on a retrieval mission in 35c! If I find I have read my borrowed book before then all 874 pages are going to be used for cigarette papers and I will owe its owner the £1 she was going to be selling it for at the next carboot sale!
So ensconced in perfect people watching mode the day has drifted by. Marian Keyes makes a great napkin for the unavoidable snoring dribble, and the black text imprinted on one side of my face has substituted as excellent factor 50. Needless to say I still don't know if I've read it.
Beau Vallon certainly lives up to its place in the list of top 10 beaches in the world, although the Italians slightly marred the effect. Despite having 3km on which to set up camp they decided we would like nothing more than a Rosetta Stone day course in Italian jabbering and new guidance on personal space or lack thereof.
The shoestring business has gone really well too, eating from street hawkers from polystyrene boxes for £4.50 and being dealt a carrier bag of mango for £1.00 we can honestly say keeping the reigns on spending is easily doable.
A little more interval training on Mount Vallon, we are now referring to it as, and holiday pizza is required, but not before Mick and Doris knock on our door to let us know of the amazing sunset and then deliver dessert of bananas and coconut milk. It has the consistency of baby food and the taste qualities of piña colada, for those interested.
An evening meal for two with drinks has set us back a little over £30 for two, although one thing to note, which we are getting the hang of, is the service. NEVER let the waitress leave without ordering 2 drinks, all food and asking for the bill all at the same time, and if at all possible order lunch at breakfast and dinner at lunch, as to say the Seychelles is slow is an understatement. It's not even one restaurant or bar which could be avoided but an organised cartel across the board of who can achieve the least number of table covers in an evening.
The above might be why the US Navy and Marine Corp are ordering 10 drinks at a time and nothing to do with having been let out like caged animals. That said, they have provided riotous and hilarious behaviour and seem to enjoy saying "I shall have another bloody round" and "tally ho", in a comic British accent in ear shot, thankfully they made up for the British mick taking by providing us with a full rendition of "the Fresh Prince of Bel Air" title tune complete with their very own Carlton style dancing. So much for an early night, although it could have been worse as we did forgo the invitation to a hotel room party and swimming pool skinny dipping, funny but it's just not our sort of thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment