Sunset Beach, Beau Vallon&Co

After yesterday's initial difficulties, we are full speed ahead on Mahe today. Delicious breakfast with a view of the sea, how could this penultimate day of vacation start any better?

We are leisurely heading towards Victoria, where we visit the weekly market again, and after the past few weeks on Praslin and La Digue, we are amazed at how big everything appears again on Mahe. There are more fish stalls in the city market here in one place than on Praslin scattered across the entire island. Although we didn't actually miss such things all the time, we are now enjoying this 'luxury' a little bit again.

After a leisurely visit to the market, where we don't actually buy anything big, but simply enjoy all the impressions, we continue to a souvenir shop where various locals who cannot afford to rent their own shop sell their products. There you will find only traditional Seychellois handicrafts and I would love to buy everything here. Fish made from coconut fibers, local spices, wood carvings, paintings, jewelry - my artist heart is beaming and so we spend quite a while in this shop.

Afterwards, I get to greet the swimming pool again, which has not gained significantly in number of visitors even 2 weeks later.

From here, we continue towards the north of Mahe, a region of the island that we had not fully explored at the beginning of our vacation. On the way there, we make a stop at Beau Vallon for a delicious iced coffee, which is usually served here only as coffee mixed with ice cubes and milk, so not like with us with ice cream. Super refreshing, just the right thing for the summer temperatures. From here, we head to Sunset Beach, where you can supposedly snorkel beautifully in this small bay, and of course we are immediately in the middle of it with our equipment. And with this promise, the guidebook is definitely right, it's an extraordinary snorkeling bay where you only have to dive down with the mask for a moment and can immediately observe the fish around you. Simply enjoy and absorb as much as memory capacity allows. But since I have effectively freed my brain from the knowledge of the state examinations in the past weeks, there is now a lot of memory capacity available for all the snorkeling encounters.

Altogether, we have two snorkeling sessions before we continue driving a bit along the north coast. Actually, you could stop here every 500 meters and take photos, because we pass numerous small bays and beaches.

Finally, we drive back along the coast to Beau Vallon, where we enjoyed our iced coffee at noon. Beau Vallon is one of the best places to watch the sunset. Here we meet our friends Sonja and Andreas as agreed and enjoy the sunset with a drink. It's super nice with both of them again and my heart feels a little bit sad at the farewell, knowing that we will see each other again next time at the airport for the departure to Frankfurt (because the two of them are flying back with the same plane as we are...)

In the darkness, we then drive about 40 minutes back home from Beau Vallon, driving in the darkness is not really fun, but we drive slowly and even enjoy the ride back to our accommodation. At home, we cook before we fall into bed exhausted but incredibly happy from all the new experiences. Our beloved friend Sonja would describe it with the words, it's great that we get to experience this...