It began with the dream beach on a wallpaper picture. Does
this beach really exist? And what is it like for real, this is what GEO SAISON author
Markus Wolff and his friend wondered. They decided to find the actual beach.
My friend Bimi (who lost his first name during his school days) has a living room where there is a giant
wallpaper photograph left behind from the previous
tenant. It shows a palm tree arcing up perfectly into
the sky, with whitecapped waves gliding into a beach with small rocks.
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Author Wolff and friend Bimi in front of the wallpaper picture in the
homely living room
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Two sisters on the beach
On rainy days Bimi and I would sit down in front of the
picture and listen to the sounds of the ocean on a CD while
we tried to guess where our beach really was.
Though he could not explain why, Bimi was sure that it was some
nameless atoll in the Zulu Archipelago. My guess, because of
the perfectly round stones on the beach, was that it was
somewhere in the Seychelles. Where ever it was, we were
sure that this beach had to be on a totally pristine island
with just one small beach bar run by two lovely sisters.
"Yeah, yeah - two sisters!" Bimi's girlfriend would say from the next
room. "It is OK," Bimi would answer, "They are married!"
Then she would be quiet again.
How do I get to the dream beach? The helicopter hostess knows the homely
archipelago like the lining of her uniform but could not say
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Where is this palm tree?
One day while we were sitting down in front of the wallpaper
photo, Bimi announced that we would have to find our actual
beach.
"But this palm tree could be anywhere", I noted, while Bimi was already fetching his
swimming trunks from the closet. "One must be patient", said Bimi's girlfriend,
and then, quoting a writer: "Curiosity is the death of fun". Bimi ignored this interjection, but
he was prepared to admit that the search might take a long time.
I could not let him go by himself. So we took a polaroid of the wallpaper
and headed off to a travel agency together.
After a few minutes the travel agency staff promptly noted that it would be hard
to book a ticket for a destination called "the nameless atoll".
Also the Zulu Archipelago was not accepted by their reservation system.
So we decided to start our search with my preferred choice, the Seychelles.
As many other islands, the small, rock fringed St. Pierre was quickly but
inefficiently surveyed from the sailing boat
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Green splashes of paint
A few days later we were on a plane heading to the main island of Mahé.
After about ten hours, the pilot announced over the loudspeaker that we
were in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Seychelles. But we did
not yet begin our descent. Looking down, we realized how hard our mission
would be. On a territory of 455.000 square kilometres, islands were scattered like
green splashes of paint across the water. Large, small, tiny. We had made a list
of at least 100 islands by the time we landed in Victoria. The air
in the capital was mild and humid and made us relaxed right away.
In the warm morning light we sat on a lawn and shared a sandwich,
which I had purchased for the price of a small car.
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Between the plants of the nature park Vallé de Mai on Praslin
even large discoverers shrink to dwarf size
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Munching our food, we agreed that our pristine beach could not
be on this island, where 90 percent of the total Seychelles population of 82,000 people lived.
So we marched into a tour office and waved our polaroid in the air and
demanded to know if there was anyone present who could tell
us where our palm tree might be. Dora, a tour guide, shook her head and said that nowhere
on the Seychelles was there an island with a fireplace and carpet. After a
brief lecture on wallpaper photography, she recommended that we try our
luck on the neighbouring island of Praslin, where the beaches were undisputedly
the best. Anyway our beach was not on Mahé. The plane to Praslin was a small one,
and even before we took off, there was a hilarious atmosphere on board
like a school field trip. Bimi was especially fortunate because an older
German lady shared with him her collective knowledge of six
previous visits to the Seychelles.
And they were long visits, she assured us. She explained that there were at
least 10,000 species of animals on the islands, and 4,000 different kinds of plants. "About 75
of them are endemic!", she said in a serious tone, which kept
Bimi in a state of worry, until the evening, when a tour guide explained that
endemic just meant that the plants and animals were "native to the Seychelles".
Ordeal: The exclusive hotel on Chauve Souris Island has only a few guests,
so occasionally the boatswain has to wait a long time for customers
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Miniature building set with moss
The woman also said that environmental protection was part of the
constitution which guaranteed every citizen the right to a "clean, healthy and
ecologically balanced environment". "And would you have guessed," she asked,
"that the Seychelles were named in honor of the French finance
minister, Séchelles?" No, Bimi said, he would not have
guessed that. But as a vacation spot, "Seychelles" sounded
better than "Eichels" (the former German finance minister).
As we descended we made one more turn over Praslin, which
looked like a miniature building set covered with moss
floating in the Indian Ocean. There were neatly whitewashed
houses with red corrugated iron roofs. A street snaked between them and around
the edge of the island like a bright seam separating the lush green from the
turquoise ocean. We rolled along this coastal road in our car as if we
were on the rails of an amusement park ride.
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Believers and their children have been dressed up for an open-air church
service on Praslin
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Instead of a complete circle we ended up driving just a "U", because the ring road
turned out to have a small but important gap. No one was in a hurry on
this island. Some locals dangled to the small shops
with empty bags and returned with full ones. Others
would sit around chatting in shade of their
houses. Tirelessly we presented our palm tree photo, and soon we had made
friends with half of the island.
After intensive discussion about sightseeing on the island, and
family relations and fish preparation techniques we were
always let go with the words: "Sorry. No idea where your
beach is". Over and over we drove the "U" route.
Picture perfect bays lined with smooth round rocks lay sometimes on
our right, and sometimes on our left. But none were like our
wallpaper picture. In this idyll we ended up forgetting our search mission
and drove just for fun over a small peak in the heart of Praslin. This is where
the World Heritage Site of Vallé de Mai is situated, one of the worlds smallest
national parks.
We followed the attracting popcorn smell by the seeds of a palm tree deep
into the thicket, accompanied by our ranger Wayne and a curious tenrek, which
is a cross between a hedgehog and a hairbrush. Upon sight of the 30
metres high palm trees we felt like shrunk to dwarf size.
Rest area: Horses graze on an old cemetery on the island of La Digue
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Women's suntanned buttocks
"Voilà, that is the Coco de Mer", explained Wayne, who has worked for 21 years
in the Vallé de Mai, although by his appearance he could have made himself a career
as a Nelson Mandela lookalike. "They only exist on the Seychelles!", he added,
which prompted Bimi to shout triumphantly: "Obviously: endemic!" in
the prehistoric forest. Thereafter we briskly started our way back. Despite
Wayne's reassurance we were afraid to be stricken dead by a falling sex
organ of the male palm tree, which has a disconcerting similarity to the
human counterpart.
However, a not much less spectacular death would be from a falling
fruit of a female tree, which is the worlds largest seed, with "a weight
of sometimes over 20 kilos" (Wayne) comparable with a "women's suntanned buttocks" (travel guide).
The next day we chartered a catamaran at the harbour, figuring that
we could more easily discover our dream beach from the sea. Methodically
we landed on every islet, including even the smallest. We stood euphorically
at the railing whilst our skipper John handled the steering with his feet.
At first we anchored at St. Pierre, a tiny pirate movie
island, where in the film you would first come across a skeleton and
thereafter a glittering treasure. But in reality there was only one newspaper
reading Seychellois almost completely covering the one-person-beach
by his own body.
Primary means of transportation: motor boats at the beach of La Digue. Without which
nothing happens on the Seychelles - 115 islands are scattered over
an area larger than Germany
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17 beaches - no success
We failed to find our beach among the bizarre rocks of La
Digue, nor did we find it on Cousin, where several hundred
thousand birds dwell.
On Curieuse, the former leper colony, we lay down for a rest next to a
lazy tortoise, whose leather body creaked for oil with every
movement. Then we walked across wooden footbridges, passing easygoing
Coconut Crabs, to the other side of the island where John was grilling
Red Snapper for us. While we waited for our food, Bimi wrote with a stick in the sand the
balance so far of our search. The current status was 17 beaches :
0 wallpaper picture beach.
Somewhat disillusioned and a heavily sunburned we sailed back to Praslin.
As we anchored, John suddenly mentioned that three of the most beautiful
beaches are on the terrain of the "Lémuria Resort".
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In the luxurious "Lémuria Resort" on Praslin the beach seekers get their
conclusive hint
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Wrong perspective
Setting a new speed record for the Seychelles we drove by car along the coastal
road, at the end of which lies the most exclusive resort of the island. The
Presidential Suite costs 12,000 Euro per night (but the villa accommodates up to
six persons, so it becomes more economical if shared by several presidents).
The main reception on a small hill can only be reached by golf buggy.
With the pathos of an Indiana Jones a staff member opened the heavy, wooden entrance
door, which offers a view of a spectacular pool scenery.
Two dream beaches were shining in the background. Palm-fringed
and deserted - but totally different from our wallpaper picture.
The third beach Anse Georgette, which can be reached only by
all-terrain buggy, had certain similarities.
In the near distance an island appeared just as in the background of
our photo. Same island! "But the perspective does not match at all", noted Bimi.
At this very moment a man dressed in a khaki-shirt and shorts strolled by,
carrying a camera tripod over his shoulder. His name was Paul Turcotte. Over
20 years ago he exchanged his homeland Canada with the Seychelles
and worked as a photographer and production assistant for advertisement
films. Bacardi, he said. Or Raffaello.
Author Wolff (left) and friend Bimi at their desired aim - the beach
Anse Lazio on the island of Praslin in the Seychelles. Everything as on the
wallpaper picture - only the palm tree is missing: It was los
in a storm
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Anse Lazio
Three cubic metres of chilled coconut pralines had been flown in
for the spot. "What a great production", he recalled, "the entire day just
eating!" Glancing at our polaroid, Turcotte confidently remarked
"That is Anse Lazio, just around the corner from here". Anse Lazio,
finally! And so near!
We walked on hidden paths to the Chevalier Bay. We reached
a row of densely grown palm trees. White and turquoise glittered between. We had
found it, our beach! Everything was there: the fine sand (where
Elena and Eleonora from Turin were sunbathing), the slow whooshing waves, the small
rocks, the island in the background and instead of the beach bar even two
nicely hidden restaurants. Only the palm tree had been reduced to a stub.
The next days passed by like in a dream: we counted waves, drank light Chablis
with Elena and Eleonora and felt a bit like Gunter Sachs
- German VIP photographer and playboy - but without money.
It was raining when we returned to Germany and to Bimis apartment.
Slightly confused we looked at the wallpaper picture and felt like a fairy
had tapped us on our heads with her magic wand but without bringing us back to
reality with the usual "bing" sound. The ocean did not scent
anymore, the waves seemed to be frozen and the sand was untouchable.
We sat down on the Berber carpet in front of the palm tree and looked
at each other, perplexed.
This article was written by Markus Wolff and has been republished on our site
courtesy of GEO.de - where it is available in
German as part of the GEO SAISON September 2005 issue. All photography by Espen Eichhoefer. Publication rights belong to each respective copyright holder.
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