We can’t believe it has been 15 years since one of the best days of our lives when family and friends gathered to watch us tie the knot. We chose to celebrate the special occasion relaxing for a week on the tiny, car-free island of La Digue in the Seychelles. One of its beaches, Source de L’Argent, is often voted the most beautiful in the world and the most photographed being used for famous swimsuit photo shoots and beer commercials. We couldn’t resist hiring a professional photographer to capture the beauty of this beach and our enduring love for our 15 year wedding anniversary pictures.
Being our anniversary, we splurged for a helicopter transfer from the main island upon our arrival, so we got a really cool aerial view of this beach as well.
Beach Shacks and Biking
Right after our arrival, we wandered out to the beach to watch the sunset and to enjoy a fresh tropical juice drink from the local beach shack, Bikini Bottom. We lucked out that the lovely beach, Anse Severe, was located just across the street from our accommodation and had some of the best sunset views on the island.
We were shocked to see a giant tortoise just hanging out at the bar. I thought it was a fake decoration at first!
But, we quickly discovered that tortoises wandered around the island and often stopped on the roads. Luckily, only a few local workers use the roads with a handful of delivery trucks, construction vehicles, and buggies, so the tortoises rule the roads. I found this guy while out for a run around the island.
The primary mode of transportation around the island for both locals and tourists is by bike. So, our first full day, we hopped on bikes to check out this stunning, unique island.
For lunch, we made our way to one of the top restaurants on the island, Chez Jules – for both the quality of their food and the views from the beachside shack.
We splurged on a local delicacy of coconut curry lobster.
The coconut curry lobster was absolutely delicious. You just can’t go wrong with a sweet, mildly spiced coconut curry, but add a fresh lobster and we are talking pure heaven.
With full bellies, we wandered a few feet from the restaurant to relax under a giant tree on the beach. Jimmy lounged in a hammock while I did a bit of swinging over the water.
Adventure Hike
Our first day seemed like it would be hard to top, but we had an adventure excursion next with the famous Robert Agnes, best tour guide in the Seychelles. I must say that this tour lived up to the hype. Robert took us through hidden wooded trails that would open up to stunning beaches with gigantic granite boulders.
The landscape is like nothing we have ever seen. Unlike most islands, the Seychelles are not volcanic or coralline in nature but made of granite, a microcontinent split off from the supercontinent Gondwana. We also have never done such crazy bouldering. Robert was great at teaching us how to go up, down, and across precarious sections of granite boulders that border a lot of the beaches. We had to squeeze through some pretty tight spots, often sliding on our butts through little cracks between boulders.
At one spot, we teetered on the sharp, slippery edge of a boulder inching our feet across with just a boulder above our head to help stabilize and the outstretched arms of Robert on the other side of the crevice encouraging us to go slow and not look down. No big deal. If we slipped, it was just 20 feet down to the boulders below. Admittedly, this was one of the scariest hikes we have ever been on.
To top it off, our tour group was all alone as these secluded beaches are so hard to find. This made the beach, Anse Marron, that we stopped for lunch and a swim seem like utter paradise.
I even snuck away from our small group and found a little cove to lie down in the warm sand and enjoy the brilliant sunshine surrounded by a rainbow. Did I find heaven?
For lunch, Robert and his brother had prepared each of us a plate of fresh tropical fruit and homemade banana and pumpkin fritters and Seychellois pancakes. Very tasty and perfect after a tough bouldering hike.
Robert taught us how to open older, fallen coconuts that he found for us in the forest. These coconuts are great for their oil, so we tasted a bit but were instructed to spit most of it out as it would cause an upset stomach.
And look at that view while we enjoyed our coconut treat:
He also found a cinnamon tree and had us chew the leaf stems. They tasted like Big Red chewing gum. I think that is what makes Robert so great. Not only does he take his tour groups to hard-to-reach places, but he also teaches a lot about local plants and life on the islands.
Toward the end of our hike right as we were running out of water and thirsty, Robert managed to impress us with one more feat. He literally scaled a tree to pull down fresh coconuts for us to try.
These young coconuts are full of hydrating coconut water. He gave each couple one to try and also fashioned a spoon out of the husk to be able to scoop out the flesh.
Our coconut pitstop was also on one of the most breathtaking beaches on our journey that day. Here is my sad attempt at a pose for Athleta:
Yeah, a hair buff and water sandals are super sexy. And this is totally why we are not social media influencers.
To get around that granite cliff in the background of the above picture, we had to take off our packs and carry over our head as we waded through waist-deep water. This last leg of our journey brought us to the back side of the famous Anse Source de L’Argent.
Here, we relaxed with some banana milk shakes and cocktails until sunset. We found a quiet, private spot surrounded by granite boulders to watch the sun go down as the waves crashed on the rocks. The pink and orange glow of the granite was absolutely brilliant and quite the contrast from when we were at the beach mid-day for our photo shoot.
Jimmy was the bouncer to scare away anyone that tried to enter our little romantic cove while I didn’t have a care in the world and warmed myself on the rocks which retained the heat from the setting sun even as the cool evening breeze picked up.
We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending to a perfect day.
October 16, 2004-2019
On the day of our anniversary, we spent the morning swimming and lounging at Anse Severe before heading to lunch at Le Nautique, a beachside restaurant in the small port town on the island. We had ginormous fish tacos made with a local, meaty white fish called Jobfish and topped with an avocado cream sauce.
The tacos and inside-out profiterole dessert were both absolutely delicious, and the view across to the island of Praslin was quite nice. We instantly made a reservation to come back the next night for dinner, and they impressed us again with their unique Creole fish dishes inspired by local ingredients. Who would have thought that fish and bananas would go so well together, but their grouper topped with a whole banana and sweet banana sauce was a party of flavors in the mouth.
Seeing La Digue and other nearby islands, such as Felicite and Coco, from the water is a unique perspective not to be missed, so we hired a boat to take us around the islands for the afternoon. Felicite has only one exclusive resort on it, and we thought the architecture of the buildings was really unique and complimented the natural beauty of the island.
Coco is a tiny island with a small beach that is quite picturesque.
Of course, no boat trip is complete without a cold beer, a Radler, and another different vantage point of Source de L’Argent.
After our boat trip, we got cleaned up for a private dinner on the beach to celebrate our anniversary.
We were really impressed with the quality of the food and the presentation. Unfortunately, a candlelight dinner under the stars doesn’t have the best lighting for pictures, but I have to at least share our dessert as it was my favorite course.
The main part of the dessert was a chocolate lava cake with caramel sauce. The unique twist to this dish was the three little side dishes, mini palate cleansers, if you will. They were tart and crisp in contrast to the deep, rich cake. One was a cape gooseberry with red velvet cheesecake bite. Another, a green meringue. And finally, a raspberry macaroon. Mmm…
Toes in the sand, next to my favorite guy, and savoring some pretty stellar cuisine on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Not too shabby of a way to spend our 15th wedding anniversary.
Giant Nuts
Exploring other islands while in the Seychelles is easy with quick ferry rides between them. We ventured to Praslin for a day mostly to hike in the Vallei De Mai to see the famous nuts. The valley dates back to prehistoric times and has six endemic palm species that are found naturally nowhere else on earth. The flagship species is the Coco de Mer with the largest nut in the world. They can weigh up to 93 lbs!!
Interestingly, the trees are either male or female. Mother nature has a sense of humor because it isn’t hard to tell the difference. I bet you can guess.
The male pollen is produced on the catkin, which can be 1-2m long. Once fertilized, the female flowers become heart-shaped fruits with a single bi-lobed seed inside that takes 6-7 years to mature. Encased in the husk is the erotically-shaped Coco-de Mer nut.
One of the archaic botanical names for this plant is from the Greek word for “beautiful buttocks.” Legend has it that the trees make passionate love in stormy weather, but they are so shy that if anyone sees this act, the individual will die or go blind.
A rain storm actually came through while we were in the valley. While we didn’t see any lovemaking trees, we miraculously stayed completely dry! The large palm leaves make great umbrellas. Watching how the water gets funneled from the broad leaves of the palms down the grooved stalks to the roots was pretty cool.
Eating Right
We were blown away by the cuisine of these tiny islands, but being influenced by French, African, Indian, and Chinese cuisine, why wouldn’t we expect the best. I already mentioned the lobster curry, but we ate every type of curry they had and loved all of them. We are normally not fans of octopus but were told that the octopus curry was a specialty of the islands, so we figured we had to try it. Wow. We were impressed by the texture – no chewiness, just perfectly soft, almost melt-in-your-mouth pieces. And the curry sauce had the perfect balance of spice with a hint of sweet.
We had this octopus curry at a fancy restaurant on Beau Vallon on the main island Mahe on our last day as we were waiting for our midnight flight. But, one of the awesome things about La Digue is the variety of restaurants including the family-owned shacks cooking food just like mom. Shoot, one of the top spots for take-out is called Mi Mums. They had a good lamb curry and an even better fish curry.
We loved that on this trip we dined at so many unique venues. From beachside restaurants to 5-star cuisine on a private beach to grandma’s take-away shack to some of the best mountaintop views overlooking La Digue and neighboring Praslin.
Not to mention, we even did a bit of our own cooking and eating at our rental house. We could pick up local produce at the little shops in town and carry them back in our bike basket. Nothing like a dozen eggs loose in a plastic bag on the back of your bike as you go over potholes in the road.
I’m happy to report that all the eggs made it home safely for a healthy start to the day of scrambled eggs and oatmeal. Every morning, our little black and orange buddy joined us for a nibble of oatmeal. He wasn’t a fan of the eggs.
One evening when we were lazy and didn’t want to go out for dinner in the rain, we enjoyed a light meal of cheeses, a terrine, and a couple baguettes (and a stracchiatella cake!) from the local bakery.
Another local food highlight that I ordered multiple times because I couldn’t get enough was the smoked fish salad. And I am not normally a big fish eater! Somehow, the Seychelles really sold us on fish AND octopus. The fish curries and the smoked fish just had so much flavor.
Happy Endings
After traveling the world and spending time in so many exotic locations, the Seychelles still stood out as a unique destination and was perfect for our special anniversary celebration. Cheers to 15 years!!
Beautiful! I still love the dress. Wondering if you will be recreating the first date after all these years?!