More of my latest travels.....

We are just leaving The Seychelles, a group of beautiful islands in the Indian Ocean.  The beaches are white sand, but it's the water that is especially stunning - all the marine colors you can imagine:  green, blue, aqua, aquamarine, purple.  And so clear you can easily see the fish swimming around the coral.  And the fish, too, come in a wide variety of colors and patterns.

Here is where the giant coco de mere palm tree grows.  The huge nut that is shaped like - now do NOT giggle - butt cheeks is actually an inedible double coconut seed.  It grows nowhere else in the world and we were thrilled to see so many of the trees which are now protected by the government.   We also gaped at the giant tortoises, friendly big beasts whose shells are about 3 feet long.  I fed them grass and palm leaves and patted their very rough shells.  When he looks at you the tortoise seems very wistful.
And we saw fruit bats!  These are real bats, but they look like crows when you see them flying high above you.  Like the coco de mer and the tortoise, they're huge!
In order to get up to the best viewing spot on the capital island of Mahe and on another island named Praslin, we had to drive up some very high hills with some very winding and tortuous switchbacks.  When one looked out the window, all that could be seen was the water far below.  But what a spectacular view when we got to the top!!
Off Mahe they are reclaiming land from the sea and "building" a new island, a very expensive island with unbelievably expensive houses. More later...