Location: Anse Marron, La Digue, Seychelles, Indian Ocean
Distance: 3.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 239′
Trip Length: 5-6 hours
Terrain: Ocean, beach, rocky outcroppings, marsh, forest
Best Time to Visit: Low tide
Anse Marron is a secluded beach on the island of La Digue in the Seychelles. Getting there is an all-terrain adventure through hiking, swimming, and scrambling. You will be rewarded with one of the world’s most breathtaking beaches. The water is crystal clear and the massive granite boulders have been eroded with monumental results.
Tips
Hire a guide to lead you to Anse Marron, since the path is unmarked and not always apparent. This is a smart move to avoid low and tight branches, dodgy footing, and thick giant spider webs. If La Digue is a treasure map, you will need a guide to get you to X marks the spot. In addition, bring water and both walking shoes and water shoes to protect your feet from cuts.
Directions to Start of Hike
Follow the dusty road on the western coast of La Digue to the Heliport south of the Veuve Reserve. Lean your bicycle along the fence. The group will meet by the fence.
The Way to Anse Marron is Never the Same
Anse Marron is a secret beach on the southern tip of La Digue featured prominently on posters and post cards. It is a magical place that evokes a dreamland perception of the Seychelles. However, you must ramble along a maze-like passage through the jungle, over boulders, and in the water during low tide. Again, it is highly recommended to hire a guide.
A couple German families, a Russian newlywed couple, and I are waiting for our guide, Rondy Payet, by the heliport. We watch as a group hops to another island. Rondy immediately leads us into the water to take the secret entrance to Anse Source D’Argent beach bypassing a plantation. The plantation owners exact a hefty toll for those on their way to legendary Anse Source D’Argent. You should definitely visit the plantation and its vanilla and palm tree farms and cultural displays. But, if you just need to get to the beach, there is another way. From the heliport, a narrow lane leads to the water. You have to stride a bit in waist deep water, but you are going to swim at the destination anyway. Keep to the sand and walk in the water only when necessary. Soon, you pass some skeletal frames at the boat builder’s workshop.
The entrance to Anse Source D’Argent is decorated with a kaleidoscopic assortment of bicycles. This is by a path beside Anse Source D’Argent and waxy green leaves of takamaka branches sloping toward the water. A couple of stray dogs are following the group to see what the fuss is all about. We stroll along the Anse Source D’Argent walkway reaching the impassable rock outcropping. We turn left and head up the hill’s stone steps into the verdant jungle.
Low Tide Ocean Wading
After emerging from the dense foliage, we walk in the Indian Ocean during low tide. Rondy’s precise familiarity of the rise and fall of the ocean tides makes this unique crossing along the coast possible. This minimizes the time and distance spent struggling through the overgrown and impenetrable forest.
The same forces that birthed the Himalayan Mountains as India slammed into Eurasia, ripped the Seychelles from the African coast. The gargantuan granite structures between the sea and the beach are the last vestiges of this severed continental connection. As the eons and elements have eroded the archipelago, you are witnessing the enduring majesty of the crumbled Gondwanaland mountaintops.
During the aquatic adventure, we splash past the long swath of Anse Pierrot’s silvery sand and Anse aux Cèdres’s coves. With each step, sand gets wedged between my feet and sandals as it mixes with the water. The water reaches our knees and sometimes our waists. As waves splash against the granite walls separating sand from water, we lift our backpacks slightly higher on our backs. Some crescent beaches where the tide has receded have alternating stripes of ivory sand, frothy bubbles, and sea foam green water. Occasionally, the rock formations’ gray elephant legs and silvery rhino armor plating display their rifts and fissures. When you peek into some of the crevices, there are walled off nooks filled with ankle-high water.
Bouldering and Scrambling
At the rocky promontory of Pointe Jacques, Rondy tells us to put our sneakers on. We turn to the jungle again and start scrambling on some boulders. The water has sculpted the granite so that the rock resembles fins and teeth. We duck and weave below overhangs and scamper through caves. Along a stretch of beach strewn with gargantuan marbles, we jam our toes into cracks to climb to the top. At times, we must make sure there are strong handholds or footholds before transferring weight to another limb. Once on top, we jump with abandon on the marble-shaped tan boulders. Then, we take little leaps over the stone gaps. At what looks like two giant chomping molars, we turn horizontal and perform a sideways shimmy through a narrow groove.
Welcome to the Jungle
While crouching in a low tunnel between tangled bushes, Rondy picks a flower and explains its role in catching fish. The pink and white flowers of the fish poison tree contain saponin, a toxin that renders fish unconscious. In a clearing of the dense thicket, the soil is moist and damp and covered by a leafy carpet. A millipede wriggles around the fractured little beams of light filtered through the canopy above. We hunch over through the tight and narrow track as leaves brush the tops of our heads and our elbows.
At Last, Anse Marron!
As the glossy green mangroves get shorter, I suddenly realize that the path ends at a white sand beach. Eureka! We have finally reached Anse Marron at the southern tip of this sunflower seed-shaped island. This hidden beach lives up to the hype. Is this what it would feel like to discover El Dorado, Shangri-La, or Atlantis? The chestnut-shaped monuments are positioned in an arc just off the coast, forming perfect turquoise swimming pools. The contrast between rock and water is a magnificent visual reminder of the never-ending clash between epic primeval forces.
The water is shallow in the pools – right up to the bellybutton. The tranquil grotto shelters us from the breaking waves and the water is refreshingly cool after the hike. While wading past the megaliths, you witness a veritable Seychellois menagerie. Ghost crabs cling to the slippery rocks. Rockskipper fish (you guessed it) skip off their fins and flop the rest of their body in a snapping motion. The water is so clear that it looks like liquid glass. You can see every pebble, coral, and darting fish.
Rondy prepares tropical fruits (banana, mango, papaya, starfruit, and passion fruit) and tasty sandwiches on large banana leaves. After lunch, Rondy leads us to the top of a heap of boulders. From a rocky perch above the beach, the pools appear to be sparkling blue gemstones. I can’t stop marveling at how strange it is for rocks to be rooted in the middle of the water. La Digue’s treasures have now been revealed.
The Way Back
After finding physical and spiritual nourishment, we leave Anse Marron via a craggy route. We squeeze and contort again through narrow splits in the rocks. Rondy plucks some cones of the screwpine (pandanus utilus), a relative of the pineapple. He shows us the orange and yellow cone kernels, which are reminiscent of supersized candy corn.
At Pointe Canon, the boulders shield the lush hillside from the waves below. Along this rocky ledge, we tip toe above the mist and frothy waves.
Grand L’Anse must have harbored some mythological sea leviathan. The gnarly brown molars off the coast are evidence of that, right? At Anse Songe, we head back into the mess of leaves and twisted branches. We emerge from the forest at the eastern shore of Grand Anse. A giant truck shuttles us all to our bicycles by the helipad in front of Union Estate.
Thank you La Digue for your epic friendliness and monumental beauty.
Photos of Anse Marron
