Seychelles: Dream vacation between beach and rainforest

The island of Praslin is home to one of the Seychelles’ most unusual attractions: coco de mer, also known as the Seychelles palm. The female fruit can weigh up to 20 kilos and resembles a woman’s pelvis, while the male flower spikes are unmistakably phallic. Some call it the world’s most erotic nut. The plant is endemic to the Seychelles. Around 5,000 specimens grow in the Vallée de Mai, a densely forested high valley on the country’s second-largest island. Some visitors blush when they first see the sea coconut—so named because the nuts would wash up on beaches where the tree doesn’t grow, leading people to believe they came from the sea. In 1881, British general Charles Gordon visited Praslin and was convinced the coco de mer was the forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve—and that the Vallée de Mai was the biblical Garden of Eden.