Go Any Farther & You'll Be Coming Back

About the Book

The Other Side of The World Joe was the one who was always accused of having ’wander lust’, usually wandering around trying to find a new road or little town that we hadn’t seen before, but it was Nelda who wandered through the travel catalogs and tried to find the dots of land in some strange sea. One good example of what she found was the cluster of islands seeming almost lost in the Indian Ocean. The islands were the Seychelles. They say that they are a thousand miles from nowhere, but actually they are about a thousand miles northeast of Madagascar and a little farther than that south of India. Madagascar, an island off of the east coast of Africa, is almost like another planet with plants, animals and terrain that is strange. The Seychelles are still close enough to Madagascar and far enough from the rest of the world that they share some of the idiosyncrasies that are only found there. These islands, unlike most tropical islands, were not formed by volcanic action, but are solid granite protrusions rising from the ocean floor. The main island rises to a height of three thousand feet and is covered with tropical forests. However, the very top of the mountain is a plethora of antennas. It is said that every spy organization in the world has a listening facility there. Most mornings the top of the mountain is in the clouds. The people are of mixed nationalities that consist mainly of African, Chinese and French. The majority are considered to be Creole with the main languages being Creole, French and English. There was a Creole couple that entertained us during dinner at night. The man would play his guitar while she sang as she passed among the tables. We enjoyed them very much. Each day there was a Creole dish on the menu. Since most people in the United States have never heard of the Seychelles and it is so hard to get there from here, we were the only Americans on the island. The rest of the tourists were mostly Europeans and their manner of dress on the beaches was a bit risqué for us. Topless seemed to be the order of the day. We did meet a couple from England about our age and had cokes with them several afternoons. There was a little rain shower several afternoons and the swimmers and sun bathers complained, but since we were there from Saudi Arabia, we really enjoyed them. It was the first rain we had seen in a while. One of the most unique things that these islands are noted for are the muted coconuts called coco-de-mere. Instead of a single orb there are two that are covered by an outer shell with an indention in the bottom. The palm trees that they grow on are fairly low but the fruit are the largest seed in nature weighing up to fifty pounds and taking five to ten years to mature. When these strange objects floated on to the shores of Africa, India and Indonesia years ago, they were thought to grow in the sea since the islands where they came from were unknown, thus the name. There are many nice hotels on the island. We saw many churches, but no Baptist. The tropical forest has various types of fruit and when someone wants some, they just go out and pick it. Their use of banana tree leaves for umbrellas was amusing. There were fishermen along the beach with their catch of the day bargaining with the locals. We watched the para-gliders, but didn’t participate. There are so many things that are unique to these islands, that Darwin could have done his studies here instead of the Galapagos Islands. This is the home of the giant tortoise. Bird Island is off-shore a ways and is a sanctuary for the thousands of birds that nest there. It is a haven for bird watchers and there is a boat trip each day to the island. There are several species of terns that are found here. One little bird that we enjoyed was snow white with a black beak. We have always enjoyed the bouganvilla that abounds in the southern part of our hemisphere, but their single petaled blossoms can’t compare with the double blossoms o

About the Author

Ours was one of those teen-age WWII marriages that wasn't going to work, but here we are sixty-three years later and still going strong. After raising our three children and getting them settled: our daughter, Aleta married and the two boys, Jerry and Glenn, safely ensconced in school at Texas Tech University, we finished emptying the nest and flew off to Africa to 'seek our fortune'. Over the following eleven years which included three overseas jobs and some odd ball experiences in between, we finally settled in the small home town of Donie, Texas. We have told so many people about our off-beat experiences and have been asked so many times, "When are you going to write a book", that we actually thought they meant it, so here is our story.