I’m deep in the densest of jungles, following a barely visible track over huge granite boulders and around insidious vines. Ten meters below me the surf is crashing on the shore with ferocious force, and the skies have just opened up in a monsoon rain that renders everything startlingly slippery. I’m stuck. I also have a sense of deja vu. But the worst is yet to come.

How did I end up here? To find that out we have to go back a couple of days.

We have come to the Seychelles to dive, Miss Adventure and I. We’ve signed up with Trek Divers, one of two outfits operating out of the one harbour on La Digue, a rural island in the middle of the archipelago, incredibly scenic and unexploited.

If you think of the prettiest picture you’ve ever seen of a beach – secluded, jungle right down to the white sand, followed by turquoise waters – chances are you’re picturing Anse Source d’Argent or one of the other beaches here, as they are often featured in travel magazines.

So mornings are spent on the boat, going out to local dive sites. The diving is good enough – better than the Andaman Sea, but nowhere near as good as Pemba – and we see plenty of things: morays of all sizes from endearingly cute to scary big, snappers hiding in large schools under the many granite rocks that have been tossed up by nature to form tunnels and caves, through which we swim with our hearts in our throats.

Then there are massive humphead wrasse, octopi – always hiding in crevices, often pulling bits of dead coral on top of their already camouflaged selves, the better to become invisible – and incredibly graceful turtles, the octopus’s polar opposite, as they sometimes swim unconcernedly in our midst, checking us out with stern countenances as much as we do them, one of them even allowing me to stroke its shell-clad belly.

Further out in the big blue are reef sharks – shy, sleepy critters – and barracudas who look grumpy and a lot more menacing than the sharks. Speaking of sharks: on one dive a remora (one of those little fish that attach themselves to shark bellies) decided to try its luck with me instead, and spent the rest of the dive darting in and out between my legs, trying to find a comfortable spot. I was a bit concerned that it might succeed (especially when it tried to get into my bathing shorts!), but took great joy in the fact that I apparently move enough like a shark to fool its closest companions…! 😋

We saw dolphins a couple of times, but only from afar and whilst on the catamaran or on land – still, not too shoddy as breakfast entertainment – but the greatest sighting was a magnificent marbled ray, two meters in diametre, lying on the ocean floor covered in four of five other sting rays, taking it in turns to seek protection from their giant cousin, forming a subaquatic stack of enormous pancakes.

So we were doing well, diving wise. Back on the island it’s hotter and more humid than Satan’s anus, but as long as you’re on a bike and/or in the shade it’s ok. Afternoons are spent exploring, first the west side of the island as far as you can go – the jungle is so dense that hiking through the surf and tide is the only option after a while, but that just makes it feel more adventurous – and we trek far beyond the beaten path, discovering ever more secluded beaches as we go.

The next day we set out for the top of the island. We try biking as far as we can up the incredibly steep road, and then push our bikes, sweating more in the process than I ever have before or since, until finally abandoning the bikes and trudging the rest of the way on foot. The last fifteen minutes is nothing but jungle trail – fruit bats are our only company now, flying around in the canopy, occasionally fighting it out over a particularly choice morsel of fruit (all whilst hanging upside down) – but in the end we make it to the top and are rewarded with breathtaking views.

So it’s against this background that we go east the next afternoon. The road stops halfway around the island, so to get to the southwest you have to hike through the jungle – in fact that’s the only way to get to the fabled Anse Cocos, the one beach on the island with a lagoon – but since our other exploratory expeditions have gone well, we think ourselves easily capable of this feat. That is until the monsoon begins.

And so it is we find ourselves stuck in the jungle. We’ve had our share of misadventures (the latest one was coming close to being robbed in Marrakesh), and know that it often ends well, so we consider pushing on, but it’s too dangerous. One false move and you’ve slipped on the unforgiving rocks or stumbled on a treacherous vine – at best you get badly hurt, at worst you plummet to the boulders and the surf below. So like the main character in The Beach we give up, thwarted by the elements. We make it back ok to the road – going ever so slowly through the jungle – then set out on bikes again through the skyfall to make it home.

We’re soaked through but in good spirits, so when we encounter one of the giant tortoises that roam the island in a semi-wild state, we even stop and feed it an orange in the downpour – something which the Jurassic giant clearly appreciates! He comes at me at surprising speed and isn’t the least bit shy about taking slices out of my hand – although his aim isn’t the greatest, so I fear a little for my fingers until I change my grip to that favoured by horse owners everywhere, something which also brings the benefit of getting to experience what it’s like to have my palm licked by a bone fide dinosaur.

Our next stop is the fateful one, however, even though it doesn’t seem like it at the time. We stop by a beach-side restaurant and reserve a table for the evening. Big mistake. Although the food is good, it is also very, very bad, as we both come down with a case of severe food poisoning hours later.

Miss A gets off slightly easier, but I spend the hours of the night running shuttle from bed to bathroom with the worst case of tummy bug I’ve ever had. If it weren’t so gross and painful it would almost be comical, as my body is in such a hurry to expel the germs that I am literally performing acrobatic feats trying to make sure that both ends face the right way as they compete with each other to wring the most out of my suffering body.

All told, the bacteria eat up 36 hours of the holiday, but after that I’m back on my feet – if a little unsteady – just in time to get the ferry back to Mahe, the main island, and the journey home. It’s a(nother) shock to the system to re-enter civilisation, so we avoid it as best we can by hiking through the jungle to the top of the second highest summit in the island – no mean feat with a wrecked tummy – but I can’t help but feel that we have arrived here a hundred years too late. If only this guy could talk…!