An accumulation of assets for a sunny parenthesis

First of all, the Angsana hotel offers the promise of a stay of dream on Ihuru, one of the multiple islands of the Maldives, 20 minutes from Malé airport features. An island of a nearly perfect roundness, which is one of the most photographed of the archipelago. In the coconut Nestle forty-five villas in tropical architecture, design and colours that evoke the exotic fruit: banana green, orange mango, gourmet vanilla... Each has its private garden opened on Pearly sand and a bathroom with shower in the open air. In the turquoise ocean, a veranda with carrier is succumbing to the NAP even the hyperactive. A small hotel in discreet, dynamic, luxury rather a young customers enjoying the contemporary charm and follower of the best spas. Of the Angsana, managed by the Banyan Tree, owner of the hotel group, provides care and curative massages at base of fruits and tropical spices - papaya and mandarins for vitamins, orange and aloe vera, cinnamon and ginger. Fans place diving with pleasure: located in the heart of one of the most beautiful sites of the North Malé atoll, the Angsana Ihuru is equipped of a certified PADI centre. An accumulation of assets for a sunny parenthesis.

Huge metal petals

The Angsana hotel offers in addition to those wishing to experience a green for the less original: participate in the regeneration of coral, living and matters vital to the ecosystem of the Maldives. It. The adventure starts. Undulating softly by ten meters of water, a Lotus deploys its huge metal petals in the turquoise ocean. Covered with coral colonized by sponges and microalgae, teeming with colourful fish, it integrates so well seabed that it would not pay attention if the diver was noted. Installed in 2002 with the tenacity of a former agronomist Maldives love of its islands, and alarmed by the irreversible ecological damage caused by pollution and typhoons this sophisticated structure brings the coral. "We have grafted pieces of living coral damaged by Hurricane El Niño in 1998, and we are moving freely around the cables very low current which facilitates regrowth", explains one of the members of the marine laboratory. The team also relocated pieces of coral on the devastated funds, thus cultivating many "gardens" that build on the original coral massif. They thus created a collar designed to reduce the force of waves and, hence, erosion of coral. The challenge of these projects is to size: preventing sea funnel in the lagoon, the barrier reef protects the shores. The survival of the Maldives depends on, chain of Islands threatened by cyclones - the 2004 tsunami had flooded numerous islets.

The nautical ballet of turtles babies

Each client of the hotel Angsana can plant "his" piece of coral and admire the Lotus and other achievements by swimming with a simple mask in crystalline waters. We love watch sea turtles babies high in an enclosure to protect them from predators during their first months of life. Their boating touching and clumsy ballet is exciting. Become adults, they are lazing on the shore and can be seen between two baths of Sun. The more adventurous customers participate in the program for the protection of the black tip sharks by reporting their presence along the reef - the laboratory specialists have marked some of them to study their behaviour. Others simply participate in the conferences on the sharks or devoted to the life of the lagoon. For those who wish to support the marine laboratory, the hotel offers to raise a dollar per night of stay. After, it is surprised even to watch the fish lunch at the lagoon, were guests hours mask stuck to the nose on the reefs and we dream of living ballet formed by coral while getting massage at the spa, to the ocean.

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IN PRACTICE

Angsana Resort & Spa Ihuru

Reservations: or the 01 40 13 07 60 (French Central). Asia offers a package of 9 days/6 nights Paris-Paris by Sri Lankan Airlines, full Board in beach front villa, transfers Airport-Hotel boat. From EUR 2 250 (from May to September). Yoketaï, Tel.: 01 45 56 58 20.

The hotel is also programmed by Kuoni, Asia, world travelers, Jet Tours, southern lagoons.