Back on Terra Firma – Cape Verde

Those three days at sea went pretty quickly. We were kept busy with activities and also enjoyed relaxing by the pool and on our veranda. But we arrived this morning at Cape Verde that is a series of ten islands 450 km off the coast of Africa. We were actually on one of the smaller islands called Sao Vicente. These islands are very bleak and not necessarily suitable for habitation, but the Portuguese were here before Columbus found America and they didn’t relinquish control of the islands until 1975. In drought conditions like they had here in the 1950’s when they had no rain for 5 years, this place would have been like the desert regions of Africa today, with large percentages of the population dieing of starvation. Desalination plants have given this country stability and with that, irrigation to a protected valley area that is their principle farmland. The people remain very poor, but conditions are improving, especially with tourism becoming a dominant factor in the economy.

As we left our ship moored in the Porto Grand harbour, our Oceania tour began today in the main city of Sao Vicente called Mindelo. An ancient fort overlooks the town.

We visited a market with fairly limited offerings and walked about a couple of squares surrounded by unremarkable buildings.

The primary construction here is a cinder block box, often without exterior finishing and roofless on the top floor. Despite that, there is still that Portuguese coloured façade influence in the old town.

Then we drove to the top of the highest mountain in Sao Vicente, called Monte Grande.

This was an interesting drive on cobble stone one-lane roads, switch backing up the mountainside. The views at the top were quite rewarding, but Dawn was less than impressed with the drive.

On terraces near the top, they were farming corn on just about the worst farmland I have ever seen.

The drive down took us to the Praia Grande beach, which is beautiful to look at but extremely dangerous and in fact forbidden, for swimmers. We assume that danger was related to rip currents, but in fact could have more to do with maritime denizens. We didn’t actually get a definitive answer on this.

Then we drove back to Mindelo via their agricultural valley. Things certainly look more promising here, but this is a very small area.

This island of volcanic origin came across as an authentic African colony. They are just beginning to embrace tourism and they made a point of telling us not to give beggars anything, so they could be conditioned to not expect handouts. We finished the tour with a look at their useable beach and despite the fact that it is barely spring, people were in the ocean. This was a reminder that we are still in the tropics. We were told that they occasionally have bad sand storms originating from the Sahara Desert and this reminded us how closely connected they are to the African continent.

At lunch we met more Canadians, these ones from Kitchener. It’s a small world after all. It was nice to get some real walking in today, verses the track, but with two more days at sea coming up we’ll be back to the track. Hopefully today gave those not feeling too well an opportunity for recovery. The weather today was perfect, not too hot, not too cold.