White (Sands) Christmas

Santa Maria, Cape Verde, 5th January 2012

As the New Year passed and people all over Europe looked out of their windows at miserable, wet and windy weather, two people in a small corner of France knew they wouldn't have to put up with it for much longer. No no, M and T had a master plan. They had tickets to go Cape Verde for a while.

A one-night layover in London where we were hosted by the delightful Sal (delighted by the fact that the island we were going to is his namesake) and joined by the equally delightful Dixon and Laura (see South Africa) kickstarted the trip.  Tactics were poor, though, and we  woke up on Sal's floor at 6am with pounding headaches and stiff limbs, facing the prospect of dragging our tired bodies and suddenly heavy bags to Gatwick airport. 

Sal and Dixon welcome the hardy travellers to London

T tries out his travellers sunglasses

 Our carrier for the day is Thomson Airways, some charter company which flies to a range of places where fat and pasty European tourists sit and wallow in the sunshine. Cape Verde may be heading to be that way in future but for now it's not quite firmly on the tourist map. The airfare is cheap although we decide not to take up Thomson's offer of checked-in luggage for an outrageous £36 a bag. The hand luggage is limited to 5kg so packing was always going to be an exercise in frugality. In the end I went slightly over the top and ended up wearing 8 t-shirts and a pair of shorts under my trousers in order to get my bag down to the accepted weight. My coat pockets were jammed with socks and various bits and pieces and my bag managed to get to 4,99kg. Score. They didn't weigh the bags at check-in so the effort was completely fruitless. Our seats were the only 3 on the entire plane that didn't go back and so sleeping off the hangover had to be done in a completely vertical position. Still, we arrived in one piece, got our visas at the airport and we were in !

Introducing the (very fresh) crew : T on the streets of London

 Inna enjoying the train ride to the airport

 M enjoying the travellator ride

Sal island is small, barren and windswept - from the plane we could see both west and east coasts at the same time and everything in between was a rocky brown colour. A nearly empty highway goes from north to south and a few small villages are dotted around. It's hard to believe that this is one of 10 islands which form the country. It's beautiful in a desolate way and I spend most of the taxi ride down to Santa Maria staring out of the window and taking it all in. Mentally, I'm planning to climb that hill, cycle to this village, walk around that area. Maybe I'll do those things, maybe I won't - who knows ? This is the first time I've taken a holiday of this style - renting an apartment, having a pre-paid base and not having any plans to move. No 5am treks to the bus station with bags on backs, no traipsing around new towns at 1am looking for a place to sleep. I'm not sure how I'm going to like it but there's only one way to find out !

View from the front door. Very typical of Africa.

A rocky section of Santa Maria beach

I receive a gentle crash course on day 1. The apartment is a hop, skip and jump from the beach and a mere hop and skip from a beach bar by the name of Angulo's. It's a few minutes' walk into town where there are restaurants and bars (many of them seemingly geared up for the tourist business) and the "mercado municipal". An African market is generally a place where you can buy anything you could need and when we realised we had no towels, I dropped in to find that, aside from one hairdressers stall, the entire market is dedicated to little carvings and bracelets for the tourists. When I ask one vendor where I can get towels, he directs me to the Chinese supermarket down the road. It will take a bit of getting used to I'm sure but the pace is slow and the weather is a gentle 25 degrees which is something I'd almost forgotten existed back in the European winter - I'm sure that if I can do it anywhere, I can do it here !

Angulo beach bar 

Pasty tourists checking in...!