Blogs from Cape Verde, Africa - page 5

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Geo: 16.0021, -24.0132Saturday 17/01/09 St Vincent - Cape Verde Islands A truly volcanic island chain, the barren rugged mountains dominate the landscape and the surrounding islands to the extent that it resembles a lunar landscape. After a brief visit to the city of Mindelo we travelled on to Catfish Bay to take in the majestic sights of the bay and the rugged mountain backdrop, the strong winds and fabulous breaking waves would make this a windsurfers/boarders paradise. Having watched the Carnival Tan Tan band we saw the Mindelo Carnival Kings & Queens in their colourful costumes and the local fishermen with their boats before winding our way back to the ship. From a distant the roads look like any normal tarmac surface but in fact the roads are all constructed of black volcanic cobblestones making for ... read more

Due to go to São Tiago rather than São Vicente our destination was changed for unspecified reasons, but it probably made little difference. São Vicente (Portuguese for "Saint Vincent") is one of the Barlavento Islands, the northern group within the Cape Verde archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off the west African coast. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão. The capital of the island is Mindelo and over 92% of the population of the island live in the Greater Mindelo urban area. We had been advised that Cape Verde was an 'up and coming' holiday destination, however, we have serious doubts about this; at least for the next ten years. The upside is the island has a feel of Brazil ... read more

The last two days have been great. March 10 was a free day and it was also wedding day. I had cultural show rehearsal in the morning and spent the afternoon reading and beautifying myself for the wedding. We all filed outside at 5 for the ceremony, which was very multicultural. Not only was everyone dressed in outfits from around the world, but we had a non-denominational ceremony, a reading from the Bible, a Buddhist tradition of tying string on everyone’s wrists, and a Moroccan song celebration. We also had a band made up of people from 4 nationalities, a Bollywood dance and a performance by guys from Ghana. We all were served a dinner quite like Thanksgiving…turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy! It was such a delicious change from our everyday food in the cafeteria. ... read more

Septima - the super sleeper Having been here for about two and a half weeks, one would think that we would be sufferig cabin fever - yet surprisingly we are not. Although that may have more to do with the fact that given the amount of running we have been doing (yes - running on sand is now my personal hell) , Seppy has been designated the "super sleeper" of the group - having sucessfully slept for 14 and a half hours one night! oh the pride. Sal is as expected sandy, although what surprised me is the fact that the beaches are naturally very clean -where is all the seaweed we see on the other half of the atlantic? We started to learn how to kite surf but that endeavour was stymied by a small ... read more