A UK visit brimming with Covid, & a hot hot hot welcome to Cape Verde

We were back in the UK for a brief stint to drop off our troublesome Landrover and to catch a flight to our next port of call - Cape Verde. Being back in the UK allowed us some time to see family in Somerset, Milton Keynes, Daventry and Manchester, so we were on the move a lot, but it was great to see everyone. Unfortunately, bad luck meant that we were unable to see a number of dear friends and some family because they had been struck with Covid. The UK is the only place that we've found Covid getting in our way. We had to change our plans several times just to make sure we stayed clear and weren't affected, but I guess we're used to doing that now. I was surprised by how many people were ill though. What can I say? Clearly us Brits love a virus or perhaps we're not good at following instructions and best practice, either way Co

vid seems rife again at home. I'm just pleased we were able to see the people we did because if all goes well, it will now be some time before we grace England's shores again.

We flew from Manchester to Cape Verde on 3rd December, specifically the island of Sal. We arrived after midnight and after a short queue through immigration, we were collecting our rucksacks and heading out to find a taxi. 20 mins later we were dropped off on the corner of the apartment block and tasked with finding our way in and locating the apartment we'd booked on airbnb for the month. Thankfully there was a security guard that helped point the way, despite doing his best impression of the most miserable person on the planet and not reacting at all to my graciousness and smiles. I decided that being a night guard probably wasn't the best job and shrugged it off.

The apartment we're in is simple but lovely. It's clean, comfortable and has a great spacious balcony with sea view. It took us a few days to get the wifi sorted, but we coped by frequenting the local bar at every opportunity and sampling the local beers.

So where exactly have we landed? The island of Sal is in the north of the Cape Verde Archipelago, about 350miles off of the west coast of Africa. The island is 30km x 12km and largely barren and incredibly flat with only a couple of small isolated peaks. When it was discovered by Europeans in the 15th century, it was named Llana, meaning flat, but following the discovery of 2 large salt pans in the craters of extinct volcanos and the development of the salt industry in the 1830s, the name was changed to Sal, which means Salt. The islands gained independence from Portugal in 1975, so the main language spoken here remains Portugese. Until 1960, only 3000 people lived here, but since the investment in tourism, the population has rapidly grown to approximately 40,000 people. Whilst it's clearly a populated place, I don't know where all the people are. Some days, it's so quiet here.

As we're now without car and the island doesn't have a scheduled bus service per se, we have spent the first week here at our base in Santa Maria. This town is reknowned for it's water sports. The beach is sand, the water is turquoise and being one of the windward islands on the archipelago, its pretty breezy so a prime location for surfers and wind surfers etc..

Santa Maria is a nice looking rustic, weather-beaten town of cobbled streets lined with palm trees under the hot sun. We've been enjoying temperatures of 26 and 27C. The coolest month to visit is January where temperatures will be as low as 24C. Given it's winter, the days are short with the sun going down at around 5.30pm, but every evening, we're shown the most intense sunsets I've ever seen.

We're self catering as is the norm for us, so our first task was to find some water and a few provisions. Wandering around on the Sunday we arrived produced very little - everything was shut. The next day, things made a bit more sense with more commercial premises open. We soon learned that there are corner shops everywhere that sell a few bits and bobs, but only 1 or 2 mini supermarkets, and there are no major supermarkets anywhere - they don't have them.

The first shopping surprise? small egg boxes don't exist here, so they sell eggs in a polythene bag. erm.... yep! so we carefully nestled our bag of six eggs amongst the other items and prayed that they were still intact when we got home. They were!

The second surprise? If you pay in Euros, your change may come in Cape Verdean Escudos, or even a mix of both. Whilst Escudos are the official currency, it's a closed currency and tied directly to the Euro, so they always know the conversion rate. I guess in that way it doesn't matter what you pay in as they are interchangeable.

So far, whilst it's clear that the standard of living in Cape Verde has some way to go, tourism is supporting a thriving economy here. Cape Verde so far feels pretty familiar in many ways and when sat in a bar or restaurant, you could be forgiven for thinking you were somwhere closer to home until that is, you see the lady selling fruit and vegetables from a wheelbarrow, or spot the baby geckos running along the ceiling, or the moray eels in the restaurant fish tank.