From One Uncomfortable Extreeme to Another…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Continuing our retro tour of Sal, one of the Cape Verde Islands visited in 2007.

When we first went to the travel agent about going to Cape Verde, we were shown an aerial photos of a hotel built like a sandcastle… it’s situated right on the beach and looked amazing.
However bookings for  the rooms we wanted and on the dates we wanted were not possible and so we opted instead for a self catering appartment…(sadly, even now, neither of these hotels are on Google Earth)

Once in Santa Maria (Sal) we decided from curiosity to drive past the hotel we “would” have booked… and were quite shocked to find that they have MASSIVELY expanded from what we saw on the photo in the travel agent’s brouchure.

The reality of the place is that  it’s a heavily gated and guarded complex and that guests are issued with armbands to wear when they are picked up at the airport and entry is ONLY granted to people with armbands so we couldn’t even visit one of the restaurants for dinner.

Later, we met a Dutchman living and working in Santa Maria, and got chatting (he was struggling to learn the local Portuguese creole and sooo relieved to be able to relax and speak Dutch with someone for a change). He told us that there  are mass of duty free boutique shops and restaurants inside this hotel and that guests are “advised” not to venture out to eat at local restaurants in town becuase it’s “not safe”…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I however wandered around town with my Best Friend, and with Himself at night to a restaurant at various times and never once felt that our safety was in question.

Lets  just say that Himself  and I both felt that us ending up staying in alternative accomodation was a fortuatous stroke of good luck in the end… I can’t say that  we would have been comfortable here at all.

It was confirmed by an Englishman who owns one of the villas near ours  as a retirement home in our  complex,  it’s apparently well known that guests in what’s been dubbed the “Sandcastle” complex rarely visit other parts of the island which is a great pity because  contrast with life in some other parts of the island couldn’t have been more stark…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

When we hired the 4-wheel drive vehicle, we decided to try and get to Ponte Norte at the most northerly tip of Sal.  Although the car was 4 wheel drive, there is no real road on the north side of Espargos and the sand was fairly deep so Himself needed to keep a little speed up so that we wouldn’t get stuck…

On the edge of Espargos it was clear that the houses were rudimentry and that imcomes were low, but nothing prepared us for the shock of the shanty town that was situated just to the north of Espargos by the road we needed to take to get to Ponte Norte.

We didn’t wish to gape at the poverty we could see here, or embarrass anyone, so I lined the camera on the edge of the window and took a photograph as we moved swiftly past…

Of the various level of poverty we say, of course the shanty town example was the most extreme …

We never did get to Ponte Norte because the “road” that had started out as a visible track degenerated into a landscape of potholes, sand and boulders, not only were we bouncing around in the car like jumping beans, we also found the track harder and harder to follow. I didn’t get any photos of the road at this point becuase I’d put away the camera in it’s case to protect it from the extremes of the bumping up and down.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

At one point when the track was clearer we saw a  fork in the road, we took what we thought was the correct road but the rocky pitted way suddenly turned into deep sand.  Realising that we were in danger of heading into trouble, and that we were not at all prepared  for the desert conditions (fundamentals, like always travel with two vehicles, take sand-tracks) we managed to turn around before we got stuck and headed back to where we had seen the road fork.

After a while it was clear that we had completely missed the fork and were on the road back to Espargos.

By then,  three of the five of us were feeling car-sick from the steady bouncing around so we decided to call it quits. We worked out later that we got more than half way at least. The treesin my photos are the the only trees we saw, and they are close to Espargos.

Whilst we can afford a holiday and are ridiculously wealthy in comparison to what we see here, we always want to remind our kids that they are very lucky to have what they have and that  they should not take what they have for granted…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

No fancy playgrounds and lots of toys here…

For some kids, fishing each day is a simple necessity so that there is dinner on the table for the family… This big brother (not in the photo) approached Best Friend and I and asked if we could take a photo of  his bother in return for  small fee in Santa Maria and since I am in two minds about begging (it fosters dependence and reliance over independence)

This time I handed over some cash and took the photo to help them supplement their income.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Service with a Snarl… Luckily we Find an Exception…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

In yesterday’s post I described our journey to Espargo and back, but left out much of what we did whilst we were there.

We walked around many of the streets in the centre of town checked out the fruit and vegetable sellers, and the kids spotted a rudimentry playground, which had them dragging their feet everywhere else we went after we passed it and making lots of persistant and hopeful noises about wanting to go there and play.

Kiwi Best Friend and I hadn’t had breakfast and wished for brunch, Himself had one mega early breakfast and then an early lunch when the kids got up for breakfast so none of them were hungry thus  it was swiftly arranged that he would take the kids to the playground and we would go eat at a cafe situated on the side of the little square pictured in my previous post.

It’s very simply laid out,  our  view (and table)  to the left…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

… and to the right…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The girl in yellow could not have been more dis-interested in the customers… it was clear that she hated every moment of her work.

We didn’t get a smile out of her at all and she dumped our food on the table in a manner that we saw repeated in various other food establishments … service here is more “service with a snarl” then “service with a smile “

…Luckily, the lady in pink WAS friendly, and after asking where we were from and discovering that we lived in the Netherlands, she enthusiastically told us about her relatives in Rotterdam. She was genuinely pleased that we’d come to Cape Verde and her cheerful disposition more than made up for Miss Surly Assistant.

the decoration on the walls consisted of…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Kiwi’s Best Friend ordered Beef … it was ok.. but considering the amount of fish eaten here, I was already suspecting that cooking beef wouldn’t be their speciality. (I was right, it was tough as old boots.)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I.. on the other hand, hit the jackpot with this little number of simple excellence…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

… not only did this dish entice us back to Espargos, ( Kiwi Best Friend wanted a plate of this all to herself and not just some spoonfuls of mine LOL) but I also immediately tried my hand at replicating it once we were home.

By the time we had finished lunch, Himself and the kids had returned from the playground, hot and begging to get back to the hotel for a swim.  And with that excellent idea,  and one ear-shattering, wind-blasted  minibus journey later, that’s exactly what we did.

Cape Verde… Espargos ..town

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This is post in my photo journalistic tour of the island of Sal in the Cape Verde group that Family Kiwidutch and Kiwi Best Friend made in 2007.

One day we talk about going to Espargos, the main town, so walk to our hotel reception area, to  find a local taxi conveniently parked outside.

Himself does some token price negotiations  in broken Portuguese (Espargos from Santa Maria costs us Euro 6,–) and the driver was very pleased even with the “knocked down” price that was agreed so probably  we were still charged  “tourist price”.

Ah heck we are  not being miserly about supporting the local economy…   We hop in and head north to Sal’s bigger and only other large population centre.

Espargos is the biggest town on Sal and is situated not too far from the airport, pretty much in the centre of the island.  We learn that the name  Espargos means “asparagus” and  the town got it’s name from the wild asparagus that apparently grew around here.

Since we don’t see asparagus of any sort on any of the menu’s, in any of the shops or at any of the roadside stalls, we ask if there is still asparagus to be found here. The people we talked to said that they didn’t know of  any,  but  there used to be in the past because rainfall was higher then  than is it now.

We walk though the town,  and  I photograph the town square and a colourful church…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There were market stalls on the side of the road. lots of fruit being sold, we watched as an elderly man haggled for a single fish and then saw him buy the smallest bottle of olive oil I have ever seen (about the size of a mini alcohol bottle) … we later passed  him walking on the outskirts of town,  taking home his evening dinner.

You can’t have an idea of the soul of a country unless you try  some less touristic things and do a few things as local people do:  for the return journey  we decide to travel local style to Santa Maria, so we board an argulia  local minibus for public transport (Euro 1,– per person) and  make ourselves comfortable. The mini bus already looks full, but no, another half dozen people turn up with a heap of stuff and it appears that they are joining us.

That’s how we come to share cramped conditions with at least five more passengers than this minibus was ever intended for,  plus a strange  and “fragrant” assortment of  food and luggage that got piled into every available space around us.

Every window that still opens is rolled down, and heavily laden to epic proportions, the driver then proceeds to pull out of  Espargos with the car radio turned up to a deafening volume.

Little Mr, hater of loud noises at any time, spent the journey back folded into a defensive little ball  on my knee with his (and my) hands over his ears. It was stifling hot inside the minibus and very windy as the wind buffeted our faces in the rear of the vehicle,  and I was more than a little nervous at times because our driver was exactly like the other drivers we’ve seen here:  speed lunatics who apparently fancy themselves as grand prix racers.

This attitude to driving appears to be fueled in part by the existance of a brand spanking new dual carriageway  highway that runs for most of the distance between Espargos and Santa Maria.  It’s rather errie considering that this mega wide and pristine piece of road  runs though a dessert wilderness and seems to be designed  to transport thousands of cars rather than the maybe 40 cars we saw whilst we were on it.

Planning for a future population boom? Ok,  planning ahead  is always good, but with a population of only 8.000  I think  it will be decades if not centuries before you see a traffic jam on this highway.

Between the noise of the wind rushing by and eardrum assult of the radio Kiwi Best Friend and I both exit the minivan in Santa Maria with thumping headaches…

Still, we survived, they were friendly and we had asprin.  As the old adage goes.. “third class riding is better than first class walking…”