You Better have a Taste for Fish!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The island of Sal is dry (and dusty in the interior), with tropical heat  and a steady daytime temperatures that don’t fluctuate much from about 32-33 C (90-92 F) year round… it’s even a balmy 25-27 C (77-80 F)  at night which to me seems ideal for growing many crops, expect for the one not so small issue on this island: lack of good soil and fresh water.

There are very few vegetables here, apart from a small amount of salad greens, tomatoes and cucumber, and of course since they ae brough in from other greener islands in the group, they are all (relatively) expensive.

However,  the sea is full of fish and no matter how rich or poor you are here,  local catch their own daily since everything else on the protein menu is limited and expensive.

As a tourist here, a liking for fish is a must because it’s pretty much the only thing on the menu, no matter what restaurant you go to. The one time Kiwi Best Friend found and ordered beef, it was served cooked to a shoe leather consistency and wasn’t particularly edible.

It stands to reason  that if the locals are used to cooking something that they eat every day themselves, then they tend to make a great job of cooking it for visitors too. With the price and scarcity of beef, lamb and chicken, I think it would be reasonable to wonder how many people here have ever tasted it at all.

We enjoy walking, and so it’s no surpise that we see evidance of fish and fishing everywhere we go…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

.. and  this little sweetie has nothing to do with fish or fishing,  her mother stopped me and asked if I would take a photo of her daughter, and she was such a cutie I couldn’t say no. Of course our trip was made four years ago now… She will look a lot different by now.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Old Harbour at Santa Maria…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Since Cape Verde is situated off the West Coast of Africa,  off the coast of Senegal, The Gambia and in the region of Mauritania, Guinea-Bisseau, Guinea and Sierra Leone,  sadly the old harbour at Santa Maria was in centuries past used as a stopping and transfer point during  the slave trade.

Fortunately these days are long gone and it’s now only used  for fishing and swimming… but mostly only swimming at  low tide becuase at high tide the sea surges though the narrow gap and if you are in the water there’s a strong outward suction.

I’m a very rudimentary swimmer and I didn’t feel confident in the water when the tide was high so we didn’t let the kids in here anywhere around high tide, and since the hotel awimming pool was so close by and our kids loved sandcastle building as much as the water,  it wasn’t a problem to not swim here very often.

We saw very very few locals go into the water here but every so often some kids come to fish from the old harbour walls.

Most of  the harbour is in it’s simple, origonal state, but some repairs have been done over the decades.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Aiming for the Islands, but only got Close…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Welcome to my virtual tour of  a trip we made to the island of Sal in Cape Verde that we made in 2007.

We have a self catering apartment, but there are just the very bare basics for cooking,  two elements on the stove top for pots and not a huge amount of space  to deal with everything. Add to this that we are in the tropics, it’s darned hot inside and  eating out in Cape Verde is not  expensive with the rate of exchange to the Euro…

…and last but not least, tracking down suitable things from the supermarket that our fussy kids will eat,  is a small mission in  itself so we’ve decided that we will just prepare fruit, drinks and breakfast here and support the local businesses by eating out the rest of the time.

We  had hoped to eat at the restaurant near the middle of town that had tables shaped like the different Cape Verde islands, but when we got there they were closed, so since we were feeling lazy, we opted for the place next door.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It was daylight when we walked here and daylight when we ordered but there is no real twilight in the tropics, it’s almost literally light one moment and dark the next, so by the time the food arrived we were in the dark. I did my best with the photos…

Fish simmered in herbs and served Hawaiian style with pineapple for Kiwi Daughter… ok,… the three adults shared the fish in the end since she wasn’t fussed.

My  shrimps  were pretty tasty… not bad, not great…

Fried fish for Himself…  for him this was a dish that could be directly compared to others he had had…this was not one of the best … live and learn…

Fried Tuna this time scored by Best Friend.. this was was PERFECT and I wished all our meals were this quality….

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Chocolate mousse… One of Himself’s favourite desserts: it was ok, more a good attempt than anything else…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

So a mixed bag of results at this restaurant, Little Mr, raided the rice off our plates, Kiwi Daughter the fries and both got  cucumber, but they had sneakily infiltrated a packet of crackers earlier and scored ice-cream so this wasn’t one of their best eating days ever. Oh well, that’s exactly what holidays are for when you are a kid I suppose.

Santa Maria, Double Take, Something Fishy…

I’m still on  my retro tour of  the island of Sal in the Cape Verde islands…  we are walking around supermarket hunting on the main streets of Santa Maria.  I spied something hanging in a tree that appeared at first glance to be made of plastic….

I went closer to inspect it and the smell instantly gave things away…. definiately fishy….

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

…it’s a puffer fish that’s had a red balloon put into it, blown up and hung up to dry… (why? no clue? are these things tasty dried? it would be a rather smelly ornament I would think)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

… here’s another one that we saw washed up on the beach (a short drive away, I’ll take you there later)…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

While we are on the subject of local amusments.. here are a few signs from around town to make you smile…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Picasso? … methinks not…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

…and one seriously annoyed looking crab… (and with a tatoo on it’s claw!)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Dog! … Not Where You Might Expect …

Continuing  my post of yesterday, this series of photos are taken from my photographic archives from a trip to the island of Sal in Cape Verde we made with my Best Friend in 2007.   We are on the hunt for anything that resembles a supermarket, we’ve seen a few road side stalls that sell fruit and veggies but nothing more substantial yet for stuff like milk, water and bread.

We are walking down the main street in Santa Maria, when suddenly I spotted the dog…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I asked the Kids “ have you seen the dog yet?“   They look and look, but no, they can’t find it.

Of course,  two and six year olds are easy to fool, they only logically looked at the ground.  This dog is on the roof!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

How he made it up there, I have no idea, but clearly this is an excellent vantage point from which to patrol your domain… he paces backwards and forwards at regular intervals and barks at people passing by undernieth.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Now he’s barking at me but I con’t understand dog bark in Portuguese, so we will take this as a “hello” shall we?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Exploring the Town of Santa Maria…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Vila dos Espargos is the most important town on the island of Sal (not that that’s any great claim to fame because Santa Maria is the other and only larger town on the island, the rest of the settlements being village sized and few and far between.)

Santa Maria  however is bigger than Espargos because it’s where the tourist generally head for,

The reason for this?… it’s on the southern tip of the island, where ideal waves and wind are a drawcard for windsurfers the world over, there are also boating facilities, diving possibilities and well, the beach…

…something that Vila dos Espargos can’t compete with since it’s situated in the heart of the dry interior of Sal.

Santa Mariameans “Saint Mary” in Portuguese and the Portuguese influence is left behind in the style of the buildings…  with an average of 350 days of sunshine per year and very low rainfall on the few days it does rain, it’s hardly surprising to find that grass is a little hard to find here.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There are though, some welcome shade trees on some of the streets and effort has been made to green up a few pockets like the little square by the restaurant with the “island” tables, which if you compare to the dry arid landscape of the rest of the island, clearly has not been an easy undertaking.

There’s a desalination plant outside town but we saw no rivers or springs anywhere, so where people got fresh water from here in centuries past is a bit of a mystery to me. It does appear upon further investigation though that there used to be more water here in the past… but times, like the climate changed and it’s far drier here now.

The few trees provide  welcome respite from the sun,  we are wearily of the dangers of exposing our lily white flesh to large doses of UV radiation and already starting to wonder if the one large bottle of Factor 60 sunscreen will be enough for our stay.

We want to find a supermarket so that we can get some water, fruit and breakfast supplies so we go on a little exploratory tour of Santa Maria…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Getting used to the Tropics and Eating Out…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Continuing our restrospective 2007 visit of  Cape Verde.

It’s wise when exiting a Dutch autumn and landing in the tropics to take a little time to get acclimatised to the constant heat.

At first you still have some energy, but that fades fast, even though it’s very dry here and humidity is low.

We have to get used to sleeping in temperatures of 28 C (83 F) and to the mess that the excitement of the  flight made to Little Mr’s nap routine.

The first morning he was up at 04.00 a.m but luckily Himself was also awake so they sneaked outside to  build sand castles in the  moonlight,  …much to the amusement of the startled security guys who patrolled the complex at night.

The first day was a suitably lazy one and since the boys had risen early they had a late morning nap and awoke more or less at lunch time with the girls (yep, mega lazy first day).

Stomachs rumbling and no supermarket search yet undertaken, we continued the lazy option and headed to the restaurant next door for lunch.

The children were a little afraid because the stone path was close to being underwater at the hight of high tide, but  we all firmly held hands and “adventured” over the entire few metres that was being “pounded” by the “massive” waves a few centimetres (inches) high!

(Naturally they were never in any danger)

Best Friend ordered the grilled Tuna in curry sauce, but we agreed that it was overpowering  on the curry… edible, yes, but none of us would bother order this one again…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I went for the mixed fish, grilled… simple, tasty…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Of the three dishes I think I got the best deal for our taste buds… luckily I had plenty and was happy to share.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Little Mr  wanted a toasted sandwich, which wasn’t on the menu, but like his sister, was contented with cucumber, fries and plain bread…   his little hand  zooms towards the bread  behind Himself’s  local fish (the Portuguese Creole name of which I didn’t catch) because he’s not yet learned that it’s normal in this household to wait until the photographs of the food have been taken.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Sometimes you choose a Hotel and…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

More on our retro visit to the island of  Sal in Cape Verde.

We had originally lined up a completely different hotel for this trip, but  the travel agent phoned us back and told us that they couldn’t do the room arrangement that we wanted for the dates we wanted.

First this sent us into a small tail-spin because we had stupidly shown the hotel  in the brochure to our six year old daughter and she was less understanding of the practical reasonings, she was just highly unamused that we wouldn’t be staying at the place of the photograph after all.

(We learned from this: “surprises” for kids are better and accommodate unforseen plan changes brilliantly)

Instead we reserved a self-catering apartment, and only discovered  on arrival that the beach was literally on our front doorstep… a complete bonus since it was something that hadn’t even been mentioned in the brochure we’d read back home in the Netherlands.

The kids, jet lagged as they were, were ecstatic… a sand pit all to themselves! and indeed,  during the entire holiday completely by chance, they only had to share it once.

First you walk though a little inner lane past the other units in the complex, until you reach a swimming pool. Just a few meters further is the old harbour (more on that later) and a right hand turn takes you down a path that runs alongside our own little bay, next to the old historic harbour.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

… looking back towards our apartment…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

..and just one apartment further up, a little stone pathway leads to a restaurant, so eating out could hardly be a lazier walk.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Quite by chance, we got amazing accommodation…  we had one of the bigger family units but it was rather open plan inside so there was little privacy for extra guests …therefore Best Friend was in a smaller unit just behind the swimming pool, which suited everyone well, especially since Little Mr is a notoriously early riser and Best Friend  notoriously is not.

Needless to say Kiwi Daughter’s disappointment  about  the other hotel evaporated as soon as she discovered that sand castle building and serious playing could be done so close to our holiday home. Other hotel? Who cares? This one is perfect!