Cape Verde April 2014 - Part I: Praia

I can't remember the first time when I thought about going to Cape Verde. It might have been an article I've read somewhere or a documentary I've seen that made me want to know more about this country, and at some point I added it to the list of places I'd like to visit. Someday. Now I've travelled there sooner than I've imagined, and it was more or less coincidental: this year, Monsieur and me can't go on holidays in summer because he will be working so much. But as summers here are not necessarily warm and sunny, we decided to go somewhere warm and sunny in spring. That's when the idea of a trip to Cape Verde became more concrete.When I told people about this, many of them asked me where Cape Verde is. So: Cape Verde is a group of small islands around 600km west of the coast of western Africa (Senegal and Mauritania). It's an african country, but as the islands are of volcanic origin, there has never been a physical connection to any of the continents.

worldofmaps.com

Cape Verde consists of ten islands and five islets, nine islands are inhabited. The Barlavento islands (Santo Antão, São Vicente, Santa Luzia, São Nicolau, Sal and Boa Vista) are about 200km north of the Sotavento islands (Maio, Santiago, Fogo, Brava).The islands are very different in terms of geography and nature. And we had only two weeks. It wasn't an easy decision, but in the end we agreed on flying to the capital, Praia (Santiago), instead of the two more touristic islands Sal and Boa Vista. We've spent seven days in Praia and touring Santiago before flying to São Vicente, where we had two days in Mindelo before we took the ferry to Santo Antão. After three days in Santo Antão we returned to Mindelo for one more night. It would have been great to see the other islands, and I think for us the biggest temptation would have been Fogo, but you can't have it all and we rather wanted to stay in one place for a while instead of hurrying from one to another in order not to "miss" anything. I'm sure you miss way more if your only goal is to see as much as possible. 

I have never been out of Europe before (well, does the asian part of Istanbul count? Then I have). The Human Development Index lists Switzerland (where I live) on rank 9 of 187, while Cape Verde is on 132, one of the last ten countries considered "medium human development" countries. Only eleven african countries are ranked higher. This makes Cape Verde one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. And still there's of course a huge difference regarding the standards of infrastructure and everyday life compared to European countries. 

Africa. Yes, this blog is called "Europe through my lens", and I've chosen the name because I didn't expect to travel to another continent anytime soon. Due to my uneasiness when it comes to flying, but also because I really like Europe and still have a lot to discover here, I didn't have any plans to go anywhere this far until the end of 2013 when we decided that it would be Cape Verde for our spring holiday. I won't change my blog's name now or start another one as this will probably stay the only trip out of Europe for quite a while, but of course I'm aware that I have been in Africa.
Well. I have read things like "Africa light" about Cape Verde. I don't know if this is really true, I have never been to any other African country, but at least the history of Cape Verde is similar to the one of many countries on the african continent - if you start comparing them when the Europeans "discovered" Africa. My inner historian was very, very pleased to visit this place, but I will write more about this later.

This post won't be the only one on Cape Verde, there is so much to write about, so many impressions, and lots of pictures - we took about 1500, and I would like to show quite a few here. So I'll start with my thoughts and some photos of Praia.

 

Praia is Cape Verde's capital, but this doesn't mean that it is the country's most cosmopolitan city - compared to Mindelo, which Europeans probably find much more familiar, Praia does not have a marina and you normally don't see many tourists in the city. Only on the days when the big cruise ships stop in Praia, the Platô (the city centre is situated on top of a huge rock) turns into a sightseeing spot for a few hours.The fact that there are not many tourists in Praia means that Europeans stand out. I've never been to a country where the majority of the population has skin and hair much darker than mine, so I didn't know the feeling of being stared at because of my physical appearance. Phew. This is quite an experience.

We were very lucky to have found our first B&B in Cape Verde: the Demeure Criola. When we arrived at the airport late in the evening, Guy came to pick us up and when we arrived at the B&B, we enjoyed a drink on the fantastic roof terrace before going to bed. When we woke up in the morning, we found a huge cockroach on the floor - hello, new world!

After breakfast, Evelyne first explained how to use the Aluguers (shared taxi buses) and then took us to Sucupira, the african market, before she showed us the Platô. Taking an Aluguer for the first time was a funny experience, Aluguers are mini buses with around 15-20 seats but usually they are not full (and ready to depart) before there are 25 people on board. In our two weeks there, we shared Aluguers with a woman who came right from the fish market and had her big fish bowl with her; with many teenagers; with mothers and their babies, with a very old woman and some businessmen in suit and carrying their briefcases - and once for a short time with a group of young mormones. But when he realised that the mormones would travel to his final station while we wanted to get off much earlier, the driver asked us to take the "normal" bus instead. At that time we had waited in his Aluguer for other passengers while he drove around the quarter for about half an hour. But if you're in a hurry, the Aluguers are not for you. You can, of course, take a taxi instead. If you look like you're from Europe, this is enough proof for most taxi drivers in Praia that you need a taxi, and subsequently, they honk at you. Constantly.

Sucupira is vaste, chaotic (at least in my opinion) and you can probably buy whatever you like there, from live chicken to clothes, DVDs and bicycles. It's fascinating and a bit scary, too, I must admit that I came to like the smaller markets much better.

On the Platô, there's another market for food which was really nice. When you visit the markets, you don't feel like people stare at you all the time, you're a customer like all the others. I had some of my best encounters with Cabo Verde's people on the markets.

We were both very happy to find out that there's really nice coffee on Cape Verde and that their bakery tradition comes from Portugal. So we often ended up in one of the Pao Quente bakeries. 

The supermarkets have been quite interesting for us as we ended up asking ourselves a few questions on which food needs to be kept in the fridge. Power blackouts are not uncommon in Praia, once when we sat on the fantastic roof terrace of the Demeure Criola, suddenly the lights went off and climbing up on top of the roof, the whole city was pitch black (except the road to the airport where the streetlamps still worked). So: do yogurts, for example, need to be kept in the fridge? I would have said yes, especially in a country with high temperatures like Cape Verde, but in the supermarkets there, we found both: yogurt in the fridge and yogurt in normal shelves. This was the first question I wrote down to do some research back home. And this is what I found: Yogurt does not have to be kept in the fridge!

The "Demeure Criola" is situated in Achada Sao Felipe, about 15 minutes from the foot of the Platô with an Aluguer or taxi. The Achada is not a rich neighbourhood, which became clear to us the first time we walked to the bus stop. Not many houses are even complete, most of them look like there were under construction (which is probably not so wrong at all). Our neighbours kept two goats on their balcony. Praia has become home to many people who left their villages in hope for a better future for themselves and their families, and the outskirts look a bit like the favelas we all know from pictures of brazilian cities.

After a long weekend in Praia, we rented a car and started our tour around Santiago: to be continued.