Cape Verde explored – useful things to know about Sal

Ah! 20-20 vision is a wonderful thing! I mean – have you really ever come home from a trip and felt you’ve done it justice! I, for one, always wish I could do it over. Not big things – most of us rarely get that wrong. But it’s the little bits, isn’t it… the photos you didn’t take, the scarf you didn’t buy, the museum you skipped, the restaurant you should have skipped, that church tower you should have climbed, the ‘in‘ neighbourhood of the city that you discover just as you are leaving….

Anyway!! What has that got to do with Sal!! Don’t think there was a church tower to miss… and it was earrings (not a scarf!).

Actually – we did an OK job on Sal. We were never going to do turtles or whales (have experienced both elsewhere) and kite surfing and dune buggy rides are definitely for someone else’s Sal blog but APART from that…..

I can sum the island up in three…. Santa Maria, beach time and island tour.

Most visitors stay in or around Santa Maria. The seaside town presents as a typical resort, making it nothing like anywhere else in the archipelago. The pedestrianised Rue 1 de Junho is filled with restaurants, bars and traders who swear they did the paintings themselves (despite the same stock in at least 30 other premises!!!). It particularly comes alive after sunset and, the evenings being so pleasant weather wise, you can easily linger over you meal or drink outdoors and watch the strollers up and down the street (equally, you can easily stroll up and down the street watching the diners!!).

There isn’t a long list of ‘to do’s’ – and sometimes that’s a nice thing.

A lot of the action takes place on or near the pier – you’ve the usual hawkers peddling their ‘authentic’ Cabo Verde trinkets, touts selling boat and land tours, and amidst it all, the local women working away gutting the catch of the day whilst ignoring the istagrammers posing alongside!

The back streets offer up fishermen’s cottages, laneways, peeling paint and murals….

At the Mercado Municipal you will find stalls selling fruit and veg and couple of craft shops upstairs.

Something you don’t come across too often – a Shell Graveyard – a section of beach where restaurants dump their conch shells!

This is really what you come for. The beach is lovely and starts right at the pier. It’s quite deep – 100m in places and the golden sand stretches for some 3.5kms. I can’t imagine it ever being overcrowded but the further you go from the pier, the quieter it becomes.

It’s odd, to be sure, that Cape Verde’s busiest island is its driest and therefore its most barren and hostile environment. The islanders have made the most of it and have cobbled together a day tour of the island’s few attractions away from the beaches.

Every tour is pretty much the same (they don’t have a lot to work with!) and can be booked around the pier or at one’s hotel. The 6-7 hr trip costs around €30 but then there are a few entrance fees which are not included as well as a lunch stop. Most companies use open-backed pick-up trucks so if you’re sitting outside you’ll come home fairly dusty!

Santa Maria was founded in 1830 for the production of salt – the area’s climate and terrain creating the perfect conditions for its extraction. Most of the product was exported to Brazil until 1887, when Brazil imposed a high import tax to protect its own salt production. The town went into a deep decline but, in 1920, a Portuguese investor resumed salt production and salt was once again extracted for export – this time to the Belgian Congo until its independence in 1961 when it nationalized its own salt production. Once again, the industry slumped and eventually ceased in 1984.

The first stop of the day tour is the Salinas de Santa Maria – a protected complex of salt evaporation ponds, offering up a living monument to the island’s past.

Just 15kms from Santa Maria is the lovely Baia de Murdeira. It’s earmarked for serious development with hoardings along the road advertising hotels and apartments but for now it’s quiet and you can enjoy a swim or just relax and make out the lion shaped Monte Leão ahead of you.

The capital of the island – Espargos – doesn’t warrant a tour stop apart from lunch later on but a drive through the dusty streets is a bit of a reality check for us lucky enough to be able to afford the restaurants and all-inclusives in Santa Maria. The government is making an effort to rehouse those who have been drawn to the island to work in tourism or at the airport and are living in shanty settlements. You’ll see some of the new units as you pass through town.

The Terra Boa Mirage shimmers in the noonday sun – looking like a lake in the distance

The Buracona Blue Eye is a natural cave pool that glows electric blue when the sun hits just right. If you time it right, you won’t have to queue for too long for your space at the railing – allowing more time for a dip in the adjacent rock pools.

Everywhere is so barren

I was looking forward to the stop in the fishing village of Palmeira but engine trouble meant we lost time while awaiting a replacement truck at lunchtime so all fishing activity had finished for the day and we just drove right through….

Next up is Shark Bay which is a breeding and feeding ground for the Lemon Shark. A local guide brings groups out to the shallows where you learn about the shark behaviour while the babies swim about your feet. ( It’s very rough underfoot but if you haven’t brought your own water shoes you can rent some for €3 on shore)

Last up are the Pedra de Lume salt pans. The crater of the extinct volcano is below sea level and salt lakes form naturally by the infiltration of seawater. The scale of past salt production is still evident – the division of the lake into separate pans to allow for evaporation as well as the transport structures to get the salt to the top of the crater (animals were used until a cable car was installed in 1921). There’s still a small scale operation on site – mainly producing beauty products.

Due to the high concentration of salt in the water, you can float with ease in the lake. Showers are available to rinse away the salt and can be used upon payment of a small fee.

Where we stayed….

While all-inclusive resorts are hugely popular, we opted to spend our 4 nights at 4* Hotel LIVVO Budha Beach. Your smile might drop with disappointment upon approach but the hotel IS lovely once you’re off the street and inside. With just 37 rooms, it’s a nice size for those who hate large complexes. We’d a lovely room just off the patio. Some rooms face on to the street which is a bit odd but they may be (hopefully) available for a more competitive price.

It has a nice patio and pool area with plenty of beds (although it wasn’t high season so there was no huge demand). There are spa treatments available.

It has an on site restaurant and bar. Breakfast is good with both buffet and menu items available. We didn’t dine in for lunch or dinner( there are plenty of options in town). It’s beside the Shell Graveyard so the beach in this area is not a facility – it’s about a 20 minute walk to the main beach.

You can reach the pedestrian street in about 10 -12 minutes. The approach is a bit dark in places at night but is wide open and safe to walk.

(Don’t be put off by the immediate surroundings…)

What we did….

For days 1 and 3, we wandered a bit through town in the mornings, spent a while on the beach, lunched either at a beach bar or on the pedestrian street and then came back to the pool for the afternoon before heading in to town again for dinner etc.

We took the day tour on Day 2 ( having booked it on the pier the previous day).

(These were the first 4 nights of a 2 week trip to the islands)

So what did we think….

For those who enjoy a beach holiday there’s enough to eke out a week here – by the time you do your kite-surfing, dune buggy rides, and day tour. You can rent a 4X4 and do your own thing. You can enjoy turtle watching from July to October. It’s supposed to be good for diving – especially for beginners. You can eat somewhere different every night and the food is generally very good (I wasn’t sick once and that’s saying something!!). If you don’t fancy sipping your cocktail while watching the waves, there are plenty of bars offering live music acts. There are beach clubs with DJ sets for the party animals among you.

Having said that, it’s a long way to go just for sun. It would suit those of you who are regular visitors to the Canaries and Morocco and are looking for a change. It’s even considered by some as an alternative to the Caribbean – minus the jet lag of course! There isn’t a lot beyond the beach and the usual resort activities. I’ve no idea what percentage of tourists are return visitors. Would we go back? Resort vacations on their own are not really our cup of tea (don’t get me wrong – I always love a few days chill time at the end of a trip) BUT – life has taught me never say never – If I got a really, really good offer I’d consider a week here – maybe 4 nights in a hotel in town and the rest of the time in an all inclusive.