Casa das Mares II Peniche

... of black volcanic cobblestones making for an interesting if somewhat jarring and noisy journey. Sunday 18/01/09 at sea wind force 8-9 sea 5-6m Monday 19/01/09 At sea but a much better day today with the wind having dropped to force 4-5 and the sea much calmer, with temperatures of 27-29 °C. We cross the equator tomorrow so there'll be an interesting ceremony I've no doubt.

... Then you can get you visa. If your name for some reason is not on the list (which it isn't, in most cases...) then you'd have to pay for it 25 euro to get in. The whole procedure takes around an hour or more. You have to be patient. The travel agency secured a bus-transfer for us - luckily. The hotel was a no-5-star pousada, but enough for us, since we did not intend to spend a lot of time there.

... spicey chilli sauce for the fish, in fact he gave us a whole bottle to take home. Yummy. On another trip with Antonio we drove over a sand dune and got his pick-up truck well and truly sunk in the sand. It took us about 30 mins to dig under the wheels and make a road of rocks and pebbles. All Antonio could say was 'two weeks ago there was no sand here....' Tomorrow I think we will be kitesurfing some more...

... James¡¦ kitesurfing is improving no end, for the kiters amongst you reading, he has been trying: back mobes, flat 3¡¦s, handle passes, strapless surf board riding, and some other stuff I don¡¦t know the names of. As for me, i have been zooming so fast in one direction barely touching the water as I go¡K. Ha ha. I¡¦m getting more and more control and even did a jump off a wave the other day. I had a bit of an ¡¥incident¡¦ with a French ...

No stress. No stress. This is the local saying that is spray painted onto anything. And it's true, Cabo verde has its own timezone, pace of life and no stress attitude that is very similar to that of the Caribbean. A typical Cabo verdean day seems to consist of getting up at 6, helping the fishermen set off, heading to the bakery and buying a huge sack of fresh bread rolls, and then the next few hours are spent waiting for the men to arrive back with their ...

... out with an empty seat next to them. The one nice thing about these modern planes is you have your own personal LCD monitor in front of you. You can pick from about 15 relatively current movies and start and stop anytime you want. There are also some simple games to play. There was even a live camera shot called "taxi cam" which you could view anytime from take off to landing.

... pulita, quasi deserta, un bel faraglione . Tutto bellissimo, peccato starci solo un paio d'ore. Ci consoliamo di dover ripartire in una Pasteleria del paese: scopriamo la pasta alla Gila: imperdibile. Ripartiamo e facciamo sosta alla Areia Branca. La spiaggia non è male, ma dopo Santa Cruz non ci sembra nulla di speciale. Dobbiamo segnalare l'ottima posizione dell'ostello, proprio di fronte al mare ed in ottimo stato. Breve pausa ...

We were given two options - stay on the plane or go to the terminal - during refueling. I chose the terminal because that meant getting up and walking. Of course, I didn't think that there would be nothing other than a large room there. So it was standing around for 1-1/2 hours while they refueled the plane.

... This was in the time of aparttide, the bus stopped at the Black train station not the white one. No problem, just walk off in the dark to find my hotel. Next day it was off to the travel agent and book a night train to Capetown. The Blue train was $800, air conditioned 40 different wines on the menue.... The brown train compartment was $160, no air and pulled by steam engine part of the way and included morning coffee. Guess which I took?