Oasis Praiamar Cape Verde Santiago

Saturday 17/01/09 St Vincent - Cape Verde Islands A truly volcanic island chain, the barren rugged mountains dominate the landscape and the surrounding islands to the extent that it resembles a lunar landscape. After a brief visit to the city of Mindelo we travelled on to Catfish Bay to take in the majestic sights of the bay and the rugged mountain backdrop, the strong ...

Landed we have on this desert island of Sal. At the arrival those persons having a valid visa can go through a passport control and out. But those that do not have a visa-stamp in their passports have to go to a small, hot room at the left corner of the arrival hall. One meets there two CV-officers. If you have paid for your visa via a travel agency your name should be on the excel list they have in the ...

It still windy! We haven't done much other than Kitesurf everyday. The water temperate is warm enough to wear boardshorts and rash vest, but the other nationalities think we are 'crazy british' for not wearing full wetsuits. I think perhaps they should try kitesurfing in British waters this time of year, and then they would understand. One day however we needed a rest so Antonio, our favourite taxi driver ...

Sorry we havenˇ¦t updated this sooner but it has been windy EVERYDAY since we last wrote. Our days have been very similar: wake up, go to bakery for fresh bread (only 3p a roll), pack up the kites, flag down a passing pick-up truck to take us over the ever changing desert of sand dunes to shark beach. Which incidentally I think is only called shark beach to scare off the tourists as we have even seen so much as a mini reef fish there yet ...

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 ...

Our SAA Flight left J'burg at 5pm, flew 2 hours to Capetown, sat on the ground for 1 hour before spending 8 hours in the air again before refueling for 1 hour on Sal Island. Then took on a new flight crew and flew 9 more hours to Atlanta when we de-planed at about 9:15 am. We were slightly delayed on Sal Island and then by Atlanta flight control but even if we were right on ...

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?