MINDELO – CAPE VERDE
Today, at around 8 o’clock this morning, we arrived in Mindelo, on the island of St Vincent, in the Cape Verde Islands.
The walk into town from the cruise quay, took about 20 minutes, and it was hot.
The first time we came to Mindelo was in 2011. Over the years, we’ve been back on about six or seven further occasions, and on each visit, we’ve noticed changes; some major, others minor, but each change reveals an island moving forward, whose progress can be measured in holes being filled, new buildings erected, cafes turned into Tourist Information Centres and a broad, expansive beach created almost from scratch.
Today, we were amazed to discover that a large visitor area on the harbour front, that we’ve seen grow over the years, designed to cater specifically for tourists, has gone, or at least is in the process of being demolished, to make way for a new hotel.
After wandering along the old beach directly in front of the town, photographing the same old wooden fishing boats that I always photograph (and subsequently paint), we visited the fish market, which was busy, and in full swing. One thing that struck us both about the people milling about on the small quayside there, bidding and bartering for large buckets of freshly caught fish as they were unloaded directly off the boats, was just how colourful the population of Mindelo is.
One of our primary objectives for the day was to try and find me a new hat to keep the sun off my head and shoulders. Unfortunately, the majority of hats we saw in the market there (not the fish market – the other one, just around the corner – which we figured would be the location with the highest probability of finding one) were baseball hats, which is not what I’m after at all. The only one that came close to what I am after fitted nicely and looked okay. However, upon enquiring its price, we were told that it would be 15 euros… far too much for what it was (I reckon we must have had ‘cruise ship passengers’ tattooed across our foreheads).
After scouring the market and failing to find a suitable hat, we went for a walk, beyond the central area of town, to a raised, vaguely landscaped area, where we were able to enjoy some interesting views of the town and harbour. We started to walk further, towards a sewage farm, where we knew the birders would be (sewage farms are a surprisingly good place to spot large amounts of birds, apparently), but the heat made the going tough, and what with me not having anything to protect my head, we eventually decided to turn around and head back into town.
Mindelo features a small replica version of Lisbon’s famous Belem Tower (which is what I’ll be having my class paint tomorrow), and today, for the first time in all the time we’ve been going there, it was open. It houses a small museum ‘of the sea’, which wasn’t massively exciting to be honest, but it was worth the 2 euros admission fee for the climb up to the upper balcony alone. From there, an almost vertical, slightly wobbly, metal ladder on the outside of the building, also provides access to the roof… again, well worth the admission fee.
Eventually, we drifted back to the ship for lunch, after which we headed back out again, only this time we turned left at the gate, to go to the beach. Again, this is a feature of Mindelo that has been developed and grown from a much smaller beach. The second year we visited, the area looked quite bizarre; the beach was in the process of being extended considerably, but it felt like walking on concrete. Over the ensuing years, however, the surface seems to have broken down and now actually feels like a proper sandy beach (although it still has a little way to go, in my opinion).
We hired loungers and headed for the sea, which was cold to enter, but okay after you’d got used to it. Once in, it was highly entertaining to watch the comical facial distortions of newcomers as they took their first tentative steps into the chilly surf.
We didn’t stay in the water long; it really wasn’t that warm (certainly not like the Caribbean). We subsequently spent an hour or so relaxing on the loungers, reading. What started out as a gentle breeze, however, soon turned into quite a brisk breeze, and eventually, we headed back to the ship.
Tomorrow, we are due to visit a second cape Verde island – one that we’ve never been to before. That’s only going to be a half-day, however, and I have classes in the afternoon (so no tours again).
