Cape Verde

Hi there,

it's been a while since I wrote, but I do have a good excuse ! We have been on our annual 2 week vacation. This year we thought to try something new. We felt that Thailand had lost it's charm so we booked a trip to Cape Verde. This trip was a great vacation with no worries and no stress. We stayed at the Riu Karamboa Hotel & Resort. First we thought that there was not that many people there, but so wrong we were. The hotels all 750 rooms were filled with people which meant that there were approximately 2000 people there...

Well, the Riu Karamboa Hotel was built just a stone's throw away from the Boa Vista airport which we heard and saw everyday. Since the TUI group had the exclusive rights to the hotels on the island, there were several TUI planes landing every day. The planes inflight was just outside the shore and we could both see and feel the planes coming.

Boa Vista is mainly sand and has a total of 55 km of beautiful sand beaches around the island. This meant that even the hotel looked like a huge sand castle.

During the 2 weeks at the kids club, our older son found a Swedish friend. He comes from Stockholm and had the cutest siblings ever. His sister, whom I do not have a picture of, and ...

this cute little thing, almost 2 yo.

One of the days we took a jeep safari too see a bit of the island. The tour started at a village nearby, to a pottery. The village, which name I cannot remember, had these cute kids running around and playing on the street. The houses had seen their best days, showing beautiful colors that had once been clean and new.

We all were standing on the edge of a cliff and listened to the guide telling us about Cape Verde and the pottery in this village. The boys were not that interested but as you can see, our co-tourist was ready to take pictures. Not as ready though that I was...lol.

A picture down the road from the pottery.

Our tour cars, 4 jeeps and the drivers.

 One of our drivers and our photographer.

The next stop of the tour was at the the Viana desert. A small desert with sahara sand. The sand was very cold. The guide explained that the sand is so cold because it is wet. When scratching a bit on the surface you could see wet sand underneath.

The kids were jumping around and I took few great pics of them at the desert.

This is Elliot showing how one should jump for a photographer.

The next stop was in the village where Henke Larssons daddy comes from... I had no clue. He is a former football player in Sweden.  Anyways this village had a very interesting history, it was over 500 years old. It was located on the root of a mountain for safety. When the pirates came from the sea, the villagers could see them and escape to the mountain and hide in the cavities.

We were told that all villages had light red school, a green colored daycare and a yellow after school day care together with a white church and a cemetery. The after school daycare was a place for the youngsters to hang out. The village got a boost when all the tours stopped for some shopping here. And our 4 cars were not the only ones stopping here for a drink.

 Also in this village the kids played on the street.

 They even had a public phone... or at least at some point... there was the telephone but nothing in the end of the line... lol.

So big village, that they had road signs.

The next stop was at Santa Monica beach, a 18 km long sand beach. This specific day the waves were big (enormous) and swimming was not recommended. 

The best way of transportation was the 4-wheelers. At the same time on the beach was a 4 wheeler safari with appr. 30 4-wheelers.

Just before we packed up for the trip back to the hotel our photographer decided to find a crab. Which he did, eventually. I was expecting a small crab out of that hole he digger but...

 it wasn't that small...

This was our photographer posing with his catch of the day.. the crab. 

When the crab had been let to go, it quickly squirted to the sea where it could be safe. We continued our tour but headed back to the hotel. During this drive we got the see different looking areas. 

This is just few out the sand beach, the nature was dry and sandy but as you can see the color is more red.

Then we drove in a canyon looking area with higher verges.

Here you can see clearly the consistency of the rocks, sandstone.

I do not have any picture but after this off road tour we actually turned on a proper road made of asphalt. Believe it or not!! The Riu group had built a proper road so they could get the busses to their other resort on the island. The previous road were not more than footpaths where driving a buss was almost impossible. SO, we drove the rest of the way on a proper road. Which was good since most of us were really in need to go to the loo.

The last thing was to drive past the airport and head to the hotel. Lol, yes, this is the airport. It could take 3 737-planes at once, so it wasn't really that small of an airport.

Well, now I've updated this post with several pictures and more story. Hope you enjoy our field trip...

That's all for now. Do leave a comment so I know you've visited.

Hugs,

Susanna