People call Cape Verde, soft Africa. A nice and easy introduction to the continent where the people are (or seem to be) genuinely nice and where it is still possible to find European like products (even if at an inflated price, sometimes). Most serious diseases for which one has to take a shot or take pills are absent or are very rare, also. All of this contributed to our choice of our first true holiday destination as a family of 3.
Santiago, where the capital Praia is located, was our first destination and our first time (for all of us) in Sub Saharan Africa. One of the things that got me first, even from the plane, was how dry the island was. I had heard that the archipelago, as a whole, was very dry, but the extent of the dark brown that dotted the landscape was striking and somewhat unexpected for me. But as we started walking around the city, it was amazing to see the contrast of that with how colourful everything was! The buildings, the clothes, the stores and the children's play areas (okay this latter one is normal).
(The above was written in 2019, just after our trip to Cape Verde. However, the post was never concluded and never published. Time has always seemed to run away whenever I wanted to finish it.
It is 2022 now. A pandemic has happened in the mean time halting all travel for a long time. A lot has happened and the vivid descriptions I try to include in these posts are no longer possible. But as I want to reboot the blog, I am publishing this post as is, dated when it was written, with only a little introduction and all the photos that were already uploaded. Hope you all still enjoy it.)
