Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands

December 8^th, 2024

For our visit to Mindelo, we had initially thought that we would get off the ship and find a taxi driver to take us around the island, but then we thought that we would probably get more out of a tour, and sure enough we found what looked just what we were looking for on Viator. A 6 hour tour of the island for the 4 of us.

We were all set.

I must say it looked very foggy

And not that exciting when I looked out from our balcony this morning.

However, the weather app said it was going to be hot and sunny so that sounded good.

There is no cruise terminal at Porto Grands. The port is a working port with small cargo ships and naval vessels, and it is about a 10 minute walk to the port gate.

This obviously wasn’t the first time the Sojourn was here!

We were met by several taxi drivers at the gate, but we were able to fend them off and find our guide Nelson. Nelson introduced himself as Nelson Mandela the 2^nd, but then added that he was really Nelson from Mindelo. Cute.

We climbed into the van and headed up the very rough windy road to see the Mindelo Fort, the oldest building in the city. It was built in 1953 to defend Porto Grande harbor against pirates.

It is now in ruins unfortunately, and although there is talk of restoring it, it continues to crumble and soon it may be beyond restoration which is a pity.

The view from the fort is great and we got to see the ferry harbor

our ship

and the sprawling city of Mindelo with its beautiful beach.

We then drove into town. It was Sunday, and the city center seemed almost deserted.

We started our walking tour at the Praca Nova. The square was almost deserted. At one end of the square was the National Center for Arts, Crafts and Design. It is housed in the former residence of Senator Vera Cruz

And has interesting looking studio space adjacent to the building.

There is a statue of Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the nationalist movement, in the square.

From the square we walked through the almost deserted streets

to the Cesaria Evora mural. We first fell in love with her music when we were in Kenya in 2004 and our guide, Alex, played her music on his phone. It was wonderful to stand there in front of the mural.

We continued our walk around the city center, passing the town hall

And enjoying looking at the brightly colored buildings.

It was Sunday so the vegetable market was closed

But the African market was going strong.

There are some beautiful Portuguese tile murals in the market.

Then we drove through the Monte Verde national park. It is no longer very verde. There has been an extended drought. The countryside was very dry and brown, the corn crop had failed.

The road to the top of the mountain was very narrow, bumpy, and winding. I was relieved when we reach the top, and looked forward to the view from the summit.

The view was not that good.

It looked like it was foggy, but it didn’t feel like we were in the fog, it wasn’t damp at all. What was the cause of the haze? I later found out that the haze was from sand from the Sahara. Wow, so even though the desert is so far away, the sand still finds its way to the Cape Verde islands.

There was some greenery – large Mauritius Hemp plants.

We left the mountain and traveled to the fishing village of Salamansa. There were a few modern buildings here – I surprised that this one didn’t have any staircase railings. The county property assessors back home would have a fit.

Most of the buildings didn’t look like they were in great shape, and the village had that post-apocalyptic feel to it.

The houses don’t have running water, so the water truck stops by here so that people can buy water to fill their plastic jugs.

They also don’t have streetlights any more since all of the street lighting solar panels have been stolen.

Although the beach was quite pretty, I had no urge to escape the oppressive heat and jump in for a swim.

The next fishing village we visited was in better shape.

Baia Das Gatas is the site of a large music festival each year and thousands of people descend on the village, bringing much needed financial support to the village. There are plans in the works to build schools and a hospital here, and so hopefully it has a bright future.

Our next stop was to see the dunes. The sand that blows over from the Sahara Desert settles here, producing large sand dunes. There were certainly strong winds blowing there today, not a good place to go swimming.

Then it was lunch time, and we drove to a nearby waterfront restaurant.

Well, it wasn’t exactly waterfront, but through the haze you could see the ocean a short distance away.

Nelson didn’t tell us the name of the restaurant, and as hard as I looked, it did appear to be the restaurant with no name. It also didn’t look that great from the outside.

However, when we were shown to our table, things did look better.

What’s more, the food was delicious, although extremely messy to eat. No finger bowls and starched napkins in sight.

The restaurant had free wifi – and the password was Hamburg. Then I noticed that the wait staff were wearing T shirts with the words Restaurante Hamburg on the back. Ah ha! It was no longer the restaurant with no name, it was the Hamburg.

Despite my early misgiving it turned out that I had a really good lunch. It was a success.

I was excited that our next stop was at a turtle rehabilitation center. We did see two adult turtles in a pool – one was missing a front flipper and the other was blind in one eye. I was sorry to hear that they would live out their lives in this pool as they were at too much risk to return to the ocean.

On a more positive note we saw 2 young turtles who had failed to find their way to the ocean, and who would be released back into the ocean at a later date, I felt better about them, but it wasn’t clear why they could not be released right now.

Then it was time to drive back to the ship. This part of the tour was described as a drive through the green Calhau Valley. Well, it is green no more, unfortunately. Gone are the farms, the farmhouses look like they are falling down, the irrigation windmills are rusted and broken. It was a sorry sight.

It had been a really interesting tour, and I am so glad that we chose to do it. The island of Sao Vincente did seem to be a bit depressing, but maybe we were not seeing it at its best. It will be interesting to see what the neighboring island of Santiago is like tomorrow.

Back on the ship I decided that now we are in the tropics it is sandals time. That means pedicure time. I had received a $50 off coupon for the spa, but it had to be used when we were in port.

Luckily I was able to get a pedicure before we sailed. There wasn’t such great view from the spa, but the pedicure was great. Definitely sandal time again.

When we had been on the Sojourn the specialty restaurant was Thomas Keller. We had really enjoyed our meal there. Thomas Keller has been replaced by Solis, and tonight was our first chance to find out what it was like.

Well, it was fine, but not amazing. I love the room, and the service was excellent, but the food wasn’t spectacular.

After dinner we went to the Let’s Dance party by the pool. The music was excellent, and we had a great time dancing.

All in all, it was a wonderful day.