Cape Verde Islands

A week of winter sunshine in the Cape Verde isles went down a treat. After a six and a half hour flight and a short airport to hotel transfer of 20 minutes we arrived to beautiful sunshine and temperatures of around 30 degrees almost every day - and not a mosquito in sight (in February)!

Marketed as the European West Indies, there are ten islands; I have visited both ‘Boa Vista’ and ‘Sal’, Sal being the larger of the two.

The Cape Verde Isles are situated off the west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean – the islands are quite windy but with the most fantastic beaches I’ve ever seen. I’m told the beach in Boa Vista would take five hours if you attempted to walk it!

The sea can be quite rough, we saw waves of up to 20 feet on some days, what a sight to behold – the hotel staff kept a quiet vigil and cleared the beach when necessary! In fact I would say that a holiday here may not be for you if you enjoy swimming in the sea, the red flag was displayed for five out of the seven days meaning it was unsafe for swimmers.

On the other hand if you are a keen wind or kite surfer then this is an ideal destination for you! One of the beaches on Sal has been named ‘Kite Beach’. During our stay there were literally hundreds of kite suffers there, an amazing sight.

You will notice signs of development on both islands but nothing high rise – of course when you’re on the beach you don’t see it.

They have one main ‘town’ on both of the islands; we found shops selling locally made goods with a few cafes and a supermarket or two.

Apart from total relaxation, quad biking, bird watching, fishing and an island tour taking in a visit to the ‘Salt Lake’ and the 'Blue Eye' were on offer.