We had about a week in Mindelo on Sao Vincente, Cape Verde before the final stretch across the Atlantic to Grenada.
The first day we took an Arc arranged sightseeing tour by bus on some narrow mountain roads that were definitely not wide enough for driving both sides. The bus driver had to honk before a turn to alert oncoming traffic. It got even worse on the last part when the road became cobbled and the bus shook the last part to the top. Once you got up into the mountains, there were some really nice views of Sao Vincente and the neighboring island of Santo Antao.
On the way down the bus had to stop and wait for a goat herder, who was only a big teenager getting a few hundred goats across the road.
The climate on Sao Vincente is very dry and the rainy seasons have become shorter and shorter in recent years. The island is severely affected by the lack of fresh water, which is now produced by desalinating seawater, a rather expensive process.
At the highest points of the island, where clouds of humid air form, a creative inhabitant had devised a technique to extract water from the humid air by making a fairly simple installation with a vertical fine mesh net catching water from the air and collected into a water container. This provided enough water for him to keep a green garden. The lack of water also meant that the vast majority of vegetables were imported, and priced in line with those in Denmark. There were several local fish and vegetable markets where we provisioned for the trip across the Atlantic. We had to go to the market several times and buy vegetables at different booths.
As in Las Palmas, time in Cap Verde was also marked by Arc events. There was belly dancing, local music and displays of traditional Cape Verde dance with live music with cover songs from Cesaria Evora, who seems to be a folk hero, visible on souvenirs and murals. Here is a creative portrait created by removing plaster from a wall.
One day a local man came by and introduced himself as Jusi. He wanted to greet us because we were flying the Danish flag. He had worked on a Danish boat in his youth in the seventies and had learned some Danish, which he kept up by talking to Danish boats that came into port in Mindelo. He had fond memories of the Isalnd of Fyn in Denmark in the seventies, where the Danish girls loved him on the dance floor because he was so good at dancing the traditional Cap Verde dance, and called him Boogie Man. Jusi had since done well fishing in Cap Verde. A few days before our departue, he came by with a bag of mackerel, one of which had been fixed, so we could see how it was done. The other 10 or 12 we had to sort out ourselves. It was a bit of a task to get them sorted. Martin rushed to get out a questionnaire, which was suddenly very important to fill in, and let me sort out the fish. I had Ian help me with the last few. He seemed to manage to get a bit of fun out of them.
On the last night before departure we welcomed Morten and Christina and then it was off across the Atlantic to Grenada.
