Hi there,
In today’s post I will tell you a little about my week-long stay in Sal, Cape Verde.
First, it is worth noting that being in a 5 star all-inclusive resort, logically my stay does not have much to do with what is the reality of the locals.
To enter Cape Verde, you must ask for a visa which costs 31 euros per person.
The airport in Sal is very small and the arrival was excellent because we got out super-fast.
On the other hand, the return was a nightmare. An hour queue to drop off the bags as they were the same for all airlines, then an hour queue to go through security control before entering the airport and finally, half an hour queue for passport control.
To top it off, the flight from Lisbon to Porto was delayed and we spent an hour in line to get on the plane.
We flew with Tap Portugal, and I thought about the huge difference between the attentive attention of the cabin crew and how bitter the Iberia crew was.
Arriving in Sal, from the plane you could see that the island was pure desert and on the way to the hotel we saw how ugly and decadent everything was.
In the parking lot they did the typical trick of taking your suitcase to help you put it in the car and then ask you for money. Diego could not imagine it, but this situation was a daily occurrence when I was in Egypt.
On the island you have on one side the resorts with their luxury and on the other, the extremely humble homes of the locals.
The town of Santa Maria looked decadent.
When we were in the cab Diego said that the road was as full of holes as the streets and sidewalks of Porto.
The cab driver told us that the island was very safe and that there were security cameras everywhere.
The island lives solely on tourism. In fact, there is practically no skilled labor, and the cab driver told us that they needed computer scientists because they only get to study basic computer science there.
The island’s drinking water comes from sea desalination, and you can’t drink the water from the tap.
As I have seen in the African countries I have visited, here too the locals speak many foreign languages.
Although in the area where my hotel was fortunately there were not many people on the beach who were not from the resort, there were many people trying to sell you things.
From the first day we were greeted by a man who was always in front of the sun lounger area and every day he would tell us to come and buy something from him.
One afternoon he came over when we were on the loungers reading and since he had me so tired, I picked out two bracelets and asked him how much they cost, I expected him to charge me 1 euro for each bracelet.
It should be noted that they were two ugly bracelets that were going to end up in the trash because I don’t wear accessories and I was buying them just to get the guy off our backs.
It turns out that the price of the two bracelets was 10 euros. I told him that there was no way I was paying him that money, that in Europe the same two bracelets cost 2 euros. There he started to make a speech that that was the price for tourists and that was why tourism was so important.
When he had about half an hour repeating the same thing, Diego told him that the next day he would give him the money and that was it.
I was quite annoyed that my contribution as a tourist is to be ripped off. I’d rather give him the money and not have to buy something I’m not going to use and let them rip me off.
Leaving the resort was to find yourself in the reality of any African country.
Even so, I was surprised to find practically no trash on the shore of the beach.
Something that struck me as curious was that when I was taking pictures, everyone was staring. Then I realized that I could not see people taking pictures on the beach.
The beach was full of dogs, some abandoned and some not. For me it was great because you could be playing, walking, and taking pictures with the dogs all the time.
Then I saw one of the dogs pooping on the shore and for the rest of the week I was thinking that I was going to get parasites in my feet since I was always barefoot in the sand. Fortunately, I had no parasites after the trip.
Overall, the stay was good because the hotel was what we were looking for, the beach was beautiful, and the weather was ideal. Still, we had to keep in mind that we were in a bubble and far away from the reality of the island.
Total expenses: 3881 euros
Flights: 837eur
Visas: 62euros
Hotel: 2442euros
Cab: 40eur
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