A tour of the islands of Cape Verde

A three-hour delay was not the best start to the holiday, but then they offered each of us a free drink, and when finally the flight was called there was no rushing and pushing to be at the front of the queue. This attitude was to be typical of the laid-back, friendly Cape Verdians I met throughout my trip.

Santo Antao

First stop was a night in Mindelo, the capital of Sao Vicente. A pretty place, but with nothing obvious to see or do, and I was happy to take the ferry across to Santo Antao the next morning. This island is filled with steep, craggy mountains – really beautiful when you can see them, though much of the time the top halves seem to be covered in cloud. I did plenty of walking, up and down very steep mountain paths, for many hours, and although all the paths are cobbled and well-maintained I still discovered quite how unfit I am.

I also had the pleasure of an invitation to a Christmas eve dinner, just from a stranger sat next to me in a minibus, as he could not let a visitor to Cape Verde be alone at Christmas! The food was nothing to get excited about, but it was very nice to be with a typical extended Cape Verdian family for this celebration. One back visiting from France, one over from another island, an old couple down from their remote home up in the mountains. Luckily enough of them spoke English or French for it to be a very enjoyable evening.

Sal

This island is universally acknowledged to be barren and windswept. Photos of the tourist resort of Santa Maria make it look quite attractive, with clear blue skies, pretty pastel buildings and smiling Cape Verdians. The reality, at least during my visit, was grey clouds, grey concrete shells of half-built hotels and apartments, and harassed-looking tourists being pursued by immigrant Senegalese street traders. I found it quite dismal. Expensive too (€10 for a plate of pasta in cheese sauce with a glass of water?), and an early morning walk around town revealed several people sleeping in doorways under cardboard, and lots of mangy dogs.

So I escaped the town quickly and took a bus up to the capital and from there to Pedra do Lume, to see the old salt pans. The island of Sal has only salt, rock, sand and wind, and was only colonised for its salt production. Even that has now lost its value and the saltpans fell into disuse in 1985.

But you can still poke around the decaying old machinery that used to transport the salt (25 tonnes an hour at its height) from an old crater to the waiting ships. & the saltpans are still there, some blue, some solid with dirty, white salt and others a deep pink colour as the salt forms around the edges. It was worth seeing for the desolate atmosphere of the place.

From there I walked back - a five hour walk across the island, past rubbish tips and the odd turtle carcass, and through the still-operating saltpans behind Santa Maria. Perhaps when the sun is out this place is more inspiring, but whilst I was there it was too cold and windy to even think about lying on the beach.

Fogo

My next destination was very different. A volcanic island centred around an old crater, half covered with jagged black lumps of lava, and with steam still coming from one of the newer cones. It is a forbidding place, some of the lava fields looking like the end of the world has arrived. The last eruption, in 1995, saw a village destroyed, but the people there refuse to be relocated outside of the crater. They have rebuilt their houses nearby, dug little depressions in the areas of black cinder where they plant tomatoes and vines, and their local musicians get together every evening in a corner of a local convenience store to play the traditional music of the island. It is a strong community.

A welcoming one, too. I was sitting in the corridor of my guest house early on New Year's Eve when someone arrived looking for me. It had been noticed that I was there alone, so someone had been sent to invite me to join a family for the evening.

Like the family I spent Christmas Eve with, this was an extended grouping of loosely related people (I think I may now count as a cousin...), some of them back from overseas to visit their family. One of the traditions of the islands is the "morna", a form of poetry or song which is usually translated as something like "longing". It reflects the longing of emigrant Cape Verdians for their homeland, and the longing of those left behind for their loved ones. I heard it first hand that evening, as Mauricio, back on only his fourth visit from the US (where he lived with an American wife), told us of his love for Fogo, how this little village was the best place in the world he could celebrate the New Year. & it was Mauricio who persuaded the musicians amongst the group to go and get their instruments, so they could accompany him as he sang of his longing for a life in Cape Verde. Like most Cape Verdians, however, that longing is not so strong as to tempt him away from a more materially rewarding life elsewhere...

As well as tramping about over the lava, and up into the 1995 volcanic crater, I also found a guide to take me on a visit into one of the lava tubes discovered on the island. This was not the easiest visit - you can see my guide standing by the steel cable guide-rope near the entrance to the tube (by which time we had already climbed down a steel cable ladder down into the entrance), but if you follow the guide-rope back you will see how steeply the third section of it descends into the tube, and there is no path beneath it, just jagged lumps of lava. By the time I came out my hands and the seat of my trousers were covered with little cuts and rough spots, and I later met someone who had ripped a foot-long hole in his trousers in this tube!

Santiago

My final destination was Santiago, the largest island of the archipelago. Whilst it doesn't have one single spectacular feature like some of the other islands, it has impressive mountains, some ruins remaining from the initial colonisation of the islands 500 years ago, a few pretty little beaches, and the culture in the country's capital city, Praia.

Whilst there I paid a visit to a property development site which I had been reading about beforehand on the internet. The site will have three residential developments and six hotels, and will offer swimming pools, fitness and yoga classes, tennis courts and a cricket pitch, art classes, a cookery school, a diving club, etc, etc. This is the view I would have from my balcony if I were to buy an apartment there: Unfortunately I would not only have to find the money to buy the apartment, but also to support myself whilst living there and pay for the use of all those lovely facilities. But it's nice to dream!

Happy holidays

Just back from a week in Niamey, uneventful except that the increasingly poor service of Air Senegal has left me feeling as though I haven’t slept all week. The journey there was delayed by eight hours (meaning I arrived at 4am), and the journey back by one and a half hours. Then on arrival back in Dakar at 1:30 this morning I had to wait another one and half hours until the luggage appeared. The excuse given seemed to relate to the arrival of another flight around the same time, although no other luggage arrived whilst we were waiting for ours.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Cape Verde for a two week holiday (much of which might be spent sleeping!), so the blog will be a little quiet.

Someone commented that I seem to get an awful lot of holiday, so I thought I had better explain how this has arisen.

The organisation I work for allows us to take a day’s compensatory leave for every weekend day we spend travelling or working overseas and every public holiday we miss through travel, plus one day for any trip of two weeks or more. It is very generous, although in practice (as it has to be taken within one month of the trip) it is often hard to take it given pressure of work. However this year my travels around Rwanda, Ghana and Guinea Bissau, plus the odd day of other trips, were all taken from compensatory leave.

This is a picture of a Senegal parrot, taken through my office window a couple of weeks ago:


Merry Christmas to everyone, by the way, and best wishes for 2009!

The spectacular Fouta Djalon

It was obvious that if I were to see any more of Guinea than its taxi stations, I would have to find a different way of travelling. The obvious solution was the "deplacement": charter of an entire taxi. It entailed paying the fare for each place in the vehicle - and even a regular-sized taxi (a normal car) will squeeze in six passengers.

So my money started to go six times as fast, and I finally started to see Guinea.

The first site of real interest was the Case de Palabre in Dalaba. This was constructed to hold certain ceremonies on Guinea's independence 50 years ago. It is built in traditional style (with baked mud) but elaborately decorated on the floor and walls with designs representing the 12 Fula chiefs who were present at the Independence ceremony. Apparently the ceiling had been equally spectacular, made of woven bamboo, but this collapsed a few years ago and has now been replaced with corrugated iron.

Indeed the whole building is crumbling away, as the current regime in Guinea has no interest in funding its maintenance. This is a real tragedy. Africa has very few buildings of historical significance (if one ignores the colonial legacy), and this one is also very beautiful. I shall do what I can (emails to UN, embassies) to try to pressure someone to get it preserved!

I also spent a few days walking in the hills around Dalaba, a pretty area but quite bizarrely featuring groves of pine trees - relics of a French colonial experiment 100 years ago. The scenery was nice and the villages were pretty.

From there I travelled into the heart of the Fouta Djalon, where a guide by the name of Hassan Bah is famous for leading visitors on spectacular treks near the village of Doucki. At first I did wonder if I had made the right decision, as the taxi drove further and further away from civilisation along a rough track up into nowhere. It was a harsh landscape (sometimes the track just bumped along over bare rock), made worse by the local custom of burning off any vegetation left after the rainy season, and I couldn't imagine - even if this guide was around - where one could even sleep or eat, let alone walk.

The taxi driver kept muttering about how far it was, but eventually we saw a little sign saying Doucki, and an even barer track led off to the left. As we arrived someone took my rucksack from me and motioned for me to sit in a wicker chair. Ten minutes later lunch arrived, and a man told me in English that a room was being made up for me and Hassan Bah would be along in a few minutes! He arrived, told me I must be dusty from my trip and that we would therfore go on a nice walk to a waterfall in the afternoon where I could clean up.

In fact we visited a couple of waterfalls, and a whole lot more. It turned out that not so far away from the road, on either side, were cliffs where the land dropped down into spectacular valleys. Also, less obvious, there were little pockets of vegetation here and there, some turning out to be tiny patches of jungle complete with lianas and monkeys, (and one with a grey eagle owl which flew onto a branch nearby, until it was finally chased away by two red-bellied paradise flycatchers), and there were great rock formations all around, including a wonderful slot canyon. The whole area was completely stunning - a truly wild and unspoilt place - and I spent a great couple of days hiking around it. I'm not sure what more to say about it to do it justice, so have attached rather a few more photos than normal. It was hard to photograph because of the strong sun and the haze from burning of vegetation, but hopefully these give some indication of the beauty and variety of the scenery there.
I also saw a big fat black scorpion near my feet whilst eating dinner, but I guess you all know what those look like!

Waiting for a ride

After finishing my work in Guinea, I took a few days to travel around the country, to see the Fouta Djalon region that people rate so highly. But I had forgotten how difficult it is to travel in this part of Africa, and my itinerary began to look way too optimistic.

On the first day I tried to get to the bus/taxi station early, to get the journey to Kankan, and from there to Dabola, over as quickly as possible. However no-one at my hotel was around, and my bill had to be prepared by hand, so I was late leaving. Then after a half-hour’s walk I finally got to the station a little after 7:30. The early taxi was already full and preparing to depart, and I was the first person in the queue for the next one. For those who have not travelled in this region I should explain that taxis (old Peugeots) usually operate on a fixed route basis, and the driver will not depart until all possible places have been filled. This means two (occasionally three) in the front passenger seat and four in the row behind, and lots of luggage on the roof.

If I have no fixed timetable I am quite good at dealing with this type of situation now. I know that I should choose a seat and put something (a cheap item of clothing) on it to save it, and then go and find a place in the shade to wait. There is no point asking what time the taxi will leave, no point in repeatedly looking at your watch – you just have to be patient.

I don’t tend to get out a book at such times as that would take me away from the place I am trying to experience. Instead I just sit and watch the life around: the women manning little stalls selling coffee, bread, oranges; the wandering salesmen with armfuls of men’s shirts, towels, steering wheel covers, fake perfumes, or whatever else they bought at the market earlier in the morning, hoping to make a small margin from those without the time or energy to go to the market; small children selling tissues, sweets and toothpaste; the occasional blind beggar with an obligatory small child to lead them around while they sing their prayers for alms; and assorted unemployed youths and women with babies on their backs passing through or hanging around. It is very entertaining, particularly if you enjoy looking at the women’s clothes and hairstyles.

Eventually there is movement in the taxi. My little rucksack on the roof is shoved aside to make room for big 50kg sacks of rice and bunches of plantains being loaded. The driver revs the engine and we start to get in. It is a tight fit as we all squeeze up, some of the women having to accommodate babies as well as more bunches of plantains and other packages.

Then the driver gets out and wanders off, followed soon after by most of the passengers. It was just one of those mysterious false starts that happen every so often, that I have never really understood. But it is at least usually the start of the departure process; usually we are gone within the next hour.

About an hour later we do set off. I squeeze my knees back into place and wedge my shirt against a sharp pointy bit in the seat back, to get as comfortable as possible. We back out of our parking place and go around the corner – where we stop. I think we may be getting some air put into the tyres. A couple of passengers wander off again. I get out to stretch my legs (one foot was already going numb), then jump back in quickly as the driver revs the engine and we go again. This time we drive back to our original parking place...

To cut a very long story short, we finally left at 13:00, and a journey that I had been advised should take three hours took six, so by the time I got to the first destination on my schedule it was already dark and therefore too late to actually see the place.

The next morning I was at the station by 6:00, as advised, but the driver didn’t even arrive until 7:00 and we did not reach our full complement of passengers until 11:00. We then had an hour of mechanical work on the car – and the second destination on my schedule went the same way as the first…

Exploring the Bijagos

I had forgotten what a lovely country Guinea Bissau is. After the hustle, bustle and hassle of Dakar, Bissau is a haven – like a little backwater village, where you can walk along nearly empty streets and no-one bothers you.

This time I went much further beyond the sleepy capital, and spent a week exploring some of the islands offshore. There are more than 80 islands in the Bijagos archipelago, some inhabited and cultivated, some sacred and left wild, and others designated as national parks. I visited six of them, in a hired boat with three other foreigners plus a captain and his mate.

We started on the island of Quere, a tiny dot too small to figure on the maps. It took around seven minutes to walk from one end to the other! A lovely white beach, blue-cheeked bee-eaters wheeling around catching dragonflies and butterflies, and a comfortable lodge serving delicious freshly caught fish (we saw them being pulled from the sea!) – two nights there was not really enough, but there were more islands to visit.

Next was Orango. This is part of one of two national parks in the archipelago, protected because it is home to the only population of hippos in the world which are adapted to tolerate seawater. We duly organised a trip to see the hippos, unfortunately not in the sea this time but in their more usual haunt, deep in a swamp in the middle of the island. It was a bit of an adventure to get there, wading thigh-deep through the mangrove creeks, walking through head-high grass which released itchy seeds onto your skin, then back into water when we got to the swamp.

Suddenly they were there, snorting noisily in front of us, and the guide told us to climb quickly into the trees as they didn’t like people on their territory. I climbed awkwardly into a tree, to find it home to a number of biting ants, and I peered through the leaves at the occasional hippo head being raised out of the water. Eventually we got down and walked back, one member of our group finding a leech on her ankle as she came out of the water, and all of us with ant bites to go with the mosquito bites we already had.

On the way back to our boat we were taken on a long detour, into another swampy area, where we were told we may see crocodiles. I must say I was quite pleased that we didn’t, given that we were in their water! We did, however, see lots of birds – sacred ibis, herons, spoonbills, geese, etc.

After Orango we journeyed to the furthest island in the entire archipelago, in the other national park, this one primarily designed to protect nesting turtles. Poilao is sacred to the Bijagans; no Bijagan women are allowed there, no permanent construction is allowed, and no visiting men are allowed to shed any blood of any creature. For this reason, perhaps, the turtles come there in their thousands – 30,000 laying their eggs there each year.

We were near the end of the season, but still saw six or seven adult females on the beach, laying their eggs and then dragging themselves across the sand and rocks back to the sea. It looks like such hard work for them, but I suppose it is at least over in a couple of hours, unlike the 24 hours + that so many human females go through!

We also saw some of the young hatching. It can take them 3-4 days to climb through the sand out of the nest, and then they face the dangerous journey across the beach to the sea – a lot safer when tourists are there watching as this keeps the predators away.

In addition to the turtles, we saw another impressive creature on Poilao – a great bittern! This type of bird, normally found hiding in reeds, has never before been recorded in Guinea Bissau according to my bird book, so goodness knows what it was doing there. But due to their habit of freezing, rather than running or flying away, when danger is near, it was very easy to get a close look so there was no doubt as to its identity.

By this stage there were no hotels, so we camped on the sand near the beach, eating tinned sardines and rice that we had brought with us, and washing in seawater.

This was followed by another night under canvas (this time with freshly caught fish for dinner!), at the neighbouring island of Meio. Meio is also in the national park, and so is also uninhabited – and was the most beautiful of all the places we visited. I wanted to stay another night (or maybe another week). But the decision was made to move on – so far each island had been more beautiful than the last – and we made our way to Canhabaque.

This was indeed beautiful, with a white sandy beach that seemed to go on for ever, but unfortunately we could not find anywhere suitable to camp, so we moved on to Bubaque. Here there was a great site for camping, but at low tide the beach became an endless series of mudflats, and a number of sting rays lurking in the shallows put me off my swim even when I made it across the mud to the water. It was still lovely to sleep out for another night though, and I was sad to be going back to civilisation the next day (a day earlier than planned as the legislative elections due on our last day were for some reason accompanied by a travel curfew).

So we waved goodbye to our boat and its crew, shook the sand from our tents, and climbed aboard the public ferry back to the mainland. We realised how chilled out we had become in our week away when the boat got stuck on a sandbank half-an-hour outside Bissau. We didn’t worry, we didn’t complain, we just ordered another glass of wine from the bar and danced to the drums being played by some of the other passengers for the four hours it took for the water to rise and float us free.

Mum in Mombasa

A meeting in Nairobi was a wonderful opportunity to sneak in a quick visit to my Mum in her new home near Mombasa.

She and Chapati married in April, but I hadn't seen them since last year, nor had I seen the house they had built and moved into a few months ago.

I could only manage a short visit, but that was enough to see how happy they are. Isn't it wonderful that someone who reached retirement age thinking that all the good bits of her life were well behind her can, two years later, be blissfully happy in a completely new life. Living in a new country, with a new man (a kind, gentle - and good-looking - young man at that), she has found her little corner of paradise.

Visit to Vienna

Whilst the saga of the suitcase was still ongoing, I managed a quick trip to Europe. The UK was mostly administrative (dentist, vaccinations, bank, letting agent, etc) although I did get to visit my Dad and his family on the Isle of Wight for a couple of days. After I had arranged the dates (and ordered train tickets) for that trip my current favourite musicians, Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba, decided to announce a concert in London for one of the days I was away. Of course I was not going to cancel a visit to my Dad for a concert, but it was hugely frustrating as I have been trying and failing for two years now to see them play live. However, I was to get my reward as they played in Dakar last week (and were excellent – worth the wait!).

I also had a four-day holiday in Vienna, to visit my friends Janette and Axel. This was my first time in Vienna, and I was very impressed. There is so much interesting architecture, both old and new, classical and modern, as well as a lot of greenery around the outskirts of the city. I spent a lot of time walking – from sites as varied as palaces to vineyards – and also spent an evening at the ballet (a superb performance of Onegin) which was such a treat as there is no such ‘high-end’ culture here in West Africa. I even put on some mascara and lipstick for the occasion, something I haven’t done since I moved out to Senegal!

My favourite sites in Vienna had to be the Hundertwasser buildings. This is a photo of a waste incineration plant he designed. I’m not generally into bright colours, but this just works so well – and his residential buildings are wonderfully curvy and organic, not dissimilar to some of Gaudi’s designs.

Back in Dakar the hot humid weather continues. Everyone is on a short fuse, as shown by the behaviour of the mobs who attacked some of the state electricity company’s offices a couple of weeks ago. The power cuts get worse and worse, not just that they are frequent but also because they are so unpredictable. When the power goes you never know whether it will be off for hours or whether it will be back on again in five minutes – and if it does come back on it could just as likely go again ten minutes later. A day after those attacks the national football team could only draw at home to The Gambia, thus failing to qualify for the next round of some competition – and the result again was a rampaging mob, this time destroying the offices of the national football federation and throwing rocks at passers-by. I will be glad when the winds change, bringing dry weather in off the desert – that should ease tensions a little.