Posts From Cape Verde

I spent the day still recovering from yesterdays food poisoning episode so did not participate in todays tour. The ship docked at Port Grande in the city of Mindelo on the island of San Vincente one of 10 volcanic islands that make up the country of Cape Verde, located in the central Atlantic Ocean. From Nina's description the town still had an African feel, with lots of dark skinned people wearing wonderful brightly coloured clothes. There was a general more prosperous feel probably coming from the lack of rubbish and better maintained buildings and roadways. A wonderful example of the effort that the island community has put into building things is the top 5 km section of the road to Mount Verde at over 2500ft. This road is made of hand laid flat stones, providing a relative flat driving surface and is in good conditions. However as a passenger trying to take photos from the bus is was extremely bumpy. We could not find out why this construction technique was used as a hot-mix road would have been a lot less work. See the photo labelled "Rocky Road".