We made it to our final stop in Africa – this time to Cape Verde (aka Cabo Verde), a group of islands off the west coast of the continent. And more importantly, this is the place where John rejoined us for our around-the-world adventure (at least for a little while).

Cape Verde is an archipelago made up of ten islands and five islets. We arrived into the city of Mindelo, in the northern part of the island of São Vicente. Mindelo is known for its colorful and animated carnival celebrations, with roots in Portuguese traditions later influenced by the Brazilian culture. It is also known as the cultural capital of the country, while the political capital is in Praia on the largest island of Santiago. I have been trying to memorize country capitals on this trip, and the way I remember Praia is that I was going to “pray-a” that John arrived back safely in Cape Verde. So far this memorization trick has worked. 😊

Anyway, Cape Verde is a great place to visit. Mindelo was a beautifully quaint city that was clean and felt safe. It was a nice change of pace from some of the countries we had just visited in West Africa. All the roads were paved, cell service was good, and things were clean – even the fish market that we went to. Not surprisingly, apparently Cape Verde boasts West Africa’s highest standard of living, thanks to its stable political and economic system.

You can quite easily see the Portuguese influence. Portuguese explorers colonized the islands in 1456, establishing the first European settlement in the tropics. Cape Verde only gained independence in 1975, which is why Portuguese is still the official language (though a Portuguese creole language is by far the most widely spoken language) and the Portuguese “vibe” is still easy to feel. The independence from Portugal is depicted in the Cape Verde flag. Blue signifies the ocean and sky, while the bands of white and red characterize the road toward building the nation, in which the colors stand for peace and effort. Finally, the yellow stars represent the 10 beautiful islands that comprise Cape Verde. Below is a picture of the flag being held up by some dancers at a show we went to (that I mention later below).

In terms of our time in Cape Verde, John arrived the night before our ship arrived. He stayed at a hotel on the water that was quite nice, with a heavily muscled guard who stood at the entrance. Our ship arrived into port at 8am and John was there to meet us. Funny story: when he arrived into Cape Verde and went through customs, they asked what he was doing there. He said he was “meeting the boat.” The customs guy exclaimed, “Oh! You’re a fisherman!” Not quite… he explained he was meeting the cruise ship and the guy said that was a new one for him. When he was walking to the ship from his hotel, he had a similar “this is new to us” experience from the port authorities. Thankfully, none of it led to any actual problems though, and he was on board within minutes of immigration clearing the ship. He was back! 😊

Shortly after his arrival back on the ship, we (he and I) took off on an excursion put on by the ship. We essentially did a walking tour around the area (the ship was in view almost the whole time), with our guide pointing out various statues and murals on buildings. In one of the photos below, you can see a mural of a singer. This image was all over t-shirts that were for sale. The singer is Cesaria Evora, a Cape Verdean singer who “became known for singing mornas, traditional Cape Verdean folk songs that were sorrowful emotion-charged chronicles of the country’s long and bitter history of isolation, slave trade, and population loss due to emigration.”

We walked along the waterfront and marveled at the beauty of the boats in the water. Seeing sailboats along and in the water is always so picturesque and photos never do it justice.

In the photo below, you can see some A-frame buildings in the water with stained glass. These are a floating music studio. Cool, huh?

We saw the tiniest little gas station along the side of the road that consisted of simply a pump and some supplies for purchase. It was cute and clean.

We made our way to a local museum where we walked around. The art was a mix of older and more modern, with an African vibe in most of the items.

We went to a fish market that was fairly small (compared to other fish markets we’ve been to on this trip) and quite clean relatively speaking. Here’s a photo of John looking very happy to be among the smelly fish. 😊

We then went to a local restaurant for some refreshments and a traditional dance show. The drinks were a sort of rum punch (usually tasty but this one was not going to be among our favorite drinks on the trip) and the foods were an assortment of sweet and savory bites. The dancing was energetic and fun to watch.

After the refreshment stop, we went to a local craft market and wandered around briefly. I bought a colorful bucket hat. After that, John and I decided to abandon the tour and just wander off on our own to explore a little separately. Here’s John by a local church and me just in a random street.

We made our way to a floating café / bar that was near the floating music studio. We had a couple beers and just relaxed as we watched the boats on the water and had a nice conversation with each other. After this, we caught the shuttle bus back to the ship. Cape Verde was a great stop. While we didn’t see much of the rest of the island, we enjoyed our time here and most importantly this stop signifies the location that brought John back so it’s a winner for me. 😊