Mindelo, Cape Verde

 Thursday, November 14,  2014

Monday evening we sailed out of Arrecife in the Canary Islands, spent Tuesday and Wednesday at sea, arriving Thursday morning in Mindelo, Cape Verde. The two days at sea were a nice break from four straight days of excursions.  We slept in, read, napped, played cribbage, and drank when we wanted to.  The weather was great, the sea was reasonably calm; it was delightful. We were awake when the ship arrived in Mindelo and we were greeted by stunning scenery.  Cape Verde is made up of 10 islands.  We sailed between three of them as we arrived at the Mindelo port. As always, Tim will post pictures on his Facebook page. Our tour this morning was titled "Mindelo - the Cultural Capital".  The word, Cultural, was used rather loosely in this case.  Our first stop was an outdoor market of about a dozen stalls.  Each was selling the same products; cheap t-shirts, colorful womens clothing, and all sorts of carved wooden items. Some of the stallkeepers were more aggressive then others. Tim had a very difficult time extracting himself from one.  She spoke very little english but made it clear she would starve to death if Tim didn't buy a t-shirt. Next we stopped at the Old Square of Mindelo. At one end of the relative small square was a catholic church built in the 1860's. Eighty percent of Cape Verdeans are catholic. The church was very plain looking on the outside and we did not go inside so we were not sure of the point of the visit. At the other end of ths square was an indoor market. This market sold primary fruit and vegatables. After walking through the market we climbed to the second floor and had a great view looking down at the stalls. There was also a small store on the second floor selling higher class souvenirs and clothing including crocheted bikinis (!). From the "Old Square" it was only natural that we next stopped at the "New Square". This square was even smaller and featured statues of the Prime Minister who ended slavery in Cape Verde and a famous poet. Of more interest was the National Center for Art and Design at one end of the square. There were a few interesting art works and a display of guitars and drums. The drums were said to be made in 2019 but looked a century older.  They featured goat skin heads and used rope to provide the proper tension for the drum head. Very strange. The final stop of the day made up for the first three.  We were taken to a restaurant where we enjoyed typical Cape Verde snacks and Cape Verde rum while watching a young man and women present a thirty minute dance performance. They were accompanied by a guitar player and violin player who also provide vocals. The vocals were sung in one of the seven languages of Cape Verde so we did not understand the words, but we got the gist of the songs from watching the dancers. It was very entertaining.

Tomorrow we have another day at sea before arriving in Dakar, Senegal Saturday morning.