Lazareto

Our second island in Cabo Verde is São Vicente (Portuguese for Saint Vincent). It is another rugged, desert island, formed by volcanoes. It is a series of peaks surrounded by incredibly beautiful azure seas.

Our tour was booked for the afternoon, so we had the morning to explore on our own. Walking down the long, industrial pier, we noticed that many ships that had been here before painted their logos on the concret walls. It was fun reading who had come here before.

We headed to a beautiful beach a half hour walk from the pier. It was a very windy day, but a nice walk along the edge of town. Being a very Catholic country, everything was closed for Easter weekend, but we weren't interested in shopping. We just wanted to get our toes in the sand and perhaps our bodies in the water. We changed our minds about getting in the water after freezing our feet in the surf and being sandblasted on the rest of our bodies. It was a beautiful, if short-lived beach visit. On the return walk to the ship, the wind took Joe's Australian hat off his head and sailed it over a security fence. It was a good hat and will be missed!

Meeting up with our tour group, we set off on a drive over the island, stopping at the tippy top of Mount Verde, which is the islands highest peak, at an elevation of 744 m (2440 feet). The drive itself was quite an adventure! The cobblestone road over the island was laid by hand, taking 20 years to complete. It was bumpy, narrow, winding, and on the edge of a steep drop-off for a good portion of it. But what views!!

Our reward at the top of the mountain was a stop for coffee, tea, and grogue tasting. Grogue (pronounced grogg, which makes me feel like a pirate) is a rum type liquor that is distilled from sugar cane and is produced exclusively in the Cabo Verde islands. There were three of them that we tried; the strait clear grogue, brown one flavored with molasses and honey, and a green one flavored with citronella and anise seed. The green one was our favorite, the brown one a close second (and the best one with coffee). We could purchase a bottle for $5 from the grogue shack, which we gladly did. It was poured from a large jug into recycled water bottles and wrapped in a napkin.

While we were at the top and were done with our grogging, the clouds came up the mountain and enveloped us, which was super cool, but it put an end to our photography. We headed down the other side of Mount Verde, which was more spectacular views. We wound our way down through valleys and over old volcanic peaks, all the way down to the coast facing Africa. On this side of the island, all the sand is from the Sahara, which blows over during intense sand storms. We took a break to walk in the dunes and sample another grogue called Ponche. This one tasted like brown sugar fudge. It was delicious!

From the sand dunes, we drove along the coast, stopping several times to take pictures and stroll around. We returned to the pier to find that our ship graffiti had made it up on the concrete wall! What a great ending to the day!

À saúde! Cheers!Read more