Impressions of the island Sal, Cape Verde Islands

 

Map on the side of a building

Palmeira, Sal.  Cape Verde Islands---I was warned that the Cape Verde Islands were sparse compared to where we had been. But The Captain had last been there 16 years ago, surely a McDonalds or Burger King had found their way there, I mean how bad could it be?

Why did the Chicken cross the road? To get to the Internet Cafe.

 It took us seven days to reach the first island, Sal, from the Canary Islands. These collection of 7 islands 500 miles off the coast of Senegal, Africa are also volcanic and gained their independence as recent as July 5, 1975!

When we finally anchored and stepped foot at our destination: Palmeira, Sal what I saw was “sparse”. And according to The Captain, there was a lot of new development compared to 16 years ago.

There was a rag-tag bar at water level with mismatched plastic chairs. You needed to order inside a small concrete room with no windows, yet crammed with locals standing about. For about 100 Escudos ($1) you were handed a tiny bottle of beer. But it was hot and dusty dry, so it tasted incredible.



Amazing shells and coral on the beach



Up a ramp and onto the town’s dirt or cobble stone streets lead one of two gift shops in the village. African wares were on the street and down the block and the owners of the shop were sitting under a tree nearby.

Soon we would find out that bread was sold out of a house by the women that had propane gas outside her door after 3:30pm. An internet cafe and phone booths were down the street but someone needed to walk us there the first time.

Chickens and skinny dogs roamed the streets and clusters of men playing Ourin, a game using beans with small bowls carved into wooden planks. According to a little online research, “Ourin -- also known as awale (pronounced ah-wah-leah) or mancala -- has been passed down for centuries through African culture and various parts of the world. It pre-dates Christ by more than a thousand years.”



The money is called Escudo and the exchange was about 1 Euro to 110.

The only way to get local money was to get to the next town. Transportation to the next larger town, Espargos, was only 500 escudo or 50 Euro cents via “Taxis” called “Aluguer” which literally means “to hire”. This is a shared ride system in a Van who waits or drives around yelling their destination until the van is full of enough of passengers to justify the trip. Then on the way, they will stop if they consider anyone a prospect even if the van was already full.

 

One trip I made alone had 16 people in a 12 person van. It was definitely one of those “if my friends could see me now” moments. Also I was the whitest blond girl in town and a ride with the brothers nearly sitting on my lap, with loud thump-thump music blearing through the speakers kept making me giggling at the thought of this moment in time.. They were a friendly, extremely helpful people, a bit aggressive in their selling techniques but none of us had any real trouble.



I saw a poster in town of the World Wind Surfing Championships going on and knowing the island was not large, I made plans to go to Santa Maria, where it was being held the next day.

 

Water must be carried to the homes each day from the desalinization plant.



For 400 escudos (4 Euros) round trip, I also got to see more of the island. Santa Maria is definitely more veered for tourists with a street of shops and restaurants. After having a fresh fish lunch, I found the beach and what looked like the set up of the Windsurfing competition. The Bar was crowded with young to middle aged men in baggy surf shorts eating lunch. A couple questions to the bartender later I felt completely foolish for coming. THERE WAS NO WIND. I knew that, we had had to motor the final day. The competition had been on hold for several days and was coming to a close with last year’s winner keeping his title.



A taxi ride in an overflowing van.



Nevertheless, it was good scenery for a straight single girl stuck on a boat with a married guy, 2 kids and a 21 year old Man-Boy. I got a poster, autographed and had a quick chat with Josh Angulo, World Champion surfboarder who was from Hawaii but now lives in Sal and organized the event.





After several days, we are leaving Sal for another Island called Brava. It is the last Island in this group and puts us one day closer to Barbados.

  



Leaving La Palma for Cape Verde Islands...7 day passage

Santa Cruz, La Palma. Canary Islands---I have fallen in love with this island. It is amazing. I have explored and have not had time to write about it so it will come later.

Turbo-dog and Kitty back in Daytona

There are only two things I would pack up and take with me if we were evacuated from the beach side of Daytona, where I used to live: my animals and my photo albums. Since both of my parents have passed away, my father since I’ve been on this trip, the photos have taken on deeper significance.

Ironically, these were the things I had given to the care of The Captain’s wife in another city. Due to several factors, they needed to be moved back to Daytona.

Several friends, with little notice, came to the rescue as I felt helpless being in the Canary Islands poised to leave for a 7 day passage to the Cape Verde Islands. But one thing I have learned, as difficult as it has been, is to let go and receive help.

Friend Jen lent her vehicle and her cousin Tanya spent over 10 hours driving to do the pick up and turn around. When I was planning my life change and this trip, my first choice for my animals were my local friends Rick and Diane who had cared for Turbo for over 10 years whenever I was away and used the same Vet for their animals. But because my friend begged and was so eager to have companionship, against several of my friends advice to leave them in Daytona, I fought to defend my decision to move them away.

But everything changed. Another lesson I am learning; don’t expect people to do what they say because things can change on their end. Be adaptable, be flexible.

I had not had ongoing information about the health and status of the animals for nearly 4 months and it was causing me pain and turmoil. I finally broke down one day along the coast of Spain. I was in hysterics over the cruelness I felt from no information. Yet, I continued to fight for leaving the animals where they were. I felt like taking them away would be punishment for the person who had wanted them. Little did I know, but was informed, it was causing that person stress, making them spend more money than expected leaving them resent me. Yet I fought for this person to be the one to make the decision to move them. After receiving an email stating only problems regarding the animals, how much trouble they were and how they had little time for this in there busy life, combined with several months of having The Captain’s opinion repeated to me of wanting the animals moved,  I couldn’t take it any longer. She had done her best to care for them but they had to be moved.

I learned another lesson; be more selfish when it comes to my emotions and stop fighting other people’s battles.

The decision was made and immediately I felt like a huge weight had been lifted.

Since then, Turbo has seen his regular vet and I've had regular reports.  This does not change that he is over 15 years old, is a bit senile and has lost control of bowels. I trust Rick and Diane since they have had to watch two of their dogs pass and a vet, who I adore, has cared for Turbo and the kitty advising me when I shouldn’t spend extra money on tests! (Rare for most money hungry vet “businesses” that play on people’s emotions and lack of knowledge about what should be done.) I also know that Rick has cared for and loved my dog as if it were his own for a very long time. Turbo’s “best friend” was their dog Boomer, and when they were young we would spend hours laughing at them playing. It was Boomer and Turbo who were tired together on a short leash and escaped from Rick’s home, only to be found and taken to the South Daytona jail. I was volunteering for an air show convention in Las Vegas when I got the voice mail message on my cell from a sergeant at the police station informing me that the dog’s were being held! Not the first fiasco that Turbo had pulled off when he was young, but a funny story to tell. Sadly, Boomer passed away since I have been on this trip.

When I asked Rick and Diane to spend some time considering taking him this month, I said in my email; “I fear I am sending you my dog only to watch him pass.” They didn’t even take the three days I had asked them to think about it and immediately wrote me back wanting to take Turbo. Later they requested Kitty also, since the animals have been together for 12 years. Still in the testing phase since they have a dominate cat of their own.

After their vet visit, I was asked, and signed the permission for the euphemism decision to be made in my behalf.

Totally NOT on the same level, I had to do the same for my mother who was on life support. But love is love, and the love I had for my mom and being the one person that had asked her what she wanted, I felt like conveying this to my sister and Dad was putting the decision on my shoulders. But I knew for sure she wanted to pass if she came to that point.

My love for Turbo, while different than my mother, is strong and real. I gave him permission to pass (see Post: 2/20/10) before I left. But passing on the responsibility of making the call is above and beyond the duty of any friend. I’m hoping he will make it clear to them…or, in my dreams, he could rally and be there when I return.

Turbo was such a good dog, always happy and always waiting for me to come home from work with his face in my French doors with Kitty under him staring into the door’s window. I owe him so much for all those years of unconditional love.

Regardless of what happens, my heart is finally at peace regarding my animals, something that while planning this year away, I never knew just how hard it would be on me to be away from them.

Enchanted Forest, La Palma

Enchanted Forest, La Palma, Canary Islands---After two days of a heavy roll due to a big swell coming at us from the North, we arrived in La Palma yesterday after 2 days at sea. The boat has not rolled that hard yet on the trip. Both kids and the newbie got sick. I'm lucky to not be prone to seasickness but I do remember my early years as a sailor so I have empathy.  Sleeping between watches meant hearing every thing in the boat shift from side to side accompanied with the crashing noises. My watches went well and I am loving seeing the sun set and the sun rise every day on watch.

Today the Brit and I (who I now call Junior because he is only 20) took a bus for a round trip of 4 Euros, to the "Enchanted Forest". It was a 4 hour hike up about 3000 feet and worth it. The forest is not a rain forest, instead it is a "Humid Forest" recieving air from the Tradewinds that rises and sinks as humidity. This leaves an incredible forest of laurel trees, ferns and varieties of amazing green that a path weaved in and around. At times a last path, other times we ducked the overgrowth and stomped through mud which felt more like bushwacking. But the beauty was amazing and at the top, the view was worth it. Tomorrow, I might feel differently! Here are some photos.

LOCATION of Sail Boat

S/Y Juno


Latitude:28.79194

Longitude:-16.92117

GPS location Date/Time:11/08/2010 01:17:15 GMT

Message:Juno's latest position:



Click the link below to see where I am located.

http://fms.ws/3oKAf/28.79194//-16.92117

Leaving Lanzarote for another Canary Island

We will be in Passage for the next 2 days on our way to Santa Cruz, La Palma.

A Tribute to Cesar Manrique, Lanzarote Artist

Lanzarote, Canary Islands---Imagine if Salvidor Dali would have been allowed to city plan and design the flow of St. Petersburg , Florida. Imagine if Picasso could have taken Barcelona in the early days and designed how the buildings and nature would be built and plan the flow between man and nature. Imagine if Daytona Beach, Florida (my home for 25 years) would have given the task to Miltos or Perigo (local extraordinary artists) of complete city planning and redevelopment with the goal to create art around nature, making the area the most unusual beach town on the east coast…


In Madrid, where he studied, in the 50's


 That’s what happened on this Canary Island of Lanzarote. Height limits, use of native rock, no billboards or advertisements along the roads (okay, my marketing friends are now screaming at me)…Buildings that flow into the landscape and villages that cleanly stand out painted pure white and accented only with doors and windows in Mediterranean Blue or pure Green.

A native Artist named Cesar Manrique was born on this Island. Went to Paris, New York, toured with his work and made an international name for himself, only to return to his roots: the island of Lanzarote.

Everywhere you look has his touch. It is quite obvious he was loved. Not one person I have talked to has complained about the restrictions on building codes or the artist’s designs. EVERYONE loved Manrique. Everyone has great pride regarding this island and the fact that it is special. Public Relations is taken care of by its own people and their pride for this island. The tourism department has a well defined product and no one is arguing.

Cesar Manrique was born in 1919 and died tragically in a car accident on this island, near his home, on one of those crazy round-about circles that have scared us many times by the crazy drivers racing through it with no regards to others. The women in the Manrique shop had tears in her eyes telling me about the accident, the shock that the island was in, the chain of international reactions, and the visitors from all over the world who came in for his memorial.

We visited his past home on our tour around the island a couple of days ago. I was very taken by his work.

To get a feel for the man, his work, his life, here are excerpts from the book “Cesar Manrique, in his own words” along with photos of the house he built on top of several Volcano bubbles which now serves has his foundation. Logos, and many buildings around the island are all guided or designed by him.

“At the very heart of things, all can be set in motion by great passion, great love and utter devotion”









'Mirador del Rio'' Lookout building on the side of a cliff

 “I want to sing a hymn to LIFE forever, realizing that I myself am a witness of the change with has brought me to life in order to wonder at the great, solemn spectable of such a marvelous energy which, just for one, fleeting moment, shall never be repeated again.”



His home: Taro de Tahiche, current Foundation headquarters


“Our life on this planet is so brief that every step we take must be a further contribution to the ideal space of Utopia. Let us build the space together: it is the only was to make it possible.”






Inside the Volcano bubble. His home.


“Curiosity has always determined my direction and enriched my soul, to acquire knowledge and penetrate every nook and cranny of the earth with an inquisitive gaze, with an analytical, ever-searching look at infinite forms, textures and colours in perennial revelation and, above all, filled with a wonder difficult to explain, understanding that, in the pleasure of observation, there dwelt in me a kind of integration and absolute knowing. Nature generously gave me what others could neither see nor under stand.”




Las Salinas Hotel, 1977/from book "In his own words"

 “I believe that we must promote quickly the characteristic differences of every place on the planet. Otherwise, in the near future, we will have a boring, standard culture, lacking in all creative imagination.”




“A country’s biggest business is its education.”

At his home


“To create with absolute freedom, without fear and without formulas, comforts the soul and clears the way for rejoicing in existence.”









Jardin del Cactus, 1990/from his book "In his own words"

 “I have a binding sense of my art’s relationship with nature.”














In his home. Note the Volcano walls, painted white at the bottom.

 “I, as an artist, have the moral obligation to show great respect towards nature and to transmit this respect through the medium of my art to the spirit of all men.”








At his home






His home's backyard view!



At his home. Rooms connect from inside to out through Volcanic Rock walkways