The Cape Verde islands are a small group of arid, volcanic islands off of the coast of Senegal. We stopped at the island of Saint Vincent. We had agreed to meet up with Brynn and Eunice and rent a taxi to take us around for the day. As we exited the port we met a young driver named Eldres. He agreed to drive us around for three hours, including Mount Verde, the highest point on the island, for 50 Euros. We were glad to be with Brynn and Eunice since we don’t have any Euros, and th
ey d
o, and US$ are not accepted very readily. The Cape Verde escuedo is the official currency, so if we had used an ATM (which were very scarce) we still couldn’t have gotten any Euros.Eldres first drove us up a small hill that had a nice view of the city.
Once in the city with there were stops at the produce market and the fish market.
We also saw the old palace and a small church.
Next we headed out of the city and up to Mount Verde on a long and winding road. The top is shrouded in mist most of the time, so the photo ops were on the way down. The landscape reminded us of southern Nevada, in that it is very barren, and there is little vegetation. It is hard to understand why they are called the Cape Verde islands, since verde means green.
The next stop was a small fishing village named Baia. While we were there Eldres told Brynn he would take us around the rest of the island for 30 more Euros. We all agreed, so he drove up the coast where we saw some beautiful beaches.
After the beaches we turned inland and saw a huge dry riverbed where people grew gardens along the banks.
Saint Vincent is a small island, and it wasn’t long before we returned to Mindelo. Eldres took us to another beach, then returned us to the ship.
Jim and I walked back into town, where he took a few more pictures, then we got back on the ship. After playing trivia Jim walked the deck and I blogged. It was another good day.
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