Independent travel
Independent travel gives you the freedom to move on when you are ready and not tied to a single hotel. Its fun fending for yourself and finding accommodation when you arrive at a new destination. It enables you to travel off the beaten track and away from the crowds, it is a liberating kind of travel. Mingling with the locals, eating their food, learning about their culture is an important part of travel. Travelling independently ensures that your money goes directly into the local economy and not to national or international businesses. The easiest way to experience independent travel is in Greek Islands where it is easy to travel between Islands
- Africa, Cape Verde, History, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife
Hikes And Histories: More Of Tarrafal
It’s a few minutes before 9am and our guide Seeto is already waiting in the square, chatting and joking with friends. He meets us with the warmest of smiles but is continually interrupted by greetings, handshakes and fist pumps – you get the distinct feeling that everybody knows everyone else in Tarrafal. Seeto introduces us to our companions on today’s expedition, Alejo and Gabriella, on holiday here from near Albacete in Spain. Today’s hike is a downhill challenge, we will be starting high up in the mountains of Serra Malagueta and dropping way, way down to arrive at the natural lake in the bottom of the canyon some three hours…
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Exploring Santiago: Northwards To Tarrafal
Language is interesting here: the tongue spoken by Cape Verdeans is known as Krioli, but due to the variations between the different versions spoken on each of the islands, there is not really an accepted definitive strain, either written or spoken. It certainly sounds more than a little unfamiliar to us, and even the Portuguese spoken here is uncharacteristically choppy to our ears. Fortunately, a degree of English is understood and, with the majority of the population being of Senegalese descent, French is pretty widespread. I think you could say we’re talking Babel most of the time. Makes a change from Drivel, I suppose. Monday morning we collect our nicely…
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One Man’s Passion: Rua d’Arte, Praia
Before we move on from Praia, we take another wander through its ripped backsides with an offbeat destination in mind: Rua d’Arte. Local artist Tutu Sousa, who honed his skills at Senegalese artistic workshops, later returned to Cape Verde and converted his childhood home into a studio and gallery. Augmenting his paintings by transforming the exterior of the house into a canvas, Tutu soon began persuading neighbours to allow expansion of the works until eventually the whole neighbourhood has become an open air gallery. Here’s some examples of how it looks today….
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From Boa Vista To Santiago: A Praia Arrangement
There’s an endearing simplicity about the names of places on the Cape Verde islands, a simplicity which somehow reflects the unhurried, uncomplicated way of life here. The island with salt pans is called, simply, Salt; the island with hills is called Good View and a town with a sandy shore is named Beach. Perhaps even more amusing, the two islands with active volcanoes are named Fire and Angry. In the native tongue, these five are, respectively, Sal, Boa Vista, Praia, Fogo and Brava: translated into English they sound hilariously basic. You can’t get much more straightforward than names like those! Thursday morning sees the hazy cloud lift and the humidity…
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Cape Verde: Island Life Begins On Boa Vista
It looks a little strange from the air, rolling dunes topped with tufted grasses leading to desert-like landscapes where angular outcrops stand above dry, waterless canyons, dunes which form the hinterland to miles of empty golden beach. There’s not a single building to be seen until just before the wheels of the aeroplane touch down on the tarmac – and even then, it’s an airport terminal which looks more like a sand castle than a transport hub. The island of Boa Vista fights two perpetual battles with nature. One, Sahara sand from continental Africa blows constantly across the island, shifting dunes from east to west and regularly forming damaging sand…
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Next Up: Cape Verde Islands
It’s time to load those backpacks again and head out of the rain which continues to douse England. This trip will be a short one by our standards, just a three week tour to see some of the Cape Verde Islands and witness for ourselves the exotic sounding mix of African and Portuguese cultures. We’re off on Monday (20th), flying out to the island of Boa Vista via Lisbon. Moving between the islands is not straightforward with conflicting on line information about both ferries and flights. As a result we haven’t yet finalised all of our plans and will see what we can do once we get to the second…
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Storm Ciarán & Friends
By Tuesday the TV news is full of it. Never mind the wars raging in both Europe and the Middle East, there is, it seems, a storm heading towards Britain which is akin to the four horsemen of the apocalypse powering across the Atlantic to wreak devastation on our forlorn shores. Storm Ciarán, somebody somewhere has decided. With Ciarán due to enter the fray Wednesday night into Thursday, we bring our plans forward by 24 hours and make the 350-mile 6-hour drive to Cornwall ahead of those “essential travel only” messages which will no doubt soon boom across the nation. We hole up, batten down, listen to the wind as…
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Escaping Cyprusgrad: The Better Parts Of The East Coast
There’s a palpable air of relief in the car as we drive past the little harbour at Bogaz, knowing now that the horrors of Cyprusgrad are behind us, at least for a few hours. The land opens up to olive groves, fruit trees and even vineyards, then ploughed fields and vegetable crops, and at last there isn’t a high rise or a construction site to be seen. Turning east into the start of the island’s guitar neck, we are, somewhat ominously, suddenly on a brand new roadway of pristine black tarmac. Ominous because, why build a new road to nowhere unless you have development plans? We decide not to dwell…
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Cyprus: The East Coast And Its Unexpected Horrors
Rather than take the bigger roads via Lefkosa we opt for what should be a more scenic route along the northern shores, then turn south to head over the mountains to Iskele on the east facing coast. The stretch along the north coast is remarkable for one giant, unmissable feature: construction works. It’s been well documented that President Erdogan is keen for North Cyprus to become a tourist hotspot, but the sheer scale of development is unimaginable. Soon, at this rate, the flatlands between the mountains and the sea will be full, there will be nothing to see but concrete, steel and high rise, such is the breathtaking expanse of…
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Dubious Saints, Mutant Sheep & Castles In The Air: Cyprus Unfolds
The downpour is so intense that we don’t really want to leave the boat, but we have to get back to the apartment somehow so it’s heads down and off into the onslaught. “Goodbye”, shouts Captain Bayram as we head off, adding, “remember, tomorrow there is worse rain, very bad”. He isn’t kidding either. By the time we return next day from a rather fruitless trip on the dolmus out to Lapta village, the streets of Girne are rivers, floodwater several inches deep racing down every slope and finding every shortcut through town. It’s an outrageous deluge which lasts for hours and has locals laughing and scurrying for cover in…
