Cape Verdes courtesy flag flying
As our tender was still lashed to the trampoline and outboard in the anchor locker as we were not intending to stay long in Palmeira before heading south to the anchorage off the beach in the tourist area of Santa Maria, £1 seemed a great deal to get a taxi ashore and when Zidane passed by in the morning we called him over and explained that we had no Escudos but were on our way to get some if we could use his services. He said no problem, are you going to get your stamps (passport stamps)? He was obviously well used to this routine and waited off the stern whilst I gathered our papers and joined him. I was quite anxious to be honest to be about going ashore alone but we also have reason to suspect our anchor and as it has dragged twice since we got here leaving someone aboard seemed sensible and Kevin is much more capable of resetting alone than I am. So I climbed in to Café au lit, Zidane’s boat and we motored ashore, we passed a French boat departing who called happily to Zidane by name, obviously a previous happy customer and I started to feel more relaxed.
Zidane in Café au Lit
We arrived at the dockside which was crowed with locals and other boats, plus a group of about 5 tourists wearing the large orange solid foam lifejackets that they have as safety gear on ferries looking about as far out of place as it is possible to be. The dock was covered in fish blood and flies and they looked disgusted and anxious as they waited, as Zidane informed me for the inevitable tourist submarine (just how far do we need to travel to be away from those?!). I climbed ashore and waited for Zidane to tie up the boat so I could ask for directions to the harbourmaster’s office which according to the pilotbooks was the first stage of check-in, followed by a trip the airport to see immigration and get the passport entrance stamp that was needed. The pilot books also stated there were no taxi’s in Palmeira and that the airport was 3 miles away, it didn’t bother to suggest how this obstacle might be overcome, but I suppose the facts were there!
Luckily, Zidane just said to follow me and we walked past the crowds of locals up the cobbled streets and into the town, Zidane carrying some laundry, another of his duties that morning. He walked me straight to the local police station, which was several streets back and consisted of one small room, one desk and one policeman in uniform behind it. Zidane explained to him what I was there for and said he would come back and collect me after he dropped off the washing leaving me with the policeman. The policeman looked completely uninterested in proceedings and just held out his hand for our passports, it happened to be Kevin’s he opened first, which raised the first smile and he made some comment which I understood to be that it doesn’t look much like me. I explained Kevin was on the boat, he just shrugged, stamped and dated both passports and turned to let me go, he said something about airports which I didn’t understand. Zidane came back and explained, no that was it, no looking at boat papers, no recording of boat details etc which we have been made to do everywhere else, just a stamp in and then a stamp to leave and that’s it.
He then asked if I wanted him to show me where to get money and I said yes, we walked a few more streets to a builder’s merchants on the edge of town and again I am beginning to wonder what on earth is going on. However, we step in the door and sure enough just inside is a girl sat in a ridiculously small booth with cambio written above it. With not a soul around and this being the only apparent function that she performs, I could only imagine the slowness of this job, perhaps even more so that the 5 women in fluorescent tabards I had seen in the town apparently employed to sweep the dust of the road before the next breath of wind blows it back. Anyway, lesson learned number one, here I could have got Escudos (not obtainable outside the country) in exchange for Euros in cash, but not from a visa card and we had been so pleased with our efficient spending of all our Euros before we left. We had expected to go the airport and knew there to be visa ATMs there which is the way we get currency elsewhere, ah well we’ll know next time. Zidane now recognised what I really needed was to go to the next and major town Sal - Vila do Espargos to a bank. He said no problem, but we would need to go to his house so he could get money for a taxi. I was thinking that he was going to leave me to the trip, which I wasn’t too sure of after proving to myself in the last half an hour that I wouldn’t have got anywhere that morning without his help I followed behind. We went through a door on the street to a courtyard where his home was which appeared to be a couple of rooms, he introduced me to his daughter, a beautiful little girl of about 18 months and his wife before we were off again.
He immediately hailed a minibus that I had heard much about that we’d understood from the pilot guides didn’t operation up this end of the island, to my relief he got in beside me obviously intending to stay throughout. I realised that we would need to pay for this service but knowing that it was only £1 for a boat ride wasn’t too worried about the resulting fee, being more than happy to take his help. After a couple of trips up and down the high street picking up more passengers before the driver was prepared to set off we left town through the fairly green countryside and into Espargos about 2 miles away. When we got out everyone seemed to pay the same fixed fee by coin with no haggling and Zidane walked us a couple of streets to a bank nearby. Inside there were crowds of locals queuing, Zidane picked up a number from the queuing system which read 101, although the electronic board was only at 61 with 4 desks operating. I was thinking the aircon was worth the wait but Zidane headed back outside and said we’d try the other bank. This turned out to be two ATMs in a small booth, Zidane waited outside whilst I got cash out, feeling quite amused to be selecting how many thousands of Escudos I would like.
Zidane then asked if there was anything we needed such as the supermarket whilst we were there and thinking that I needed to break a note, the smallest dispensed being 2000 Escudos (about £12) as I couldn’t imagine what value the coins they were using could possibly be. I suggested we needed some bread so we headed to a supermarket which was more of a minimarket by our terms but seemed pretty well stocked to me and despite the hype of high prices the only one I notice for tinned butter of the same type we had bought for passage / stocks was half what we had paid in Tenerife. However, they had no bread so we headed back to Palmeira as there was a bakery there. In the bakery I was immediately conscious that I had chosen the wrong product to break the note as the table behind the counter with a calculator on it which I took to be the till had just a pile of coins and no notes. I was quite unsure what to do next not sure whether Zidane would continue to keep subbing me, the assistant was meanwhile proffering the chosen piece of bread with a plastic bag over her hand which I assumed she was going to put it in so nodded that was the bit I wanted. Slowly it dawned on me from the surrounding expressions that this was not a land of much packaging and took the bread she was offering and just put it in the bag I was carrying as is. I started to get my note from my purse but Zidane stepped forward to offer a coin to the now unamused looking assistant.
Phew, all that over we were heading back to the boat, I was thinking that Zidane was the best thing since sliced bread and along with Auto the autopilot was great member of crew. When we arrived at the dock there were crowds of locals gathered round and from the several we had passed carrying a large Bonito (fish, very expensive from European supermarkets) in each hand, a fishing boat must be in. Sure enough on the jetty there were fish being thrown up to the dusty dock and people carrying them away. I didn’t see any money being exchanged or any sort of ordering system, but it was clearly a well understood routine. There were several people on the nearby slipway beheading the fish on the waters edge before taking them home, a regular practice from the black and grimy appearance of the slipway which obviously made it live up to it’s name as one of the locals ended up in the water fully clothed much to the amusement of his friends.
This time as well there were a group of very pale looking new tourist arrivals who were standing by the dock apparently waiting to catch the charter catamaran. They had arrived in a fleet of brand new white Landrover Defenders marked up with the TUI tour operator signage which nearly ran myself and Zidane down on the way in. They are obviously not quite so accepting of the local custom of walking in the middle of the road like it is an extension of the pavement… obviously signs of changes to come in the Cape Verdes with the tourist invasion that Zidane and I had just been chatted about.
When we got back to the boat, having agreed with Kevin that we would see how I got on with the check in process before we engaged him for other services, we decided that the guy well deserved the business and we gave him our rubbish to dispose of and two 20 litre jerry cans to fill with water. I regaled to Kevin my adventure whilst Zidane headed off with a smile. When he returned we exchanged the 25 litres of water he’d managed to get in each jerry can for a bag of laundry to preserve our water. I had understood this to be a service that is provided by a local lady in the town rather than Zidane, all the better at least it distributes the work further.
I think that there is a general feeling of suspicion to boat boys and in general the perception seems to be they like some young scruff in a rough neighbourhood who offers to look after your car, otherwise he’ll damage it himself as soon as your back is turned. However, having spent the day with Zidane who can speak 5 languages who arrived from Senegal as a child and who has established himself with his boat and performs such a great service, I am certainly inclined to use the services of boat boys in the future. Yes, you probably can go and do the same things yourself and they will doubtless mark up the prices of the things they sell you, but they aren’t doing it as a favour they are running a business with a boat to maintain and providing a service. We were charged 3000 Escudos, about £20 for the full day of Zidane’s services, including a service wash delivered back dried and folded the same day to the boat at 8.30pm that night. I think that is excellent value, perhaps it does compare over favourably with local wage rate but compared to an Irish pub in Santa Maria which according to the Lonely Planet guide charges £16 for an English breakfast in a place where beer costs 80p and water is the same price as petrol who is really overcharging?
We gave him some chocolate for his daughter and a packet of cigarettes for himself in gratitude for his service which he seemed very pleased with. It seems a lot of the cruisers here prefer to make their own way and we have seen no one else using the taxi service though a few others having laundry etc done. They probably like ourselves arrived with food enough for their stay in Cape Verdes and are therefore contributing little at all to the local economy. We have always previously when using holiday cottages etc made a point of shopping locally, but on this occasion because of the Atlantic passage to follow we have stocked up before arriving but feel happy to try and work with the locals more and are planning to go for a meal ashore tomorrow, anchor set allowing and will be using Zidane’s services to do so.
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