Palmeira, Isla do Sal, Cape Verdes

The weekend also passed quietly in Palmeira harbour, Kevin was feeling a little recovered from an upset stomach so we decided to venture ashore for internet and a beer on Saturday night. We tendered in negotiating the many webs of mooring lines in the vicinity of the jetty and tied up nearby to another dingy off a neighbouring boat and stepped ashore.
This was Kevin’s first step on land in 10 days! We first of all headed off to find somewhere to dispose of our rubbish and were directed to apparently a dead end road, at the north end of town not far from the harbour. We first of all thought we’d gone the wrong way until we saw Zidane who also directed us that way. We carried on and found it opened out onto a waste ground at the end of the road and alongside the main cargo pier, in the middle of this stood three large metal dustbins, though rubbish was all over the ground too. First job done, we set off to find the internet place I’d seen the first day here.
We wondered round the streets, where there were lots of locals just hanging around chatting, stray dogs everywhere and small cigarette and other stalls on corners. We found the internet place just as it was turning dark, but as per my first visit it was closed. It would appear in fact to have shut down. We decided to go and get a beer, there is very little in Palmeira- 3-4 bars, a tourist souvenir shop, a couple of mini-markets and bakeries. There is very little sign of recent development and the original housing stock is pretty cheaply built block type structures. The streets are cobbled and reasonably clean. There is still a very well used public shower block, a blue building in the centre of town managed by a local lady, we saw several people using it or walking back with towel and shower gel in hand, so I assume that some houses do not have those facilities at home.

We passed quite a nicely lit Italian restaurant with just two men sat outside, neither of which were locals and we wondered if they perhaps owned it. We decided to head to the bar at the pier side as it was now dark so we could keep an eye on our tender. The bar is a small wooden built hut with large overhanging roof under which was about 12 people sat having a drink, a few were locals but the larger number were what appeared to be emigrated residents, However, there were at least double this number of locals just hanging around the harbour or sat up on the wall behind. There were a group of about 6 white guys speaking what appeared to be Portuguese. I had seen them around before and they appeared to be living locally. We took a seat and the waitress came over and offered us Super Bock or something else we didn’t catch, so we opted for Super Bock which turned out to be a Portuguese beer of over 5% proof! The waitress then disappeared off with her toddler son on one hip returning with a large Tupperware box. When she returned quite a number of people rushed in and came out with some sort of snack food in a napkin, so I assume that it is a regular takeout food.

Kevin was still not feeling 100%, so we just stayed for one beer each (200 Escudos ~ £1.30 for both) and head back to the boat.