Our arrival in Cape Verde and first impressions: March 2011

This beach really is five minutes walk from my apartment. How lucky am I?

At 7am on Wednesday 9^th March, we watched our 17 removal boxes slowly shuffle up the loading track onto the Thomson’s Manchester flight to Sal, Cape Verde. They looked suspiciously like 17 little coffins nudging their way beyond the curtain. As a believer of signs in life, I tried not to think about this with any deeper meaning.

Just so you know where I live.

The check-in staff had split our seating allocation, so Tony was bestowed the pleasure of entertaining two little boys who had become rather too used to the high-life of scheduled airlines and their backseat TVs. Holly nabbed the aisle seat and settled down to a six hour DS-fest.

By a stroke of serious good fortune, I bagged the peace of a window seat, all by myself, for the first time in nearly ten years. The peace didn’t last too long. I have never seen so much alcohol consumed on board an aircraft, even the posh flights to Asia with the free in-flight bar. Panicked by six hours without a Wetherspoons, my fellow passengers ordered two or three drinks per person, per trolley dash  up the aircraft. I could tell the man next to me was going to stay at the plush 4 star Riu, as he ordered a box of After Eights to go with his Stellas.

By the end of the flight. Kidding. Or am I?

Eventually, we touched down and minutes later I felt the warmth of the hot, African sun penetrate the very pores of my skin. I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure I photosynthesised.

One hour later and we headed to resort, past the Bay of Murdeira and into Santa Maria.

Our boxes wouldn’t be ready for collection until at least tomorrow, so we grabbed a cheeky bar snack and set off for the beach.


I had spent years as a Travel Agent explaining how lucky my customers were, to find a hotel 200 metres walking distance from a Caribbean-standard golden beach with warm crystal-clear waters lapping at your toes. And here was my home. Occasional palm trees swaying in the breeze, fishermen hauling their last catch of the day onto the pier and the warm, bright smile of the local Cape Verdean islanders.

We had foolishly gambled with an off-plan apartment purchase on the internet, back in the heady days of success, before the recession took hold of our fortune and tossed it like a caber into the swamp known as “poor financial decision-making.” But the gamble had paid off. The apartment was complete, with the banana tree garden replacing  the frost of England’s green pastures.

A calm peace snuck into my soul and I realised that we held ahead of us the ultimate opportunity to live the dream, on our own small piece of desert island.