Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 14/96 - Touring the island of Santiago, Cabo Verde
This morning, we pulled into Praia, the capital city of Cabo Verde on Santiago Island. Our plan for the day was a full-day excursion that we booked privately through excursion aggregator, GetYourGuide.
Praia is an industrial port so we couldn't walk in the port area. We caught the first shuttle to town at 8:30 and had them drop us just outside the port gate. Just before 9:00, Our tour guide arrived. There were six of us on the two, two Swiss men visiting Praia, and much to our surprise, two more folks from our cruise.
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| We started at Port of Praia and drove northwest to Tarrafal, returning along the east coast road |
We made several photo stops along our drive, taking in the beauty of Santiago Island.
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| This Iago Sparrow was enjoying a grasshopper breakfast |
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| These golden orb spiders had webs all over |
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| Our driver put his finger in for scale reference |
Our first stop was at the home of a local family who would teach us how to make Cabo Verde couscous and fried banana fritters known as brinhola.
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| Before cooking, music was in order |
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| And dancing |
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| This would be our second breakfast, so an appetite was necessary |
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| A passion fruit appetizer |
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| Mixing the corn meal, potato flakes, sugar, and water for the couscous |
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| It is placed in a ceramic bowl |
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| It is then steamed for about eight minutes - leftover dough is used to seal the bowl to the pan so steam is forced through holes in the pan to cook the couscous from the inside out |
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| Prepping bananas for the brinhola |
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| The couscous was done |
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| Ta-da! |
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| spooning the dough into hot oil |
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| Cutting and buttering the couscous |
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| Everything was delicious |
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| Our cooking crew |
We got back on the road, continuing northwest.
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| A donkey with a large load of grass |
We made more photo stops, taking in the landscape.
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| We spotted a kestrel - the smallest of the raptors |
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| It spotted us too |
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| Ponta Preta Lighthouse |
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| We arrived in Tarrafal |
There was a beach for swimming and a restaurant.
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| I sampled the local brew |
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| Arlona sampled the local water |
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| We both relaxed |
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| To be fair, there were two of us drinking beer and they were small 25ml bottles |
After two hours of relaxing, we headed to the east coast for a coastal ride back to the ship.
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| We saw lots of goats |
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| And lots of cows |
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| A pair of grey-headed Kingfishers |
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| Of course, more golden orb spiders were out and about |
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| Trying to avoid being something else's lunch |
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| The coastal road was all cobblestones |
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| We made a brief stop at a banana plantation |
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| This was the irrigation system - remove the rock and the water would flow in |
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| Banana trees bear fruit quickly, in nine months, but only once |
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| They cut down the tree and fertilize the area with ground leaves to make room for new shoots to grow into new trees |
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| Fresh coconuts |
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| Soursop |
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| We hit a small traffic problem on the way back |
We arrived back at the ship a few minutes before all-aboard time so all was good. We enjoyed the tour and really liked the beauty of Santiago Island.
Several speakers and entertainers left us in Mindelo and new speakers and entertainers came on board. One of the new entertainers, comedian
Steve Stevens, gave his first performance tonight.
Steve combined comedy and music, playing trumpet and his ukulele banjo.
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| We had never seen a ukulele banjo before |
He was entertaining and we both got a chuckle out of the show. When we got to the room, we had another invitation to a hosted dinner tomorrow night. Our host will be...Steve Stevens. So, tomorrow's dinner should be entertaining.
We will be at sea for the next four days as we sail toward the Ivory Coast.
How many passengers are doing the full 90 days around Africa? We saw your sister ship in Kona on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteRight around 100 guests are doing the full 90 days
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