Packed with natural wonders, Sal welcomes nearly half it's population in tourist every year but the island built for travel feels like it's letting you in on its secret.
THERE ARE NO CHURCH BELLS in Sal. The winds that lash the island from October to April would render life here unbearable if they hung bells from the steeples of their chapels. The winds are a welcome respite from the early twenties temperature, as it's near the Equator, that sun beats down hard on white European skin. But it's also a dangerous one as you don't notice your skin cooking.
This time is Cape Verde's busiest time, in pre-pandemic days Sal hosted 12,000 tourists. With a population of 27,000 mostly centred around the capital, Espargos, and tourist hot spot, Santa Maria - a lot of the island feels sparse and desolate.
I compared it to a Star Wars landscape but my guide, Chan from Sal Experiences, said it was more like Mars. There was no escaping the volanic start of this paradise island and along with it, the natural marvels that make Sal truly unique.
"From Tatooine to tropical in a heart beat" - H the Geomancer
But despite miles of pristine powder white sand hugged by aquamarine oceans, these wonders feel untouched, forgotten, undiscovered. The lagoon overlooked by Lion Mountain had nothing but a building site next to it. Aside from the 5 euro entry salinas at Pedra de Lume, a salt water crater denser than the Dead Sea, felt more like a local spot. And the Martian soil of Terra Boa, a place where the sporadic parched trees dress to the right, was all that existed between me and a mirage.
But don't mistake this as an island off the beaten track. Santa Maria was once a tiny fishing village but now is a place where only hotels and an industry built around tourist exist. It has a Truman Show feel of it existing purely for you as a European tourist. It's rows of sprawling resorts upon skeletal hotels - half-built and abandoned after the 2008 financial crisis meant that it's 60% Irish investors had to pull out of the island leaving behind the relic of a near dream come to fruition - mean there are two distinct sides to the town, luxurious versus derelict.
It has a lively night life in the shape of One Love Reggae Bar and Buddy Bar but most of the mural covered bars, no more than a window in wall, offer live music. And the seafood is *chef's kiss*. The thoroughfare (Rua 1 de Junho) - from what's left of its fishing past at the pier to the deceptively natural man-made Shell Cemetary - has a distinctly European feel with curved lamposts, tree-lined cobbled roads where a panoply of restaurants, mercados, souvenir shops, bars and live music venues can be found.
The only annoyance for a seasoned female traveller is the non-stop calls for your attention. The "ola, lady" and fist bumps followed by "where you from... England, lovely jubbly" becomes tiresome but it wasn't by any stretch aggressive, persistant or unsafe. In fact, Cape Verde has a very low crime rate, Chan claims this is because Cape Verdeans have big mouths so any criminals would be quickly caught. That said, he also mentioned the lack of rigour in the legal system meant people would take on work, not do the job properly or at all, and run with the money, leaving whoever out of pocket.
So this means the locals are incredibly flexible in their skills. Education is free up to 18 years old and it's frowned upon to not complete education and speak at least two languages, those who wish to go to university (which are on two different islands) are funded by the parents buying a plot of land when the children start school, building to a standard good enough to live in while building up and outwards to rent out during the university years, enlisting help from family and friends to complete the build.
My guide used to buy, rear and sell pigs to make money before he moved into construction and then finally settling as a tour guide, which feels like it was his calling all along - he leads a union and represents the tourist industry to the Ministry, suggesting ways to improve it and gain funding. He's passionate about climate change and talks about a corrupt government that pockets money and doesn't care about the people (sounds familier, huh).
The government are encouraging use of electric cars but there are no charging points, and importing and maintenance is more expensive as it needs a trip to Spain. All waste is buried in the ground. Despite strong winds for seven months of the year and 360 days of sunshine a year, there are only nine wind turbines and a small solar field. However, Cape Verde intends on following Costa Rica's footsteps to become self-sustaining engery-wise by 2030.
It's easy to see why it would want to protect its environment as he showed us around the island, from Kite Beach to Blue-Eye Cave at Buracona, from the shanty towns of Espargos to fishing village at Palmeira, we got a window into Cape Verdean life away from wasteful all-inclusives, hawkers and strangely, throngs of tourists with all their trappings.
And on those shanty towns, the government is raising them to the ground. Not because of its disdain towards poor people or because it's a blot on the landscape but because it's building new, better housing next door to house residents for a mere 7 euros a month, so not everything the government does is bad.
In fact, Cape Verde is one of the most economically progressive countries in West Africa. Tap water here is salinated but isn't suitable for European consumption. Healthcare is paid for via an insurance fee of 15 euros a month taken from your salary, hospital entry is 1 euro and the rest is covered by the insurance. And depending the medication, prescriptions are subsided from 5 to 20%. Plus, 90% of the population is double vaccinated against covid. At the time of published, face masks were still mandated but I'm told this will be dropped in a matter of weeks as "we copy everything Europe does".
So much so that the concrete boxes dotted on the barren landscape housing imports (aside from papaya and salt everything is imported) includes food imports from Spain specifically for use in the hotels. Food isn't imported from nearby Senegal, Gambia, Ghana or Nigeria because of bureacracy and there's nervousness about food standards that will end up in European bellies.
It's natural phenomenas of mirages and light inflections glowing brilliant blue in a watery cave distract from Cape Verde's colonial past. It was occupied by the Portugese and used a slave trading post, processing humans caught in West Africa to send to the Americas. The result is Portugese is the national language and Catholic is the dominant religion but its biggest mark is the population is almost entirely mixed race.
But they didn't get off lightly. Pedra de Lume is the town built around the crater of an extinct volcano - it's salt pans is where you can a medicinal dip as it's rich in salt and minerals brilliant for the skin (just don't get it in your mouth or eyes). This was sold by its Portugese occupiers in 1920 to the Belgian authorities, who mined it to export to Congo. When the mine closed in 1980, the Belgians sold it to an Italian who owns it today. He doesn't tend to it, just pockets the entry fee. It's been nominated for UNESCO status meaning the land will have to be given to rightful custodians, the Cape Verdean people. Who never profited from colonisation and are still seem to work in servitude to wealthy white people.
There's no denying they're happy. Chan said that poor people are happier as they don't stress (the Cape Verdean motto). They make do with what they have. People with money stress about what to do with their money and how to make more money, they don't enjoy themselves, their families or take stock of the beauty and small miracles around them. To summarise Chan, the wealthier you are the less conscious you are. But nonetheless, Sal's economy is reliant on tourists and during the pandemic, Chan was at home for 18 months but it's slowly recovering, getting up to 60% of the pre-pandemic levels.
Regardless of all the focus around tourism, the hotels on Santa Maria's sandy peninsula are the only things that remind you that this is a holiday destination. Otherwise you'd be forgiven for thinking you were an explorer discovering something new and untouched by consumerism.