The Hotel
I had never been on an all inclusive holiday before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. After arriving at the RIU hotel in Touareg, Boa Vista, I was immediately struck by the scale of it. Built to resemble a grand sandcastle, the hotel was divided into several different sections, each section separated from the others so to get from one to the other you walked down lanes flanked by lush green lawns, with palm trees and coconuts a-plenty, and there were so many different sections it would take a good five minutes to walk from the reception desk to the pool. Jen had been to this hotel before so she knew what to expect, but I was impressed by just how big it was, how many people it would seem able to accommodate at the same time. This impression was further driven home by our first trip into the dining area shortly after we arrived, which was easily big enough to cater for several hundred people at a time, with enough hot food, salads, fruits and desserts laid out to feed a small army. As a vegetarian, there was plenty of choice to keep me from getting bored (although I am a creature of habit anyway), with a couple of different items every day to mix things up, although I think fully-fledged vegans may have struggled a bit beyond chips, salad and fruit.
After our first meal, we went to check out our room. Size-wise it was certainly impressive; initially a suite (and a honeymoon suite at that, judging by the welcome note that had been left by the previous occupants). The only issue with the room was that an unpleasant drainage smell was coming from the toilet. However, it must be said the hotel staff clearly showed they wanted to make this up to us, as they offered to let us have a look at other rooms. We decided to stay in the room we were in, as we’d already unpacked and knew we weren’t going to spend much time in the room, so they told us they would ask the cleaners to make sure the toilet was thoroughly cleaned and freshened every day, and they gave us an air-freshening spray to keep by the toilet as well, so we were impressed by their follow-up efforts.
We were also impressed by the energy and enthusiasm shown by the “animation” team, who were there to help involve the guests in activities and provide entertainment throughout the days and evenings, and not working on cartoons as I first thought when I heard their title. There was a wide range of activities offered, such as football, volleyball, water aerobics, darts, bingo, and dancing in the evenings. From what we saw of them, the animation team led these with enthusiasm and very impressive levels of fitness, as shown by one guy doing a handstand for at least 30 seconds at the end of the water aerobics. However, we ourselves didn’t take part in any of these activities, preferring instead to relax by the pool or on the beach – most of the time it was far too hot for any physical activity anyway, with the temperature going over 30 degrees.
The beach itself was easily the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been on, with soft sand, crystal clear water, and massive waves crashing into the shore – the power of the waves and the strength of the undercurrent meant that swimming was discouraged for the entire time we were there, shown by the red flags that were flown every day on the beach.
Day Trips
Despite this, we did get to swim in the sea. We’d booked a boat trip for our third day there, and we were very lucky in that no-one else had booked onto the same trip as us, so it was just us and the boat crew (Salina Sails). After a brief journey out along the stretch of Boa Vista, including a look at the capital Sal Rei from the sea, we stopped off near a reef for some snorkelling among the tropical fish.
Our guide Tyson had a bread roll he pulled apart in the water, so the fish came close to eat. There were so many different fish of all different colours and sizes! It was a beautiful sight, and the waters were warm and calm, and incredibly salty – it was no effort at all to float on the surface, and actually quite difficult to pull yourself under water. After the snorkelling we went to a very small island, where there were the remains of a fortress, complete with old cannons, as Boa Vista had apparently been attacked by privateers for their salt hundreds of years ago. After looking around the fortress, we went back down to the beach and swam in the water, which was lovely, and made it all the more sad that swimming on the beach at the hotel wasn’t possible more often, even though the big waves were also incredible to look at!
The next night we went out on another trip, for dinner and an evening of stargazing out in the desert. The food was very good, and followed traditional Cape Verde recipes, which was good to try as quite often the food at the hotel stayed closer to what they knew the guests had more of at home – plenty of pizza, pasta and chips, for example! While we ate a couple of locals played guitar and sang for us, and a couple of cats wandered the restaurant, trying their best to charm some scraps out of us. After dinner we went outside, where our guide for the evening showed us Saturn through an extremely powerful telescope, which was incredible - definitely something I’d never experienced before! There was also a brief talk about the position of the stars in the sky relative to where we were, and which stars people could use to navigate, which was very interesting, and they also took some photos of the moon through the telescope on each of our phones for us, which was a real treat.
Local Animals
We also loved what we saw of the local animal life in Cape Verde. As well as the fish that we saw while snorkelling, the hotel had more than a few cats patrolling the grounds. They were very sweet and looked well looked after, but they were clearly there to be working cats, although we never saw them having to do any pest control. One cat was clearly heavily pregnant when we arrived, and in fact gave birth to kittens while we were there! The mum clearly kept them hidden away during the day, but we caught a glimpse of one in the evening – a tiny little thing, just sitting there squeaking, but a really heart-warming sight. One night when we were going back to the room quite late, we also came across a group of donkeys just strolling across the grounds, munching on the grass! They must have come in off the beach, which stretched past the hotel for ages in both directions, but it was such a surreal sight, especially as we were very close to the pool.
Our trip to Cape Verde was fantastic. Although we only left the hotel and the beach area to go on the boat trip and stargazing dinner, for most of it we were more than happy to relax and soak up some sun, even though we got burned a little bit! There is so much natural beauty there, and the locals are so friendly, so hopefully more people will start flocking there for some winter sun.
Thanks for reading! Doug
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