Djadsal Holiday Resort

Djadsal Holiday Resort is a large resort right on a beautiful white sand beach on Sal island. It is close to Santa Maria and about 20 minutes from the airport.

The hotel offers rooms with twin and double beds, telephone, hair drier, hot water, television and freezer. This is a very large resort with many facilities included in its 50,000 square metres grounds including a fabulous open air pool, a covered pool and a kiddies pool. There is also a gymnasium and a hairdresser and on site restaurants and bars.

There are many local eateries in the area and a pleasant promenade walk to the nearby village. Please note however, that the resort of Sal itself is undergoing various infrastructure works over the next few years including the building of new roads which may cause some inconvenience.

More information…

This beautiful video shows the work being done by the SOS Tartarugas organization, set up in 2008 to work on the conservation of the loggerhead turtles of Cape Verde and the education of those who live on the islands and who come to visit.

As moving as it is to watch beautiful Bella lay her eggs and leave the island safely, there are many others, like Meryal, who are not so fortunate.

Turtle SOS is stationed on Sal and it receives no government funding at all. They rely on donations from tourists and are helped by the volunteering of time by those who ant to spent their holiday doing something really special.

The organization organize different turtle-related activities depending on the season so if you are planning a trip to Cape Verde this year you might want to get in touch with them to see what they are up to while you will be on the islands and what you can do to help.

There is a website (where you can also make a donation via Paypal) and a blog or you can follow founding member Jaquie Cozens on Twitter.

If you are in Cape Verde already, you might want to go the old fashioned route and just pick up the phone: (+238) 974 5020.

The Ca' Nicola Apartments

Just a stone’s throw from sea and facing the long , white beach  Ca Nicola Apartments in Boa Vista are an ideal escape from the daily grind. Each of the spacious 27 apartments have been beautifully designed to offer a peaceful environment and they have each been  decorated using the art and skill of local craftsmen.  They all have either a verandah or a balcony from which to enjoy the sunset and relax in the sun.

Once the new routes are launched using an ATR-42-320 aircraft, with capacity for 48 passengers, Halcyonair will operate flights to six of the archipelago’s islands.

In partnership with a Cape Verdean tour operator Halcyonair’s aircraft will also operate a charter flight between the islands of Sal and Fogo on a Saturday.

Halcyonair Cabo Verde Airways launched its domestic flights on 31 July, 2008, operating daily to the islands of Sal, S. Vicente and Santiago, and three weekly flights to the island of Boa Vista.

All 239 passengers disembarked while Danish company  Star Tours set about organising alternative transport to their final destination. No-one was hurt and no reason for the fire has been announced.

If you are travelling to Cape Verde on holiday you can expect your heart and hips to have a good workout at least once during the trip…

Fog nets have been considered for Cape Verde before. In the 1960’s Portugese engineers looked into the possibility of using fog nets to capture potable water and ten years later, a group of Dutch companies revisited the idea.

Neither of these projects or any subsequent ones seemed to stick. That is until 2005 when a fog net system was set up for families of Serra Malagueta on Santiago island. Previously reliant on fresh water being trucked to them during the dry season at a cost of 2 cents (US) per litre, the fog net families can now ‘harvest’ their own drinking water.

Despite the great boon the access to clean water has on the lives of these families, there are objections. Some say tourists will object to the sight of the fog nets and find them ugly but as water engineer Antonia Sabino says, ‘The objective of the project is to produce water to give people to drink. Not to take pictures.’

Of course, digging up the national park to lay miles of water pipes would be a damn sight uglier so I guess the tourists should just be happy that the local community is getting fresh water.

For more information on this particular Cape Verde project please see the complete Fog Harvesting article at Africanloft.com.

For more on Fog Nets and communities where they are in use, visit Fog Quest, a charity which focusses on fog collection and rainwater harvesting