After many years of vacations around Egypt in June 2017 my wife Esther asked me to go to a different place. We agreed on the following criteria:
- search for adult only hotels
- no crowded area
- diving is mandatory
- long beach walks are a must have
- the hotel has to offer vegan or at least vegetarian food
- a gym is a plus
No Stress on Sal Island
After some research we came across Cape Verde and their motto “No Stress”. This got us as we both had a long period of massive workload. So we checked for an adult only hotel and came across the Meliá Llana Beach Resort & Spa which met from a first view all of our criteria. After a short email to the hotel we received a detailed email by Lara of the Guest Experience. She explained that the hotel is absolutely able to host vegetarian guest but we should bear in mind, that e.g. Tofu is nothing available on an island and this is absolutely fine for us. Therefore we were really excited.
The Meliá Llana Beach Resort & Spa
As much as its high reputation is the reality of the hotel. It is amazing. The rooms are big and perfectly clean. However we asked for vegan or vegetarian food – what we got was incredibly looking too.
The hotel itself offers a very calm animation. They ask you once or twice and then leave you alone until you like to join animation by yourself. They offer also an evening in white which is combined with a DJ and we joined this evening once and had a blast with two friends we met there. We can strongly recommend this hotel!
Diving with ScubaCaribe on Sal Island
The next big thing was to find a scuba diving centre and this was a little bit difficult at first. When you searched for “diving Sal island” there were some entries with different ratings. Of course I also asked around my friends and got a recommendation. But this diving centre did not exist anymore and burned down just a few weeks prior to our arrival. So I panicked a bit 🙂
After some further research I found ScubaCaribe and immediately had a great impression of this centre. I wrote them an email in advance to check if it is possible to dive with my certifications and how the pickup from my hotel is organised, du to the fact that that was quite a distance to walk every morning. They returned very quick and offered me a package to book in advance – what a lot of diving centres do – so you can have some pre-booking discount and the centre knows they have your booking fix.
Why a confirmation is not the end of a process
Additional good news: the transfer to the dive centre is possible via taxi for around 3 €!
So I did my pre-booking for 10 dives and payed via PayPal and immediately got my order confirmation. But the next day I received an email by German speaking Customer Service lady Bianca who told me that PayPal did not send the money. It still was in a pending status. So I went on a phone call with PayPal and got the following information: the Fraud Protection of my American Express held it back. Furthermore it was a special check, because I payed to a country I never visited before. I called the American Express hotline to ensure that the payment was done and approved by me. It took another 5 days until Bianca confirmed the final payment.
How I got my first digital heart attack
Licinio our dive guide let us perform the regular checks like clear the mask, shoot a SMB and get back a lost regulator and then we started our first dives and holy moly: there is a ton of fish. And by a ton I talk literally a ton on each dive. My GoPro was running all the time and I was filming everything. But during the dive the GoPro showed something like SD ERR and then continued filming. After we were back in the hotel I immediately put the SD Card in my MacBook. The card was not readable. You can imagine my face when I remembered the sleeping Sting Ray which let me come so close I had his eye in full screen and now everything was gone.
Despite all worries the hotel WiFi was quite good and I was able to download DiskDrill after a little research. With this tool I was able to rescue the most of the movie parts on my SD Card. After the painful moments of disbelief I became super happy when I saw the results. So this is until today a hard recommendation if you struggle with SD Cards. I threw away the card and continued working with the other 3 I had with me.
How Sal Island looks under water
Thanks to my additional SD-Cards and my GoPro i filmed a lot and made a little video from the best scenes. I hope you enjoy it!
Sal Island tour
We were asked if we like to make an island tour with Anne (German Website of Anne click here) to visit the market, the harbour, the Blue Eye, her children centre and the Salinas. For almost 150 years, Cape Verde was a major salt producer and exporter in West Africa and you can still visit the saline fields. You can float on the water, because it’s like the dead sea and the salt prevents you from descending in the water. Additional to that we visited a desert where you can see a real Fata Morgana when the desert deceives water on the horizon.
When we visited the fishermen’s market in the harbour it was awesome to see that only locals bought their fish there. This is what I call sustainable fishing. I talked to one of the fishermen and he told me that they only catch what the island needs. So there is of course fishing for hotels and restaurants but there is at that time no industrial fishing.
Buracona and the Blue Eye
After the harbour we drove to Buracona to see the Blue Eye which is only visible on a certain time of the day and when the sun is out. We have been lucky enough to see the spectacular glance down a hole where the sun reflects the water and changes the view to a glowing blue diamond. It was hard not to jump into the water. But you can do! Just jump from a minor cliff on the side and swim through an arch into the small hall with the hole in the ceiling and you’re there.
But be aware: the current might be hard on this one.
Pictures of a Fata Morgana
We continued our tour to the desert to see the Fata Morgana. Again this is nothing you can book and have to rely if nature is willed to show you. Nevertheless we were lucky again and the desert showed us the best side with a prime Fata Morgana. Though we all knew about what it is it’s still impressive when the heat starts to flicker on top of the sand and the horizon starts to become water and the trees on the horizon start to look like standing in a lake. We now were truly aware how so many wanderers die in the desert, walking towards the needed water. Very impressive!
The next stop changed my birthday
The AACTB, Associação Apoio as Crianças de Terra Boa, founded in 2010 by the German Anne Seiler together with six women from the settlement. Without assistance from the state of Cape Verde or the community, our association has been helping the “forgotten children” from the illegal settlement Terra Boa.
On the other hand and therefore important: the children in this project have all parents and families. The aim of the AACTB is to raise children’s living conditions to a decent level, providing access to food, education, water and medical care.
Respecting the privacy of the kids I did not take pictures from the inside, because it was lunch time and the kids were all sitting on the ground in one room and I thought it to be wrong taking pictures of them. We were deeply impressed what Anne and the ladies achieved just by getting donations without any help by the state.
After I returned home I raised a moneypool on PayPal and asked my friends for donations. We were able to collect around 1.200 € in a few weeks and talking to Anne I know that there is no intermediary association which takes all the money. It directly went to the kids and we all were very happy about it. If you like to help Anne to continue her way to help kids on Sal Island please check our her website in German or in English. Any help is warmly welcome.
The Salines of Sal Island
The last stop we made at the Salines and this was also very impressive and of course did we take a bath in one of the flooded fields. And as I expected: it’s not possible to drown. Ok tbh it’s possible if you roll over to your face and you can’t turn around while floating. But from a normal perspective it is pure floating!
All in all a journey which was well executed by Anne and her team and it took us on an emotional and explorational journey and if you ask me if I would make this tour again – yes, for sure.
My wife Esther and I love to think back to this vacation and we haven’t been the last time on Sal Island – we will come back, again: for sure!
If you have further questions about Sal, the hotel or diving feel free to drop me a line via my contact site!
Some impressions of the Sal Island tour
Due to each persons’ right of privacy I try to avoid taking pictures of people if I did not get the permission directly from them.
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