Same, Same but Different

It’s one thing to have outside toilets but we had outside rooms in our hotel, there was no roof. If the Esteril Beach Resort was in Goa they wouldn’t be charging much more than £5 a night for the room but Here in Boa Vista it was over £60. No aircon, poor lights, old wooden furniture over 50 years old, dirty bathroom and a small portable tv. We thought the prices in Sal were high but they seem even higher here. Our meal at our hotel last night came to between £40 and £50 with a bottle of local wine Cha (very palatable). But our pre-dinner drinks that we had with our property sales executive Peter came to almost £30. I wouldn’t want to stay here for any length of time you really do need to stay in one of the many all inclusive hotels springing up everywhere. We walked into town after dinner to see what was around and our first encounter was a young man behind the hotel dumpster eating the remains of yesterday’s meals.

A very brief walk around town was enough to make us feel uncomfortable there wasn’t anything here to catch our eye anyway. On our way back we looked for our dumpster man but he had been replaced by two dogs. In the morning we had another walk into town and back along the beach. The light of daytime made it look slightly better than our previous encounter but still not much around. Again like Sal the beaches are the best thing about this island. Generally it’s the same old story as Sal with developments going on all over the place but it does seem a little more controlled here and also a little better finished off. The square at least has curb stones and pavements and everything seems a little better defined.

Dino picked us up first at 9am from Delphini developments. This was in a lovely spot front line to the sea with a choice of sea view or mountain view. The room we liked best (G1C) of all the ones left had a mountain view but if you looked to your extreme left out the window you could see the sea. The main exit was to the side of the development but another from our terrace to the pool. A nice thing about this development is that everything around it that can be seen is already finished so it will look good right from the start. It is also next to the hotel where they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the picture taken from the giant sand dune (I will explain later) Delphini is the one in the centre of the picture, the left most development with the hotel to the extreme left of the picture. The other photo is of the views from outside Delphini looking towards the giant sand dune to the left.

Back to our Hotel in time for Peter to pick us up at 10am and show us two other developments, Creola Sands and Sabi Sands. Peter has only been on the island for about a month, his background is 20 years sales in the canaries so he has already been through a similar growth pattern. In fact he married a local girl from the canaries second time around. Before visiting any of the developments he took us for a drink at the restaurant. I took a few pictures from this pier type terrace. Then onto Creola Sands which is a large development standing on the old football stadium. The FM Developments (a Scottish company) bought the land from them and contributed towards the new stadium that has already been built (see in the picture taken from the mountain at the back). There are a few front row one bedroom apartments still available on the ground floor which was our second favorite. The company is offering mortgages and a 2 year 6% income if required. There will be a large pool and lots of shops and restaurants available which also helps.

Peter then handed us over to his college Richardo who showed us the Sabi sands development built into the side of the mountain. Richardo’s father is Jorge Figuliredo the mayor of Sal island and one of the Georgie’s standing for election this Sunday. Richardo is so confident that he will win he has already booked his flight to Sal on Monday for the family celebrations. Jorge is the only independent standing and is expected to win again to hold for a second term. The other George who calls himself by his nickname “Scaper” to avoid some confusion is the government’s representative and they are desperately trying to regain control of Sal. The main problems, as I see them, for Sal is over development that all happened prior to Jorge gaining power. Jorge is trying to plan the development and then put out to tender rather than just selling any piece of land to the highest bidder to do with as they chose. There are elections on all the islands, each with their own representatives being held this Sunday. The islands are an independent republic.

Richardo first drive us in his 4x4 off road up the mountain to show us the views that would be gained from some of the properties in the Sabi Sands development overlooking the palm desert which is protected so developments cannot happen there. However we heard it may be possible to one day build a golf course around and amongst it. The development area is the brown bit between the palm desert and the front line currently being built. The beauty of the front line is that once finished in a year or two you won’t be able to see further developments behind you. The Sabi Sands development consists mainly of large villas with individual swimming pools and BBQ patio areas. A little above our purse I’m afraid. The up side of this is once finished no developments will be built next to you. The down side is that with its elevated position you will be watching further developments for the foreseeable future. Richardo then drove us down the mountain and up the giant sand dune that seemed to consist mainly of broken coral. From here we could see all the developments we had visited and all the ones we hadn’t. Richardo also gave us the opportunity of our first photo together since we got married in Barbados on 5th March (see I not forgotten yet Claire). And now its in writing so I can remind myself.

Back to the FM office where we saw Peter again, he had offered to buy us lunch or give us an island tour but we declined preferring to lunch alone and talk about things privately. Richardo dropped us at the beach bars for lunch and Peter promised to pick us up at 4pm from our hotel and take us back to the airport.

We stopped at the only beach bar that was open during our stay and had a spaghetti starter followed by the local Wahoo fish. We then relaxed and read our books for an hour before being picked up by Peter at 4pm. Unusually out flight was on time and I took a few pictures from the plane. One stationary, one flying over Shabi beach and one over the peninsular of Sal which looked very much like a scaled down version of the Karpaz peninsula of North Cyprus to us (one of our previous investments in Bogaz).