The vessel on which I was to arrive in the Republic of Cape Verde was suitably called the Ferdinand Megellan. Periodically its pilots were reputed to go on strike, but fortunately not while we were above the only cloud or two the Atlantic Ocean could produce.
The passenger next to me was travelling to the 30-year-old country on business, planning to set up a sauna. As the doors of the plane opened, I realised global warming had beaten him to it.
My destination was Santiago, the main island of the archipelago of 10 landfalls, west of the westernmost point of Africa. But Cape Verde was certainly still part of our continent, judging by the sand blowing in from the Sahara. These are volcanic extrusions, notable among early sailors as fiery beacons to navigate by on dark nights. The rock cuts through flipflops, the beaches are black.
For South Africans their interest is that Santiago was Vasco da Gama’s last way station before his further four-month voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. At Cidade Velha, the first European town built in the tropics, he took on goats and donkeys, plus the last of the drinkable water.
Soon the Cidade, which is a fine heritage site these days, would have its own fort and even a cathedral. It was another such ruffian, Sir Francis Drake, with many ships and a thousand men, who laid the place to waste.
A further aspect not emphasised in the history books was that this red-roofed, quaintly tiled settlement, established to save souls on the Guinea coast, was dedicated to condemning their bodies to slavery meanwhile. Under the twisted slave pillar, still preserved as a reminder, we loll about where once black bodies hung and bled. Today the souvenirs offered a tourist are scallops of coconut-shell zipped up as purses, like cut-off ears.
Waiting for the local aluguers is the national pastime. These are kombi taxis, are wont at the sight of any stray dog, or a water-carrier, to accelerate. I rode in one across the island in two hours flat. I was with seven passengers called Rodrigues. The rest were all Duartes, of course. Useless of me to practise my language of professors, Portuguese; they all speak Creole (the national language). Simultaneously.
And so, between S-bends and stony cliffside terraces, I caught a glimpse of a national park among the sharp sierras for hikers; the acacias and yellow daisies where nothing edible will grow; mealies leaning over, waiting for rain; the boat rowed in with netsful of sardines; and over there — the endemic greyheaded kingfisher, flying past like me.
The capital, Praia, is so desert-stricken and fished out it must live on foreign aid — or off members of the family, the majority of whom work overseas. A whole nother island could be built offshore with its uncollected litter.
Yet I have this abiding, charming memory — of a thin-legged hip-hop star. She was in her six-inch high-heels, taking on the cobbled street, one step at a time.
I will always treasure the mornas and batuques, gorgeous songs of such sadness and longing, which are to be heard everywhere and at all hours. Not recorded: I mean live.
I will remember the divers off the pier, patiently coming up with — a crab.
And practising that nasal language Portuguese is not such a bad habit, either. For my chronic sinus, it’s the only cure.
After a fortnight of lazing about at little expense among some of the most gracious and mixed people in the world, the return flight had to come due.
Up to the nose of the plane drove President Pedro Pires of this island state, which according to the Ibrahim Index is the second-best ruled in all of Africa.
No sirens, no flags or other protocol. He stepped up, travelling as just another passenger, like all of us. With not a moment’s delay, either.