sharks | Anecdotage

This post is a continuation of a travelogue thread on the subject of Cape Verde. Track back to previous posts for the full account…

Our trip to Sal Island, Cape Verde is almost done and we’re undertaking an island tour, driven by our tour guide and driver, Elton. His guiding style consists of driving us somewhere, telling us where we are and opening the doors to let us out. En route, he is engaged with his phone or largely silent. We’ve no clue at all as to where we’ll go or what we’ll view.

Nevertheless we’re seeing places and having experiences, the last [detailed in last week’s post] somewhat unnerving and decidedly soggy.

I survive the incident in the shark-ridden waves, principally by being grabbed at the eleventh hour by the shark watch guide, Girondelo. I’ve been teetering as a large wave approached then he snatches my hand and holds me upright. My camera also survives, which is a stroke of luck; not so my shorts, which are sodden.

When Girondelo signals that we must return to the shore, I realise with dread that there’s another trek over the spiky coral in the thin, rubber shoes I’m wearing, a slog like stepping barefoot over a field of Lego bricks. He repeats his haul of me and my screeching self until we reach the sand- a relief! Husband, in sturdy crocs, has fared better and is only a little damp. Giro wants us to peruse his ‘shop’, to which we acquiesce, On viewing the assorted items on his tiny, wooden stall we select something to grace our naff shelves at home…[https://gracelessageing.com/2018/07/08/the-ghastly-gathering/ ], paying an inflated price, of course, but then I’m still not sure whether he almost drowned me or saved my life…

Elton is, as usual ensconced with his phone in the car, stirring only to open the doors to us and shrugging when I point out my wet shorts will be on his upholstery. We bump along the unmade road once more and off up into some hills where the dusty track is worse still, throwing us all over the place and winding up and up. At the top we draw up, get out and can peer down into a huge basin where there are salt flats. We’ve seen a lot of salt flats but this is quite a spectacle as it’s perfectly framed by the surrounding hills. Above us there is an ancient and decaying structure of wooden planks and beams with wheels and pulleys, presumably for processing and transporting the salt down the hill to the nearby bay. It’s bleak and more windy than ever up here but it’s atmospheric.

There’s not much more to the tour, except for a brief stop at an attractive bay where there’s a pirate-themed bar and restaurant based in an old shipwreck.

Then we’re off back to Santa Maria and our hotel.

With only a day or two left we decide we should find a restaurant in the town for our evening meal, rather than the more local ones we’ve come to know. After looking at Tripadvisor we choose ‘Ocean’, a large, busy place on the main square which gets rave reviews. One side of the establishment is given over to bar, the other to meals. We arrive about 7pm and are led to a table in a corner by the lavatories…hmm…

We order a starter and a main meal from a menu that’s burger and pizza heavy but offers enough choice, at least to cater for my dietary difficulties. After a time the starters come and they’re fine- even too much when we’ve a main meal to follow, so I wrap up my dim sum and stow them in my bag for next day’s lunch. Then we wait…and wait. A glance around at other tables shows that those who’ve come in after us are already on their next courses, also our waiter is entranced by the two diners who’ve just sat down at the table next to us, fist-bumping with them and asking where they’re from [they are French].

During our wait there’s a hiatus and the entire waiting staff do a dance routine to the guitar playing of the musician in the corner- all very slick, but we are definitely wanting our meal now.

It’s been 45 minutes and no sign. Husband collars a passing waiter [not ours] and asks where our meals are. The waiter goes to see. We wait again. I nab another waiter and ask where the food is. Suddenly there’s a flurry of activity and some panicked faces as they scurry in and out of the kitchen. By now we’re aggrieved. We opt to leave, standing up as a woman approaches with two plates. It’s too late and we’re annoyed. We leave the money on the table for our drinks and starter as three of them pursue us, protesting. But it isn’t nice to be neglected in a restaurant.

We start back towards our end of town and plump for a modest but popular place we’ve been to before, where we are served lovely food with a smile. I get my revenge on ‘Ocean’ with my own Tripadvisor review.

Our return flights are to be overnight. We’re lucky to be seated by the emergency exits for the flight to Lisbon- less lucky to be waiting on the tarmac for an hour and a half for the second leg of the journey, resulting in our missing our bus home from GW, London. C’est la vie…

Grace is the alter ego of novelist and short story writer, Jane Deans. To date I have two published novels to my name: The Conways at Earthsend [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conways-at-Earthsend-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B08VNQT5YC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZHXO7687MYXE&keywords=the+conways+at+earthsend&qid=1673350649&sprefix=the+conways+at+earthsend%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-1 and The Year of Familiar Strangers [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Familiar-Strangers-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B00EWNXIFA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2EQHJGCF8DSSL&keywords=The+year+of+familiar+strangers&qid=1673350789&sprefix=the+year+of+familiar+strangers%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-1 Visit my writer Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=jane%20deans%2C%20novellist%2C%20short%20fiction%20and%20blog or my website: https://www.janedeans.com/

This week’s post is a continuation of a travel thread. For previous episodes, please track back to past weeks.

We’d booked an ‘island tour’ for one of our last days on Sal, Cape Verde. Our driver and supposed tour guide, Elton, is a man of few words, we’d discovered. Nevertheless, he is taking us around this tiny island and showing us what there is of note, even if he is a little short on imparting information.

On booking this tour, we’ve received no kind of itinerary and have no clue whatsoever as to what we might see or not see. We are entirely in the hands of Elton, which, as it transpires, is a mixed blessing.

After leaving Palmeira ‘fishing village’, we travel on towards the next destination, whatever it will be. During the very brief drive we’ve had in the streets of Espargos, the island’s capital I’ve been intrigued and would have liked to have had some time to explore properly. It’s a fascinating mixture of brightly painted homes and buildings and run-down, dilapidated structures or scruffy, ruined plots. It’s also hilly. Elton draws to a halt outside a large, corrugated building and lets us out. We enter and discover it’s a market, or rather it was a market earlier in the day. Now it boasts three stalls, two of them selling fruits and vegetables, although I’ve seen no evidence of crop growing on the island so presumably it has been imported from other, greener islands. There’s no way to find out as Elton has withdrawn to the car. We buy a couple of items and make use of the market’s bathroom facilities before rejoining our reluctant tour guide to continue the drive.

We go on quite a long way then turn off abruptly, off road and on to an unmade track. It winds about all over the place, dust billowing around us as we bump along. Ahead we can see the ocean and vehicles parked; then as we draw nearer we spot a gathering in the surf- many tourists standing in the waves to look at…what? We’ve no idea but must assume it’s what we’re here for, too- to look at something.

We stop at a haphazard collection of huts and stalls and are released from the car. Elton motions us to follow him and we’re taken to a hut with shelves outside housing a collection of rubber overshoes and croc-style footwear. Of course we’re to be joining the crowd in the waves to look at…something; clearly something worth looking at. In order to hire the rubber shoes we must, of course hand over cash, which we do. Husband gets a pair of sturdy crocs and I, I get a thin pair of rubber galoshes. A young man emerges and Elton gestures at him, ‘your guide’ he says, with no more of an explanation. The ‘guide’ [Girondelo, he tells me when I ask his name] moves off, beckoning us to follow, across the sand and then on to the rocky coral and volcanic stone beach, where I instantly discover that the flimsy soles of the rubber shoes offer no protection at all from the sharp, pointy rocks we are treading on. ‘OW!’, ‘OUCH!’ I yowl, falling behind as Husband and Girondelo as I stumble on. Giro turns to grab my hand very tight and pulls, and there’s no option but to press on, the soles of my feet feeling every step like walking across a watery football pitch covered in Lego bricks.

I should add that I’m further hampered by a small rucksack bag plus, in my right hand, my trusty camera which I must keep dry at all costs…

We’re getting nearer the crowd, but now we’re also getting into water, deeper and deeper. We’re wearing shorts, but as we progress I’ve no hope of staying dry, since shortness of stature and length of shorts preclude it and soon I’m wet up to crotch level, with the added instability of feisty waves buffeting. By now, aware of my inadequacies in the coral-walking field, Giro has tucked my hand under his arm as he continues to pull, simultaneously ordering me to ‘slow down’. Slow down? He’s dragging me along!

‘Would you bring your grandmother out here, Giro?’ I ask him, but I’ve discovered by now that his command of English is as minimal as my Portuguese…

By now we’re aware of what we’ve come to see, as, swimming around our legs there are dozens of sharks. ‘Look!’ yells Giro, ‘Baby shark!’ I’m far more terrified of the waves and the prospect of losing my camera to the frothy waves than I am of the sharks, which are smallish and unthreatening, but how on Earth am I to take photos with one hand? Then, without warning, Giro lets go of my left hand and I’m on my own, teetering in the rolling surf on an unsteady, coral strewn base. As a large wave approaches I feel myself wobble and my arms begin to flay in a desperate attempt to keep myself and the camera from submersion…

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