Today is the day before last of my holiday… sadly. Have to say the time went by incredibly quickly. Three months of waiting for this holiday and then it finished in a finger snap. Question is, was it worth going to a place that is not as popular among European tourists as Greece or Spain for example? Yes it was!

The diving, the sightseeing, the relaxing

Diving was amazing. Four diving days during which I saw some cool stuff. Two nurse sharks, sting rays, lobsters, gigantic moray eels, stone fish, wrecks and spiders 😀 Full dive pictures will be available in the next post as my phone doesn’t “talk” well to my GoPro. Meaning I only have half of the pictures available

The diving routine while staying at a hotel and doing daily dives looks different than the dive routine when staying on the dive boat the whole time. 

To get the ultimate diving experience I should only pick locations where the dive centres do more than two dives per day. Only by doing this I would miss lots of good places. All is a matter of compromise. When I go on a stationary diving trip, I do consider that I will have to accommodate half a day to different activities than diving. Which is fine as aside from diving I’m keen to explore the place I went to. In Cabo Verde I did a lot of city walks, went on an island tour and today I went for a zipline trip 😀 Point is that diving does make me tired, and I really appreciate the fact that I can sleep during the day or relax by reading a book or writing something. 

Some of my friends ask me, when you do so much stuff during your holiday you don’t really have a holiday. Well, that depends on your personal definition of holiday. For some the definition of holiday is to do nothing for a week or two aside from having drinks at the pool bar, lying on the beach and having wild parties in the evening. Completely understand that as I had a period in my life where this was my definition of holiday. It changed over the years and diving did contribute a lot to the point of view change. Now holiday for me means not having to go to work every day and doing all the things I like doing – diving, sleeping, sightseeing and writing. I leave partying for Kraków as it’s more fun to party with my mates back home. Funny enough, today morning my friend JGG messaged me that we haven’t seen each other for a long time, and we need to do something about it. With that said we have a date coming Tuesday 😀

The dark side

In the previous post I’ve mentioned that Cabo Verde is like a mix of African, Caribbean and European vibes. After a week here I figured it’s very true. While walking around the town of Santa Maria I’ve noticed that the buildings are a bit in art deco Caribbean style which gives the city a nice vibe. You can hear Portuguese and English everywhere and credit card payments are widely accepted. Food is amazing as the fish lands straight from the ocean on the grill. Drinks come in proper sizes and the weather is quite pleasant despite being very hot sometimes.

The bit that I don’t like about this place is the same that I don’t like about other African countries I’ve visited. It’s the impression that single white women go to Africa for holiday just to find a local black guy to have sex with. Well, some do but not all white single women have the same agenda when they visit African countries. In Zanzibar I saw many western women dating local guys. How did I know they were dating… ammm holding hands and passionate kissing in the public is not a sign of going together for a game night? I’m far away from judging anybody for their travel agenda, only the impression stays and spreads that all women on holiday want only one thing – romance with locals. I personally encountered that not only in Cabo Verde but also in Zanzibar and Kenya. Disgusting sex propositions and every time I heard those, the middle finger got stretched out saying – go fuck yourself. I can’t blame the local man for trying. When they see that the majority of western women are looking for opportunities, they assume all of them are the same. Similar to the opinion about Polish people, that all of them drink like crazy. Thing is that some women go on holiday to get away from problems at home, some to do sightseeing and some surprise surprise prefer the company of other women. On the other hand, it’s the same with white guys being harassed by local women. One evening in a bar in Zanzibar one of my friends couldn’t drink his beer in peace and quiet. Every five minutes a woman was touching his arm saying that she could give him a special price for the night. He said no every time but what does it tell you about the general situation… that western men go on holiday to Africa to fuck prostitutes. Again! Not all western men are the same and not all of them on holidays are looking for local romance opportunities… some do. You might think, so what, what do you wanna do about that? Why are you writing this Alice, to shame people for their actions? No, not for shaming people for their actions but to make single travellers aware of such things. Especially women who might not even think that they might get awkward propositions while being on holidays. What to do when you encounter such a situation? That depends. Yesterday when I heard during a walk, if I need company, I said that I’d prefer to be left alone and walked away. Other times, you need to make sure that you are not alone when saying no. Pretend that you are walking into a shop, or a restaurant then order a taxi back to your hotel. Please don’t walk alone after sunset. If it’s too late and it’s dark already, ask people you are partying with to accompany you back to your hotel or again… take a taxi. Mostly I got awkward propositions in a crowd during daytime hence I didn’t hesitate to say go fuck yourself straight away. 

Generally, looking back at the past week in Cabo Verde it was time well spent. Hotel was nice, the diving was great, and the food was fresh. The little inconvenience of being harassed by locals… well happens just a matter of being strong enough and standing up for yourself.