Why Cheap Sunshine is just part of the story

It’s fair to say that the island of Sal on Cape Verde receives a mixed press.

Fishing boats on the beach in Tarrafal, Santiago

Certainly the Bradt guide doesn’t mince words. “The arrival … on an international flight is a deliciously depressing descent … relentlessly brown and featureless … Disembarking … you will gaze at the rocky plains in puzzlement, trying to remember why you decided to come.”

Still, it is where trips to the Cape Verde archipelago – 10 islands 400 or so miles off the coast of Senegal in West Africa – tend to begin and end for us Brits.

Sal is one of only two Cape Verde islands you can fly to direct from London, and most visitors come on package tours, lured by the promise of winter sun rather than pleasing scenery. I can confirm that it is indeed a bleak and uninspiring landscape that greets visitors after the five-and-a-half hour flight from Gatwick; dusty plains as far as the eye can see, dotted with skeletons of unfinished buildings – the result of half-finished projects started by foreign investors who ran out of money.

On the trip from the airport to the coastal resort of Santa Maria our attention is particularly drawn to a massive development called Cotton Bay, where a 36-hole golf course as well as a shopping centre, spa and casino are planned. There is local concern about development across Cape Verde apparently. Lack of fresh water is an issue on all the islands. Nearly all the water on Sal, (Portuguese for salt) for example, comes from desalination plants.

View the full article on the Guardian Observer website