Sea to Sahara cape verde, canary islands & morocco April 7 - 22, 2018 Casablanca MOROCCO Marrakech La Palma CANARY Island Lanzarote Island ISLANDS El Marsa/ Laayoune ATLANTIC Dakhla OCEAN Santo Antão Island CAPE VERDE ISLANDS Brava Island Praia, São Tiago Island Fogo Island Sunday, April 8, 2018 Praia, São Tiago Island, Cape Verde / Embark Island Sky Our Sea to Sahara adventure began on a warm and sunny day in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde Islands. We enjoyed an excellent lunch of traditional Cabo Verdean dishes in the cozy Quintal da Musica, accompanied by the lively music of a local band before setting out for the old town of Cidade Velha, the former capital, now a World Heritage Site. The massive fortifications of Forte Real do São Filipe on the hill above the town gave us an aerial view of the layout of the old town below with its ruined cathedral. In town, we drank hibiscus juice and sampled local snacks while watching local women perform a traditional batuku dance accompanied by singing and the rhythm of pounding txabeta (cloth pillows held between the knees). In the town square, an elaborate marble whipping post reminded us of the harsh history of these islands and the slavery of the people brought here from the African mainland. A stroll along the narrow Rua Banana, the oldest European street in Sub-Saharan Africa, with its straw-roofed, whitewashed houses brought us to the oldest surviving building in the town, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário. Dating from 1495, this church was visited by explorers Vasca da Gama and Christopher Columbus who stopped here soon after its construction. Soon it was time to make our way back to the modern city of Praia where our ship, the Island Sky, awaited us. Monday & Tuesday, April 9 & 10 Fogo Island / Brava Island An overnight sail brought us to the most southwesterly islands of the archipelago, Fogo and Brava, which we spent two days exploring. On Fogo we came ashore by Zodiac at the port of São Filipe where our local guides led us around the busy cobbled streets of this colorful Portuguese colonial town. The lively, noisy market bustled with stallholders selling all manner of exotic fruits and vegetables, while upstairs the morning’s fish catch was being sorted and cut up for sale. A short walk then took us to the Museu Municipal de São Filipe with its reconstruction of a funco (a traditional house with walls of black lava) and a film showing the dramatic 2014 eruption of the island’s volcano. We finished our town trail at Dona Maria’s bakery on the edge of a cliff above a black-sand beach where we sampled a tasty range of local cakes and cookies. Suitably fortified, we set off for the climb—by bus—towards Fogo’s most spectacular landscape, Chã das Caldeiras. Once out of the city, the cobbled streets gave way to a beautifully engineered paved road which rose through steep hairpin bends higher and higher towards the entrance to the Parque Natural do Fogo. Here we saw the rubbly black basalt lava from a 1951 eruption tumbling down the steep slope while above it rose the classic stratovolcano cone of Pico do Fogo; at 9,281 feet above sea level, it is the highest point in the Cape Verde Islands. As we drove into the caldera, the wall rose thousands of feet above us. It formed when the volcano’s summit collapsed about 80,000 years ago, and the whole eastern side of the volcano fell into the sea. The caldera floor was filled with recent lava flows—1951, 1995, and perhaps most impressive of all, lava just three years old from the eruption of 2014-15. With the old cobbled road now blocked by the lava, we turned onto a new dirt road which weaved its way along the front of the lava flow and its ropeypahoehoe surface or rubbly aa. The road led us to a new hotel—the proprietor’s third hotel as her other two were swallowed up by the lava flow. Here we sampled some of the excellent Fogo wines produced in the caldera before sitting down to a lovely lunch in the hotel restaurant. Built on top of the new lava flow, the restaurant’s tiled floor was still hot to the touch from the volcanic rock beneath. Afterwards, we walked through the remains of one of the two settlements consumed by the lava flow. It was sobering to see only the roofs of houses sticking up through the black basalt. Around us, though, new homes were being rebuilt as the locals reclaim their community from the lava. On Brava, the strong NE trade winds proved too much for our planned landing site, so we relocated from the island’s east coast to a more sheltered bay on the west, Fajã de Água. From here a steep road led us up through a barren and rugged landscape to the quaint colonial town of Vila Nova Sintra where we visited the former home of writer and composer Eugénio Tavares (1867-1930). We learned Brava’s long association with the whaling industry and its links to America and enjoyed scenic viewpoints overlooking the town. Sailing between Fogo and Brava, the birders were pleased to see brown boobies and red-billed tropic birds, and on the islands themselves, three endemics—the Cape Verde swift, sparrow, and shearwater. Wednesday, April 11 Santo Antão Island In strong winds this morning, our captain skillfully maneuvered the Island Sky alongside in the little port of Porto Novo on Santo Antão, the most northwesterly of the Cape Verde Islands. Here we climbed into a fleet of a dozen minibuses for our exploration of the island. This took us north into steep mountainous terrain cut by deep rocky ravines and up into an attractively forested landscape, the greenest we had so far encountered. We stopped to view the beautiful flat-floored Cova de Paúl, an old volcanic caldera, the trade winds spilling cloud over with steep wooded crater wall. The road continued north, running along the crest of a narrow fin of rock barely wide enough to contain the highway, with precipitous cliffs dropping away on either side. Stunning views of steep terraced mountains lay to both sides. The road soon descended into the little town of Ribeira Grande where we turned west along the coast to Ponta do Sol and inland on what must be one of the world’s most spectacular highways. Perched on a narrow ledge just wide enough for one vehicle, the cobbled road climbed and twisted above vertiginous drops, offering the most incredible views of the island’s north coast plunging steeply into the ocean. Our skilled local drivers brought us safely to the picturesque little village of Fontainhas, clinging to a narrow rib of rock and almost suspended in space, but soon it was time to turn around and experience that road again as we headed into the little fishing village of Ponta do Sol for lunch. Here in the harbor the birders had a view of migrating ruddy turnstones on their way to Greenland and Canada, as well as their first sighting of an osprey. The afternoon began with a drive and walk in the verdant, lush farming valley of Ribeira do Paúl. Breadfruit, bananas, papaya, and sugar cane grew in profusion on the valley floor and lower slopes. Back down on the coast we had a chance to taste the end product of the sugar cane—grogue, the islands’ national drink, produced here in an artisanal way with an oxen-driven press or trapiche. We returned to Porto Nova on a new road around the north coast, the barren, uninhabited landscape here a stark contrast to the green valleys on the interior. Back on board the Island Sky, it was time to don our glad rags for the captain’s welcome reception and dinner hosted by Captain Håkan Admarker. Thursday & Friday, April 12 & 13 At Sea Two days at sea gave us an opportunity to download our Cape Verde pictures, catch up on sleep and laundry, and be entertained by our expedition staff. Cultural geographer Ron Wixman introduced us to the peoples and cultures of the Atlantic islands, geologist Tom Sharpe told us about the origin of the volcanic islands of Cape Verde and the Canaries, and marine biologist Merel Dalebout spoke on the oceanography of the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean in which we were sailing. The following day ornithologist Jim Wilson described the birds of Macaronesia, this grouping of Atlantic islands we were visiting; Ron explained agro-colonialism in our changing world; and Rich Pagen led us through the remarkable sex lives of marine organisms. Out on deck, the wildlife was elusive, but our naturalists did spot three fin whales, the second largest animal on the planet, as well as northern gannets who form large colonies around Britain and Ireland. Saturday, April 14 Dakhla, Western Sahara (Morocco) The sunrise this morning was spectacular. The dust from the trade winds was so thick that it actually shaded the light from the sun making it appear as a white orb. A fleet of twenty 4x4 vehicles awaited us in the port of Dakhla for our excursion into the Sahara. We set off in a convoy through the town and out into the desert around the head of Dakhla Lagoon. Soon we abandoned the paved highway and struck out south across the sandy desert plain to a tented camp of the Saharaoui people. Black-robed women sang traditional songs while we enjoyed tea in the shade of their khaïma.