What Happens When "Womens" Take on Cape Verde?

What happens when seven girls decide to take a plane to the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa with only a tentative hotel booking and a lonely planet guide book?  Well hopefully this blog post will be able to somewhat describe the adventures, mishaps, random people we met, and the realization we all came to that plans can change instantly but everything will work out and for most cases it will be better and involve more laughs than you expected.

Instead of going through every adventure we had I am going to pinpoint 15 things we realized in the past week and add some pictures for visual purposes.  If you want more stories feel free to ask!

1.    Cape Verde has the bluest and most beautiful water I have ever seen

2.     No where in Cape Verde can you find sunscreen even though it is supposedly a tourist destination (so if you are inspired to travel there after this blog post, BRING YOUR OWN SUNSCREEN, or become a lobster as some of us did)

3.     Cape Verdeans do not believe in mixed drinks, only shots of Grogue (traditional Cape Verdean sugar cane rum) or Estrela (Cape Verde traditional beer)

one mixed drink we found, with grogue of course

4.     The best way to travel around Cape Verde is in 10 person vans that constantly run yelling at you as they pass “Praia, Praia, Praia” resembling the pelicans from Finding Nemo

When one said van got a flat tire

5.     Don’t lose your club card or you will have to pay $50 and it might involve a fight between the bouncer and a cop that you befriended earlier when he drove you in his cop car to the club

6.     It is necessary to always carry a deck of cards around, especially when in a group of 7-10 people when it takes two hours to receive a meal, also I need to learn the rules of my friend Taylor’s card game “Mao”

7.     Another realization about cards: Tarot cards are a great thing to travel with as my friend Cara brought them and we used them constantly and even told one of our waitress her Tarot reading

8.     Boats in Cape Verde are completely unpredictable but you can always go to the beautiful Mountain town of Assomada instead

view of Assomada from our hotel

9.     If you ever happen to travel to Assomada stay at the hotel Asa Branca and hang out with the greatest hotel manager, Lito, who will make you a wonderful meal of grilled meat, fish, and vegetables while telling you his life story at the same time. You will also have a constant joke from the fact that Lito pronounces women as "womens" every time

10. Sometimes it can be fun to throw a random birthday party for no apparent reason except that you want to buy party supplies and a cake

11. Cachupa (a traditional Cape Verde dish with corn, lentils and potatoes) is DELICIOUS, order it every chance you get

12. Similarly, why do we need to buy dinner when we can just survive off of bags of cookies and cheese crackers, which we did three of our seven nights

13. How do you hike in Assomada without a map?  Just start walking down a mountain and you will discover a small village built into a beautiful mountain landscape as well as a giant Baobab tree surrounded by farm land

14. Live music is harder to find in Cape Verde than you might think, but luckily by the last night we got to enjoy some Cape Verde Jazz

15. And finally, don’t be scared of adventures or spontaneity because having no plans led to one of the best weeks of my life with 6 of the weirdest, most hilarious, craziest, kindest, and best girls I have ever met.