Hello lovely people! I hope you’re all well! I’m currently in Cape Verde and it is a beautiful place! So far I’ve done a lot of eating, sleeping and thinking. I’ll hopefully be able to provide you with pictures soon!

So last night me and my mum went on a star gazing trip and although it was quite cloudy we managed to see the night sky in desert! If you’ve ever been to Boa Vista before, you’ll know it’s quite a small place and nothing is to far away. The drive from the airport to the hotel was only 4 minutes (which was ideal after a 3 hour delay and a 6 hour flight🙄). We booked on a Desert Delight tour excursion last night which took us about 10 minutes away from our hotel to this little bar situated in the desert surrounded by sand dunes. We arrived at the bar and we were welcomed with a cocktail and our own table where our tour guide gave us a brief introduction of himself and his team and what the plan of action was for the evening.

After the introduction we were provided with live music and served Cape Verde food which was lush! I had the stewed goat, Cape Verde fries and some of their own rice (can’t remember the name unfortunately). For dessert I tried the papaya jam with crackers. The jam was a bit too sweet for me, however the crackers were very nice! I also tried their Bol De Cus-Cus which is pretty much a cake made with corn and sugar which was lovely! Afterwards it was all washed down with a shot of their honey rum which I sipped because it was very strong! So I then washed that down with their mint tea which tasted like mint tea…surprisingly. Our tour guide came and sat down on the table my mum and me were sat and we got talking about his job. He was telling us how he’s been doing it now for about 3 years. Hearing him talk about it, you could feel his passion for what he does. I loved it. He also does a lot of conservation and nature work. You don’t often see someone talk that passionately about their work or the environment where they live. It was somewhat inspirational. He was telling us about the time he went star gazing on the west side of the island and saw the milky way. There is absolutely no light pollution on the west side so he likes to go there a lot and just camp out in the desert on his own looking up at the sky. I was so jealous of him. Being from Manchester, we’re not that lucky and I think there’s only two places in the UK where there is no light pollution, but even there you won’t see sights like what you can here.

Once we had finished eating our tour guide loaded his powerpoint and gave us a lesson about the planets, solar system and stars. I’m fascinated by anything to do with space. I absolutely love learning about it and hearing people talk about it. My best friend L is a smart cookie and knows a lot about space. Whenever we used to go to the pub I would just sit there and listen to him talk about space for hours. So when our tour guide was talking I about the night sky and providing us with all these facts, I couldn’t help but sit there with a smile on my face. I loved it! Once the powerpoint was finished we all stood around this gravity table they had made. It was basically a round table frame without the actual table top and they had tied a springy table cloth around it (my descriptions are terrible, I do apologise😂). They used it to demonstrate how gravity works in space. To start off with they used a rock which represented the sun. They then had a tin of marbles which were the planets. So when the rock (sun) was on this table cloth it sunk into the fabric but didn’t completely hit the floor. They then used the marbles and rolled them around the rock. Altogether it showed us how the solar system worked. Afterwards he got two marbles which represented Earth and our moon and he rolled them around the rock. The two marbles stayed right next to each other with the moon marble rotating around the Earth marble which was rotating around the sun rock! All I can say is I wish my teachers at school did something like that because it made so much more sense!

Once we had a play on the gravity table we went for a walk in the desert in the pitch black. They provided us with blankets as it can get quite chilly at night but I also wore my hoody (I can’t go anywhere without a hoody). We followed our tour guides down into this sand dune which was not the easiest to walk down as the sand was so soft and light! Once me made it to the bottom we all sat down on the sand, lay back and let our eyes adjust to the dark. After a few minutes our eyes had adjusted and the clouds were starting to clear. The sky took my breath away. It was beautiful. I’ve star gazed at home in my garden and my bedroom is in the attic so I have a window on the roof which I sometimes just sit under stare at the moon and sky but this was different. The stars seemed closer, brighter and it was just breath taking. There was one star in the sky which was shining brighter than all the others. It was Jupiter. Our tour guide was saying how you can see Jupiter, Venus and Uranus from where we were but due to the weather conditions we weren’t that lucky to see all three. Lay down on the sand dunes in the dead of the night, listening to all the crickets it gave me a chance to be thankful for everything I have. It gave me a chance to appreciate everything I have and all the opportunities I’ve taken and opportunities I will be able to take in my future. I think star gazing really makes you realise how small we are compared to everything out there in the universe.

Last night was truly an experience I will never forget and the view of the night sky will forever be a permanent picture in my head. I’d love to come back to Cape Verde again. It is a beautiful place, home to beautiful and kind people.

I’m currently writing this by the pool. Later on this afternoon me and my mum are off for a 2 hour quad bike ride to the northern part of the island. We’ve booked a joint quad bike so I’m driving and my mum is gonna hang on the back…wish me luck!

Sending love and light to you all!

Emma xo