Re a holiday in Cape Verde,
The islands are lovely but be warned...
Using the travel company 'The Cape Verde Experience' we visited Cape Verde islands in October. In Praia, the capital of Santaigo we were attacked and robbed. It was 8.00pm in the evening and we had just crossed the road from our eating venue to take a photograph. What upset us even more than the physical and emotional aftermaths of the attack was that from that moment on, everybody we met looked at my husband's black eye and my cut hand and said. 'You should never go out in Praia after 7.00pm unless you are in a large group or take a taxi because there is a high chance you will be robbed. You should have been told.' This included the duty manager at our hotel, a local property developer we met at the airport, an airport baggage inspector and numerous locals.
After the attack, and the visit to the police station, we tried to contact our rep. but she was unavailable. The following morning we had to fly to the island of Fogo, which was lovely and which everyone assured us was safe, but we had lost our nerve and only went out on tours. While we were there, we spoke to our rep. by phone and she said she'd meet us at the airport on our return to the island of Sal. She wasn't there. We were picked up by drivers and given an insurance envelope with the instructions to fill it in and give it to the rep. whom we would meet at the airport before we flew home. By this time I was cross at the lack of interest or care and as it was late at night, I refused, to my husband's concern, to agree to spend time on it. No problem, there was no rep. at the airport the following morning either. (Neither had we been given a specific pick up time, we'd had to guess it.) A bunch of flowers here might have made us feel happy to cut our losses and feel at least that the company cared.
On our return home we contacted the company who immediately quoted small print about advice to take a taxi at night because of the lack of street lighting (no mention of the inherent dangers,) and of displaying goods for all to see. It was 8.00pm, not late at night. I took the camera from my pocket to take one photograph. We were opposite a restaurant. I would not have considered any of these actions unduly provocative.
We asked that the company give proper warnings about a very real danger in future, and were told this would happen. We asked that the balance of our losses (mostly covered by insurance) be made up as there had been a very real danger, we should have been so advised. Had we been told of the danger we would not have walked across the road after dark. This balance was refused. (This would have been about £300.00 max.) Needless to say, neither us. Nor any of our friends will be using Cape Verde Experience again.
Best
Liz