My first day of vacation

So now finally the day has come. I am feeling quite fine, the weather is beautiful and we're at a wonderful location for relaxing your soul. For the first time since I left Germany and the first day this year I had a vacation day the way I love it: ocean, sun, beautiful water, swimming with the cutest fish, walking in white sand, jumping down the sand dune. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. It felt like a new life, especially after this last week. 

I liked the places we had been so far, like Las Palmas and Mindelo, but they are cities, big or small. They all have their beauty somehow, mostly in the different life style. As a city itself I find Las Palmas very ugly, only saw one nice spot. But nature wise on that one excursion day I saw lots of beauty on that island. But it was still stress time and no time for relaxing, same in Mindelo. Interesting to see a town evolving. But I missed a beautiful beach and relaxation. My illness destroyed that. Plus being in a harbor is never relaxing and beautiful from the perspective of nature. I am not a city girl (only for dancing). I love the beach and the ocean . Marcus would have loved to stay in the harbor, to do some more things and be able to go out for dinner, I just so desperately longed for this peace we found here. And I am sooo glad I suffered through the trip to come here, it was worth it!

Back to Boa Vista, my little paradise. From the pictures in the Marco Polo travel guide I had decided we should find nice beaches here. And we did.

 If you are stressed out, are looking for a relaxing, quiet vacation with blue water and white sand you should go into the internet or the travel agency of your trust and book a trip to BoaVista NOW!

Now is no tourist season so everything is quiet. Except for the town center in Sal Rei at the beach. For an unknown reason they have loud techno music there everyday the whole day and night, we can hear it quite well even at our boat. The “town center” a rectangular square place with a street with some "shops" and bars around it, all very simple but ok. In the center they put some chairs and a big tent and some huge loud speakers. The street is made of some stones put into the ground, looks like in ancient times but it's very charming. The rest is filled up with sand. All tourists are being brought here, I guess for "traditional party nights"? Maybe only the tourists in the small pensions here in the town! This is the downside of the tourism. Beautiful traditional local music as the people in this country originally loved it was abandoned for the sake of “western music”, like many traditions leave for the sake of “western style of living”. Lots of local charm gets lost this way, love for each other, love for the traditions and life turn into pure (tourist) business. Of course it brings in money and – supposedly – a better life for the people here, I just hate to see the charm disappearing and the whole world becoming the same. As Marcus wrote in this german blog, soon the typical western stores will start to appear even here, in this little paradise. I hope this takes a couple more years.
There is a huge white hotel complex (RIU?) on the other side of the bay, but I see few people there on the beach these days. So it could even be quiet there right now, but anyway the beach is so endless long you will always find a spot for yourself.

 I hope I get the chance to visit the huge sand dune at the very end of the bay, it is extraordinary. This should be close to the beach Santa Monica, where there is also a spooky half sunk ship near the coast. 

The island does not have the beauty of diversity with dry sand and green, high mountains as some of the other islands. Tourists who love to do hiking tours are probably on the wrong island here. But to me there is still a lot to explore: miles and miles of natural white sandy beach and sand dunes all over. White sand also lies like snow over the volcano craters that you can see from the water and from up on the dunes. Red mixes with white and some green trees in between. What beautiful colors, especially in the sunset. Even the airport is built into the landscape, you can hardly find it although it's almost right at the beach. 

Also you can make diving tours, go snorkeling, rent a bike and ride it around the island in the sand (I found an ad for that today). On December 8^th and 9^th this year they have the hammer marathon event here: 151 km running marathon in the sand around the island!!! They also offer the short version: only 71km! This is something for my friend Alex, who organizes many running events in Munich and some other places in southern Germany. He had already participated successfully at the iron man in Hawaii, so that should be easy here ;-)

 I walked a bit on the beach today and found some places to eat and drink and where you can rent kites or surf board. But again these days there is nothing happening, 90% are closed.
It was soooo beautifully quiet, I took a deep breath and let out lots of happiness. Sitting on the sand dune overlooking this beauty you can feel all the peace that enters your heart. And all stress of the last weeks is forgotten in a minute. I remembered that it's always worth following your dreams despite some uneven path inbetween. Never give up. Gving up is the end to your life. Nothing comes easy but when you have it you can enjoy it even more and this makes you very happy.  

Picture above: Alita is the one in the front, the bigger one ;-). Picture to the right: overlooking the bay in front of Ilhu de Sal Rei (taken down from the sand dune), Alita is the second boat from the left. 

Talking about happy. I had the biggest happy smile on my face when I came back from my trip to the little rock-reef I swam to with my swimming glasses (polarized, see yourself;-) 
and a snorkel. I must have stayed there forever. After a while the fish started to trust me and more and more came and started to swim around me and follow me. That was sooo cute! I had my new underwater camera with me. Enjoy the pictures and feel the happiness of me and the fish. Seems like they had as much fun as I had. 

And here the beautiful Alita and the beautiful ending of the day: