Low, brightly painted houses of Sal Rei along a sandy shore, with a blue bay and a broad rocky mountain rising behind

Cabo Verde

Boa Vista

Sal Rei, the island's main town, on the north-west coast of Boa Vista. (StanleyMacCoy / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0)

The easternmost of Cabo Verde's islands and the closest to Africa, a low desert of sand dunes, stony plains and long empty beaches. Salt, dye-lichen and date palms once sustained it; since an international airport opened at Rabil in 2007 it has lived mainly from beach tourism, while its beaches remain important nesting grounds for loggerhead turtles.

Neighbourhoods

  • Sal Rei
    • First-time visitors
    • Local life
    • Best for food

    The island's main town and port on the north-west coast, a grid of low houses around a central square with the market, the church, restaurants and small guesthouses. Fishing boats work off the beach in front of it, and a small islet lies just offshore.

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  • Rabil
    • Historic district
    • Crafts

    The island's former capital, on the Ribeira do Rabil, whose basin is the largest in Cabo Verde, known for its pottery school and the site of the island's first airfield. It is a quieter place than Sal Rei, which lies about 6 km to the north-west.

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  • The southern beach coast
    • Beaches
    • Quiet and residential

    The west and south-west coast beyond Rabil, from Praia de Chaves to Santa Mónica, which runs for some 18 km at the island's south-western tip with almost nothing on it but sand. The island's large resorts stand along this shore, set apart from the villages.

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  • The interior and the east
    • Scenery
    • Villages

    Stony plain, scattered volcanic hills, palm-filled dry valleys and a handful of small villages, some of them partly abandoned. Tracks rather than roads cross it, and the sand desert of Viana lies in the north-east, east of Sal Rei and Rabil.

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Things to do

Beaches

  • Praia de Chavesbeach

    A beach of pale sand about 5 km long on the west coast near Rabil, with resorts at its northern end and its southern part inside the Morro de Areia Nature Reserve.

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  • Praia de Santa Mónicabeach

    An almost empty beach running for about 18 km at the island's south-western tip, hard to reach with no road link, and an important turtle nesting site.

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  • Praia de Cabral, Sal Reibeach

    The beach at Sal Rei where most of the town's tourism is concentrated, one of the island's best-known beaches.

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Landscape and landmarks

  • Viana Desertlandmark

    The largest of Cabo Verde's three deserts, a field of pale sand about 20 km across in the north-east of the island, partly inside the Boa Esperança nature reserve.

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  • Cabo Santa Maria shipwrecklandmark

    The rusting hull of a Spanish cargo ship that ran aground on a sandbank off the north coast in September 1968, now a symbol of the island and a regular stop on excursions.

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  • Ilhéu de Sal Reilandmark

    The uninhabited islet about 1 km from the town, a natural monument holding the ruins of the Duque de Bragança fort, built to defend Sal Rei after pirates sacked it in 1815 and 1817.

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  • Curral Velhoattraction

    A deserted village on the south coast inside a protected landscape, with an offshore islet and a stretch of coast that are an important area for birds.

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Towns and everyday sights

  • Sal Rei square and marketmarket

    The shaded main square of the island's capital, with the church, the produce and fish market and the craft stalls around it.

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  • Rabil potteryattraction

    The village pottery school, where craft pieces such as jugs, mosaics and small turtle figures are made.

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  • Aristides Pereira International Airporttransit hub

    Opened near Rabil in 2007 on the site of the old airfield and named for Cabo Verde's first president; the island's income from tourism has risen rapidly since.

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Seasonal events

  • Loggerhead turtle hatching seasonJuly to September

    Cabo Verde is the only significant loggerhead nesting site in the eastern Atlantic, and hatchlings emerge on protected beaches of the island such as Santa Mónica.

  • Humpback whale seasonWinter and spring

    One of the North Atlantic's two wintering populations of humpback whales comes to Cabo Verde's waters to breed and calve, and the whales are sometimes seen from boats.

  • CarnivalFebruary or March

    Sal Rei holds its own carnival parade in the weeks before Lent, smaller than Mindelo's.

Eat and drink

Long-standing places and food districts in Boa Vista. Hours, ratings and directions come from your maps app, always current.

Boa Vista classics

  • Cachuparestaurant

    The national stew of hominy corn, beans and whatever meat or fish is available, cooked for hours and fried with an egg the next morning as cachupa refogada.

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  • Grilled fish and lobsterrestaurant

    Tuna, wahoo, grouper and spiny lobster landed on the beach at Sal Rei, usually grilled and served with rice, beans and a tomato salad.

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  • Queijo de cabra and goat stewrestaurant

    Goats graze the dry interior, and their fresh white cheese, often eaten with papaya jam, and slow-cooked goat are island staples.

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Where to eat and drink

  • Sal Rei town centreneighborhood

    The streets around the main square and the seafront hold most of the island's independent restaurants, bars and cafés.

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  • Sal Rei marketmarket

    A small municipal market for fruit, vegetables, cheese and fish, much of it brought in by boat from other islands.

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Experience Boa Vista

History

Boa Vista was uninhabited when António de Noli and Diogo Gomes reached it in 1460, and until the end of the sixteenth century it was used only for breeding wild cattle; the first settlement, now Povoação Velha, followed in 1620. Its early value lay in what could be gathered rather than grown: salt, worked largely by the English and with enslaved labour, and urzela, a lichen used to make a purple dye that was one of Cabo Verde's principal exports. After repeated pirate attacks the islanders moved in 1820 to Porto Inglês, later renamed Sal Rei, and a fort was built on the islet in front of the town to defend it.

The island's low coast has also claimed ships, among them the Atalanta that gave one northern beach its name; the best known, the Spanish cargo ship Cabo Santa Maria, ran aground on a sandbank off the north coast in 1968 and still lies rusting in the surf. Rabil, on the island's largest river valley, was once the island's capital and is known for its pottery, and it was there that the island's first airstrip was laid out.

Drought, emigration and the slow decline of salt and dye left Boa Vista one of the emptiest islands in the archipelago for much of the twentieth century. Its modern history begins with the opening of Aristides Pereira International Airport at Rabil in 2007, which brought direct charter flights from Europe and a rapid build-out of large hotels along the south-western beaches. The population has grown quickly since, drawn by construction and hotel work.

Culture & Customs

For an island of its size Boa Vista has an outsized musical reputation: it is widely held to be where the morna, the slow, wistful song form that became Cabo Verde's national genre, first took shape before spreading to the other islands. Music is still how celebrations are held, with morna and coladeira at weddings and saints' days and faster styles for dancing.

Crafts survive better here than on most islands, above all the hand-made pottery of Rabil, worked from local clay in family workshops. The rhythm of the year runs on the Catholic calendar, with the São João and saints' day festivities bringing processions, horses and music to the villages, and a small carnival in Sal Rei before Lent.

The island's social character has changed quickly. A small, closely connected island community now shares the island with newcomers of many nationalities drawn by work in tourism. Conversation turns often on water, jobs and how tourism is managed. Conservation has become part of local identity too, with turtle-protection projects working on the protected nesting beaches.

Daily Life

About 14,500 people lived on Boa Vista in 2015, most of them in Sal Rei, with smaller communities at Rabil and in scattered villages such as Bofareira in the east. It is the least densely populated island in the country, and much of its surface is uninhabited plain and dune.

Almost all work is connected to tourism: hotels, restaurants, excursions, diving and construction, with fishing and a little goat herding and market gardening alongside. Fresh food, building materials and most other goods arrive by boat at Sal Rei or by plane at Rabil, and much fresh water is desalinated, so both are costly and supply is not always reliable. Wages are higher than on the agricultural islands, which is why people move here.

Daily life is unhurried and outdoors. Fishermen launch and land in front of Sal Rei in the morning, the market fills early, and afternoons are quiet until the heat eases and the squares fill again with children, football and conversation. Electricity and water interruptions, the seasonality of hotel work and the pressure of building on a fragile desert coast are the issues residents raise most.

Food

Boa Vista eats what the rest of Cabo Verde eats, with more fish and goat than most. Cachupa is the daily dish — hominy corn and beans stewed slowly with whatever meat or fish is to hand, eaten at midday and fried up next morning with an egg as cachupa refogada.

The sea supplies tuna, wahoo, grouper, moray and spiny lobster, landed on the beach and grilled, or cooked into a caldeirada, a stew of fish with potato, tomato and onion. Buzio, a large sea snail, is a local speciality. From the dry interior come goat meat and fresh goat's cheese, queijo de cabra, often served with papaya jam.

Maize, beans and imported rice fill out most plates. To drink there is grogue, the sugarcane spirit distilled on the greener islands and drunk neat or sweetened into a ponche, along with local beer, strong coffee and juices made from papaya, mango and tamarind.

Planning tools

Budget

Costs on Boa Vista divide sharply. The all-inclusive resorts along the south-west coast are bought as packages from Europe and enclose most of what their guests spend; in Sal Rei, guesthouses, Creole restaurants and shared transport are far cheaper. Excursions — the dune and wreck tour, a turtle walk in season, a boat trip — are the main extra, and almost everything on the island is imported.

Daily Budget Midrange
USD 100–190 (hotel or resort room, restaurant meals, a 4x4 tour or boat trip)
Daily Budget Shoestring
USD 50–80 (guesthouse or residencial room, local food, shared aluguer vans)

Staying in Sal Rei rather than on the resort strip costs much less and puts restaurants, the market and the beach within walking distance.

Best Time to Visit

Warm and dry all year. November to March is windiest, which suits kitesurfers but makes the exposed beaches blustery and sometimes brings Saharan dust on the harmattan. April to July is calmer and best for swimming, diving and whale watching in spring. August to October is hotter and more humid, with the islands' brief and unreliable rains, and falls within the turtle hatching season.

Suggested Number of Days

Three or four days is enough for the town, a beach and a tour of the interior. A week suits people who came for the sand, the wind or diving, or who want to combine the island with a flight on to Sal or Santiago. Distances are short but tracks are slow.

First Visit
3–4 days
With Surroundings
5–7 days

Transportation

There is little public transport. Shared aluguer vans link Sal Rei with Rabil and a few villages, taxis work the airport and resort runs, and hire cars, quad bikes and organised 4x4 excursions cover the rest. Only a small part of the road network is surfaced; most of the island is reached by sand and stone tracks that require high clearance and local knowledge.

Tracks are unsigned and easy to get lost or bogged down on, and driving across dunes and nesting beaches damages a protected environment — a guided 4x4 trip is the usual way to see the interior.

Airport & Station Connections

Aristides Pereira International Airport, beside Rabil, is about 5 km from Sal Rei — ten minutes by taxi or transfer. It opened in 2007 and takes charter and scheduled flights from several European countries as well as domestic connections to other islands. A ferry service links the island's port at Sal Rei with Praia and other islands, but sailings are slow and infrequent.

Walkability

Sal Rei is small, flat and easily walked end to end in twenty minutes, and the town beach begins at its edge. Rabil is a short taxi or van ride away. Beyond that, walking is not practical: the beaches, the dune field and the wreck are kilometres apart across open desert with no shade, no water and no shelter from sun or wind.

Safety

The island is calm and crime is mostly petty — occasional theft from rooms, beaches and parked cars. The real hazards are natural and physical: a powerful shore break and strong currents on the ocean-facing beaches, heat and dehydration away from the towns, and accidents on quad bikes and in hire vehicles on soft sand tracks.

Keep valuables out of sight, avoid quiet urban areas of Praia after dark, and ask locally about currents before swimming off unpatrolled beaches. Check current official travel advice before travelling.

Climate

Hot desert climate cooled by the north-east trade winds, with very little rain in any month. Dust carried from the Sahara on the harmattan can haze the sky in winter. Sea temperatures stay warm enough for swimming all year.

Summer
August to October is the warmest and most humid period, around 28–30°C by day, with the year's small chance of rain
Winter
December to March is dry and sunny at around 24–26°C, but persistently windy

Local Customs

Portuguese is official and Cabo Verdean Creole is the everyday language; Italian and English are spoken around the resorts. Greetings come before requests, and people are addressed politely and unhurriedly. Beachwear is for the beach, not the streets, shops or church of Sal Rei. Turtle nesting beaches are protected areas, and nesting females and hatchlings are not to be disturbed or lit with torches or flash.

Ask before photographing people at work on the beach or in the market, and join turtle watching only with a licensed project or guide.

Common Payment Methods

The currency is the Cabo Verdean escudo (CVE), pegged to the euro at about 110 to 1, and euros are widely accepted on the island, often at a round rate. Cards are taken in hotels, dive centres and larger restaurants; cash is needed for vans, markets and small kitchens. ATMs are in Sal Rei and at the airport, so cash should be drawn before heading into the interior.