The shortest route is not necessarily the quickest or the easiest The passage from the Cape Verdes across the Atlantic to the north-eastern corner of Brazil is pretty much the shortest ocean crossing that one can possibly make – it’s less than half the distance of the passage between the Canary Islands and the Caribbean – but although the miles are far fewer, weather conditions on this route are apt to be somewhat less favourable. Somehow or other you have…
Discounting domestic animals, there are only 13 species of mammal resident in the Cape Verde islands. Three of them are bats, one is a mongoose, and the others are all dolphins and whales – which is cheating, if you ask me. There are also 19 or 20 reptiles living here – but don’t panic, because none of them are snakes. In fact, five of them are turtles, which come here to breed, and the others are all lizards, skinks, and…
Unless you have never visited the islands and have been entirely fooled by the name, flora will be the last thing that comes to mind when you think of the Cape Verdes – but in fact the place is actually quite interesting to a devoted botanist. Of the plants which somehow managed to reach the archipelago without man’s intervention (thereby earning themselves the name of indigenous species) there are 80 which have evolved to become genetically different from their ancestors…