What a pleasant surprise the town of Mindelo is! Attractive buildings painted in an array of cheerful colors, friendly people, exotic African art shops. Live music everywhere. A sound stage was being set up for a concert on the main street as we approached, and several restaurants and bars advertised "life music."

We spent the morning doing errands--cleared in with Customs & Immigration, dropped off laundry at a laundromat, bought a SIM card for internet, and got a prescription filled for motion sickness pills at the pharmacy. Had to first go to the medical clinic to get a prescription and found it well-run, clean and first-world.
Then we had wonderful grilled octopus at the Gaudi restaurant in the center of town.

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Cape Verde is a tiny island nation off the coast of Senegal. Discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century, it remained under their control till 1975. That's probably why we chose not to visit back in 1975, when we crossed the Atlantic the first time! The people speak Portuguese and a smattering of tourist English and French. We get by quite well with our smattering of Spanish.