The weather was amazing the whole time we were there, it was always between 26-31 degrees celsius. With hot weather comes lots of flies, which is to be expected as it is Africa and nothing can really be done about it. It didn't ruin our holiday at all, despite what I'd seen on TripAdvisor before we went. For the evenings and nights, I'd say it is essential that you take high repel spray and mosquito bands, which we used throughout our holiday. I was only bitten once using all of these! The final thing I would mention about Cape Verde is the currency. The country's currency is Escudos, but they are not available to exchange outside of Cape Verde, so we just used Euros.
There is entertainment every evening which is either a show or live music. On the night we arrived, The Lion King was on but we were too tired from the travelling to watch. In the hotel reception there is a sign telling you what entertainment is on each evening.
At the beginning of the holiday we found it impossible to get a sunbed by the pool, but after a few days it got easier as the hotel was a bit quieter. You don't have to pack your own beach towel for this hotel, they are provided. You are given a card each to exchange for a pool towel and you can exchange them twice a day, which is great when they're wet and/or sandy! Because we had a late departure from the hotel, we asked to keep our towels until we left and we just had to pay a 10€ deposit each. The swimming pool itself was amazing and so clean - we loved the swim-up pool bar, it's great not even having to get out of the pool to get a drink.
Everyday there is a cocktail of the day, one alcoholic and one non-alcoholic. A few they had to offer were Sex on the Beach, Pina Colada and Frozen Raspberry Daiquiri. We drank plenty of Sex on the Beach while we were there, they were so nice.
As I previously mentioned, we had a late departure from the hotel and spent all day in and by the pool. There is a left luggage room, which comes in very handy as you don't want to have to keep an eye on all of your stuff and lug it around with you. There are also two male and two female shower rooms so you can freshen up before your long flight home, it was lovely to be able to shower the pool water and suncream off.
Restaurant Tabanka is the buffet restaurant, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is served from 7-10am and there's a lot of choice. To name a few options there is cereal, pancakes, omelettes made-to-order, churros, waffles, bacon, egg, bread, croissants, fruit, juices and strange tasting sausage. There was also a door hanger with a breakfast form on in the hotel room in case you wanted breakfast in bed. Lunch is served from 12:30-3pm. We didn't notice much of what was available for lunch as we didn't have a big lunch at all, but there was always chips, pasta, chicken, pork and bread available. Dinner is served from 6:30-10pm and there were similar options to lunch as well as crispy chicken, tuna steaks and sweet potato. There was a bar inside this restaurant where you could get bottles of water, fizzy drinks and Strela, Cape Verdean beer, which is actually quite nice!
By the pool there's a restaurant that has two menus, Batuko and Pano di Terra. Batuko is a grill menu and you could get pork, chicken, lobster and more, this serves food from 12:30-3pm and 6:30-10pm. Pano di Terra is a pizza menu and as well as pizzas you could get toasties, this serves food from 12-3:30pm and 5:30-10pm. The bar by the restaurant is open from 8am-12am.
There was a lot of food available between and after meal times too. You could get ice cream, which was two scoops in a cup, we didn't actually have any but noticed vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
The Turtle Watch is held on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday and they pick you up from the hotel reception at 9pm. They take you on a mini bus as a small group, just a warning it's a very rocky drive to get there and back, which isn't pleasant! It was incredible to see turtles in 'the wild', we saw 3 going back into the water after they'd laid eggs, one of which we saw laying the eggs. I can't remember the name of the tour guide but he was great and seemed really enthusiastic! Earlier in the day we had walked to the Riu Funana hotel to see their turtle hatchery, my advice would be don't walk along the beach, it's a very hot and long walk.
The Island Tour is held on a Monday and they picked us up at 8:30am. We went to Palmeira (a fishing village), up a small mountain, to see the buracona and the blue eye, we also went to Espargos, to the Salinas at Pedra de Lune and to see a mirage. We had a buffet lunch whilst we were in Espargos at Restaurante Universo, there was some traditional Cape Verdean food, but also chicken, white rice, chips and salad. You also got one drink with your meal. It wasn't that tasty but it filled us up until we could get food back at the hotel.
We also went to the Sunset Beach Dinner at Odgo d'Agua which was fun and the food was good. There was fish, pork and chicken on the BBQ and then you could add to your meal with the buffet, which included sweet potato, rice, sausage, salad and bread. You got two drinks included with your meal. For dessert there were two types of cakes and some fruit. Whilst we were eating, there was live music which was a mixture of English and Cape Verdean songs. After our main, there was a fire eater which was really fun to watch. Afterwards, we watched Cape Verdean dancing and then had a go ourselves on the stage, which was enjoyable.
I hope this post has given you a bit of an insight into Sal and the Oasis Salinas Sea hotel. We had the most amazing time on our first holiday together in Cape Verde and loved the hotel we stayed in. We met incredible people on holiday, who made our holiday even better.
