Last two weeks my wife and I visited Sal, one of the Cape Verdean Islands. This is a story about our experiences and mainly about hotel Riu Funana. We had a wonderful trip, we were in general very happy with the hotel and advise everyone to enjoy this wonderful hotel. If anything negative is said, it’s because every wonderful experience has some minor drawbacks. A 10 always can get a 10+ We started in München (MUC) in Germany with TUIFLY 7104. After an hour on Boa Vista to get passengers for the flight back to MUC, we had a flight of about 15 Minutes to Espargos (SID). On arrival on Sal you have to show your passport, a digital facial recognition is made and that’s it. Myths (?). Nobody asks for immigration papers you were told to have with you, nobody wants to know and administrate how much money you have with you (of course you should stay within the max limits, or declare). Above that, every time I paid in Euros, I got the change in Euros. I do advise to have cash in 5, 10 or max 20 Euros bills. Sal is mostly a desert, a lot of sand, no water other than in the sea. Water to use is desalinated seawater, water to drink comes in bottles or containers from an other Island. Obviously there is no food produced on the Island, so it has to be imported from other islands or the mainland (Europe). You are not at home, where everything is highly up to date, here you find low wages and struggle for life. There are very poor places, especially on the outskirts of Espargos, bidonville at its worst. Keep that in mind and you will be pleasantly surprised by what the Island offers you. We stayed in Hotel Riu Funana, one of the many hotels near the town of Santa Maria. Directly next to Riu Funana lies Riu Cabo Verde. The Riu family owns the hotel. They work closely together with TUI (Touristik Union International) which until 2021 owned part of the hotel chain. The TUI bus brought us from the airport to the hotel. The roads are terrible, many holes, also in the “highway”, the other roads, made from little stones are worse. The roads from the hotels to Santa Maria are great. The Main Building of the hotel contains the reception, three restaurants, some bars, a theatre and a disco. The service is very good, everybody is very friendly (more to come) Room We stayed in building 7 room 038, suitable for reduced mobility, my wife uses a wheelchair. The room was spacious enough (who wants to sit in a room?) with a small fridge (only water, the hotel is also for children, so no booze). There is a water heater with loads of tea and coffee to use with mineral water. We never used it; there are enough bars and if you really want or need it, the sports bar is 24/7 open for drinks and some food. The safe in the room is spacious, it even holds a laptop with ease, really great. Speaking about laptops, you can have 4 devices on the Internet free of charge. Internet works everywhere, on the beach not as much (duh). Beware don't use your roaming (stay on flightmodus), it will cost you loads of money. The 5 “houses” are provided with everything needed by using a golf cart, using regular fuel. I’m not a member of the climate religion, but I think this smelly vehicle should be changed for something environmentally friendlier and not only because our terrace was directly next to the door of the building and they kept the motor running, or were braking too late and drove into the wall. Restaurants The main restaurant, Espargos, has everything you need, starting with breakfast over lunch up to dinner at night. The choice of food is large. Next to the area with ready food (at breakfast from bread to cereals, jam, fruit, cake, lovely smoked salmon, cheese, sausage and ham; at lunch and dinner salads, cold meat, fish and desserts) there are three stations with freshly prepared hot products. Cooks are working to provide you with pancakes, donuts, waffles and french toast, several omelettes and eggs in every way you can imagine at breakfast, Italian, fish, vegetables and meat at lunch and dinner. Drinks are self service, but the service will gladly help you if wanted. In and around the restaurant is a large area where you can use your food and drinks. The service at breakfast and lunch is good and helpful. The service at dinner is great. The waiters and waitresses are very fast, super friendly, helpful and still have time for a little chat. We always sat in an area where the wheelchair was easy to handle and were very lucky with Yozi and Barbara, two lovely young ladies who are not only nice to see (they could be my granddaughters!), but were so efficient and observant that they would fit in any high end restaurant in Europe. Being the odd one out in a family of a wife, sons and daughter who studied restaurant and hotel management, that is not an empty statement. Again, keep in mind: the food is not from the island, they are heavily dependent on supplies from far away. The overall quality is good and the choice is rich. Negatives? Well, I think they should cut the meat thicker, as thin as they slice it, it becomes dry. I know it takes more time to prepare, but that minute or so should be an increase in quality. Further, the knives generally are so blunt that they hardly meet their requirements. Nothing to do with the restaurant but really annoying, people who fill their plate with fruit and desserts, take a full glass and then leave without a bite. Two Dutch young ladies talking about starting a hospitality business sitting next to us did that every time, I hope they get a lot of guests like that. Thinking about what I've seen in the suburbs of the capital, Espargos, you would want to spank them. Next to the pool is restaurant Mambana, during the day you can eat there, in the evening you have to make a reservation for the grill. This was really disappointing. The red wine was chilled (!) and watery (the wine in other restaurants was OK), The starters were not very tasty, the chicken in peanut butter sauce never saw a peanut, where was the sauce. De main grill. Well in the Espargos restaurant they use large grill plates to prepare the meat, here they use large plates to grill the meat. The difference is that the thin slices of meat were more black and the meat more dry. The barbecue sauce wasn't there when I came to the grill, there were a lot of signs saying what could be there but wasn't. The grilled potatoes were mainly salty (some condiment they used?). The desserts were the same as in the main restaurant, but with less choice. At the side there were three large chunks of cooked meat (1 kg each?), just an ornament? In contradiction to the main restaurant they know exactly how many guests are coming, but they were not prepared? Next to restaurant Espargos is Mandalay , an Asian restaurant. The food was good and tasty. We are great sushi lovers, so we were surprised to get Nigiri with smoked salmon instead of raw, but can understand the choice as raw salmon is probably hard to get. The “spring rolls” were filled with cheese. As there is enough chicken, bean sprouts, carrots and cabbage and other ingredients on the menu, a rather strange choice. Animation We did not see much of them by day, on different places (we met them at the beach bar, the swimming pool and the san Antao bar) the group did some nice dances (10 minutes), and some aqua aerobics at the pool. In the evening there were shows, we visited two. Let´s be nice, it was not our thing. Trees and shrubs and care, o my. Sand, sun, salt and sea are not the best friends of buildings and plants. People spend all day doing maintenance, sweeping, mopping, taking care of plants, removing leaves from palm trees, repairing paths, you name it. There is an on-site nursery with fresh plants and trees. Hoses run along all the plants and provide water at night. Really wonderful Pool. The Pool area, higher than the rest of the terrain, has 4 entrances, three with stairs, one with a slope to the north of the restaurant Mambana. With the wheelchair the last one was our choice. There are plenty of stretchers in the sun and in the shadow. The pool bar, Mindeloo, was nice, especially when you are in the water. The service is great and friendly. In the afternoon it's often noisy because of the guests with too many drinks. The sea is the better choice then. Water world and beach. There is a main entrance to the hotel and there are two small side exits near each other, one leading to a hotel next door, Riu Palace Santa Maria. All entrances are guarded by security. There is Splash Water World, also for guests of Riu Funana. Many slides and fun for younger people. The second exit to the south leads to the beach, a few hundred metres dirt road between palms, which first leads to the exit of Riu Cabo Verde, the (adults only) sister hotel. There is a toilet which can be used by all hotel guests. The dirt road, getting more sandy, leads to a little bridge. On this road are the travel agencies that want to sell you trips to the rest of the island. After the bridge the track ends for wheels, the sand is soft and warm, so from there it's back or on foot. At the left is the turtle hatchery, where the eggs that turtles lay on the beach in the laying season are saved for predators (and careless tourists), on the right there are beach volleyball fields. Between the palm trees you can lay in the shadow, somewhat further is the place for people who want to get a sunburn and then there is the sea. The beachwatch was very alert and was standing next to us with three men the moment we hit the sea. Having lived near the sea in the Netherlands we are careful enough, but it's nice they are there. BTW, the beach does not belong to the hotels but can be used, with care. Santa Maria, the town nearby (1,5 km). There you find the pier, where the fish is being traded, souvenir Shops all around and people selling trips on the Island. The town has some nice streets to stroll along and beautiful murals. You can walk there from the entrance of the hotel. The first 400 m are terrible when you are on wheels. The little cobblestones lay everywhere they shouldn't, from the roundabout the road is asphalt with a wonderful bicycle road. We left the hotel at the exit to the waterworld, the dirt road is nice to walk and ends up at the mentioned bicycle road at the entrance of the Hotel Riu Palace. After the Hilton you can optionally take a road to the right and come on a walking road along the beach. Excursions: We had an introduction from the TUI host offering us excursions. The prices are high and the only thing they offer extra is some food and drink for double the price you pay with locals. The locals will thank you if you go with them. We were advised to take a private tour (because of the wheelchair) for € 480,--. (Imagine you fly 10.000 K and live 14 days all inclusive for € 250,-- a day) We found a recommendation on the internet months before we travelled to Sal for a local agent called Caramau. He and his wife Michaela gave us the tour of our live for € 150. It was cosy, informative, fitted to our wishes and a wonderful experience.…