Winter Sun at Riu Touareg – TUI Day trip (well, night trip)

Our travel agent, Tui, have a variety of excursions advertised for your stay in Boa Vista and the welcome talk from one of their seven reps based in our hotel, gave us an overview of what is available. Most tours weren’t really that interesting to us. Beach days on the West Coast, where the sea is a bit calmer, quad bike or 4x4 tours of the island just sounded bumpy, uncomfortable and a bit close to other people. But one did sound a bit different and piqued our interest.

"Desert Delight" is described as a trip to the desert to have a meal and do some star gazing. We didn’t get much more information, but the night sky we had seen so far near the hotel had been great, due to minimal light pollution, so if we were even further away from the towns and artificial light, it would be amazing. I had a bit of practice with my camera beforehand, as I hadn’t done photos of stars before, but had always wanted to get some of the epic shots you see. The day of our trip arrived and it just happened to be on the night of a meteor shower. We were picked up at reception at 18:45 and were told it would take about 25 minutes to get there.

I was a bit confused when we headed back towards the airport and main town as I expected to go to some remote location, I was also a bit worried as it was cloudy. We did head into the centre of the island a little from the city, but I think our hotel has less light pollution as it is so remote. But we are talking in relative terms to the light pollution on the island, but this is still way less than the light pollution found back in the UK, so it was still going to be great conditions for star gazing. We arrived at the restaurant and followed the beautiful candle-lit path to the main door. We were given a nice welcome drink and told to find a table. There was a singer and guitarist playing when we arrived, so we sat at a table near the door. (I struggle hearing when there is background noise, so this seemed the best spot) Someone came on the microphone and introduced the team that would be looking after us for the night. The wait staff then made their rounds to get drink orders from everyone.

You have one drink included in the fee you paid so if you want any others, take some Euros with you. The drinks on offer were beer, wine, water and sodas. Once the drinks were all handed out, the room of about 40 people was split in half. One would go out to use the telescopes and look at the stars, while the others got their food and then the groups would switch. I was in the group to go outside first.

They had one of the telescopes set up to look at Saturn which was so clear you could see the rings and another telescope that they pointed at a different nebula. and showed us what the telescope was pointing at on a tablet. The Orion nebular was my favourite as it was so clear, it looked like a big explosion of light amongst the stars. The team also had laser pointers that they used to point out the different planets and main constellations in the area. While standing there the brightest shooting star I have ever seen flew across the sky. It went so far and was so clear I even heard some people saying it was obviously a set-up for us :) I'm not sure how they thought the staff there had managed it, but it made me laugh. It was the first of many shooting stars of the night but it was the biggest.

You can see Orion's belt really clearly from the Island (towards the left of the photo) = the three stars in a line to the left of this photo one above the other, the stack leaning slightly to the left.

We then moved in to have some food. They had chicken, roasted vegetables, fish, pork skewers, a couscous dish that most people avoided for some reason, but I tried it and it was really tasty, and salad. I think everyone would be able to find something they like, and it was all really well cooked. A little later they brought out some dessert of crème caramel, some biscuits (I didn’t get to see these as everyone must have thought they looked good) and a homemade pudding. Again people seemed to avoid this as it didn’t have a label. It was delicious though, a mix of ice cream and fine crumbled-up digestive biscuits, give it a go if you visit. The moral of the story, I think, is always try a tiny bit. If you don't like it fine, very little is wasted, but if you do like it, wow! go back and get a bit more. Yum! Travel is all about trying new things, some we will like, some we won't, but we will only know if we keep an open mind.

The purple on the left is from the laser pointer the team use to point out the constellations. I liked the effect it had on the photo.

After all the food (and cups of coffee also included) everyone headed outside. The team showed some more constellations, and handed out blankets. We took a short walk (over loose sand) to the sheltered spot they have nearby to lie under the stars. We were then asked to not use any white light (phones etc), so that everyone’s eyes could really adjust to the dark and see the many stars overhead. The staff led the way with some red lights, which don't affect your night vision. We were in a slight valley between dunes. so most of the light pollution from the towns was blocked causing little halos around the dune and it was nice to be able to lie and relax under the stars without freezing (even in summer in England I would be too cold to sit out). The moon wouldn’t rise until about midnight that night, so we had a really good view and the cloud cover did clear for most of the time we were on the trip. Gazing at the stars in those conditions was amazing! I recommend it. Zero stress and very relaxing. After about 20 minutes to half an hour, all of us then returned to the restaurant and handed in our blankets, before returning to the buses. There wasn’t really a goodbye from the team, so people sort of shuffled off not knowing if they should be leaving, but overall it was a really nice night. I didn't get a chance to say thank you to the team at the restaurant, so I will say thank you here instead.

I thought this trip was well worth the money if you are interested in this kind of thing and the food was simple, but very tasty.

TIP - It is cooler in the dunes at night, so I wore jeans, proper shoes and a jumper and coat. I really feel the cold, so knew I would need it. Others were in shorts and t-shirts, but they did look a little chilly and quickly wrapped themselves in the blankets provided.