However, despite the proximity to the African continent, the Canary Islands have very little of an African feel to them. There are no exotic animals and the gastronomy owes its influence to European settlers, the primitive people who inhabited the island before the conquistadors arrived flashing their blades, and South America. The eastern islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura do have a touch of North Africa about them, especially when you see herds of goats roaming amber, arid hills but generally speaking, there’s no real feel of being close to Africa.

Ironically, the only true connection are the African hawkers peddling sunglasses, handbags and hair-braiding and some tourists moan about their existence.

In a short time we will head about 900 kilometres further south to an archipelago that is actually African, Cape Verde.

It will be our fifth visit to an African country and I’m not sure what to expect or whether I’ll even like the place or not. That might seem like an odd thing to say, but I don’t subscribe to the oft touted belief that if you enjoy travel, you should like everywhere.

In our previous four visits to African soil, our experiences have been mixed. One destination was one of our biggest travel disappointments whilst another rewarded us with the most wondrous travel experiences we’ve enjoyed to date.

Tunisia
Tunisia was many, many years ago and was part of a package holiday. The hotel was comfortable but naff – it was the first time I’d seen people queueing for the dining room to open for dinner. It was also the first time where it felt almost impossible to stroll anywhere without being hassled constantly. I remember taking refuge in a tranquil old fort in Hammamet where we drank mint tea in delicious, hassle-free silence. It wasn’t a holiday I could honestly say we enjoyed, although neither was it without interest.

The Gambia
Our next African jaunt, to the Gambia in West Africa, proved a far more enjoyable and unpredictable experience. We did the usual tourist things – a visit to an African village and to the slowly disappearing James Island. But we were also ‘adopted’ by an African policeman who took us to his village and showed us life away from the tourist enclaves. People who had nothing compared to our western riches treated us with generous hospitality and we shared green tea in a small house whilst children who had never seen anyone as white as us before ran their hands down my hairy shins with wide-eyed wonderment. Places like this humble us.

Kenya
If anywhere leapt over the expectation bar by a mile it was Kenya. Going on safari was the most exciting travel experience we’ve ever been thrilled by. But it was more than bouncing across the red African dust in a Landcruiser spotting animals I’d dreamed of seeing in the wild from an early age. It was Lamu with its dhows laden with spice and rice; or the small plane whose pilot didn’t wear shoes; a trip to ‘who knows where’ with hotel staff to see their friend’s band in a bamboo bar where you bought a bottle of spirits rather than a glass and Masai warriors danced to indie rock; a taxi driver stopping on the way to the airport to buy a huge fish from the roadside; wide smiles in the market; two teenagers who turned their broken down car into a taxi for us when were stranded after dark miles from where we wanted to be. Every little thing seemed an adventure.

And then there was Morocco.

Marrakech was a destination we’d both wanted to visit for a long time. We stayed deep in the medina in the sort of exquisite riad which had formed in our dreams over the years. Our first meal in our riad base lived up to the sort of gastronomic expectations formed by knowing the old streets were home to shops selling spices from vibrant powdery mountains. But Marrakech wore us down. The food in the restaurants was samey and uninspiring. The area immediately around the riad was fine, but every time we ventured closer to the famous Jmaa el-Fna, there was a bombardment of people wanting to show us the right way to go (for a price), act as a guide, take us to a friend’s shop, take us to an attraction… via a friend’s shop. The least hint of uncertainty about where we were going (in the medina maze this happened often) and there was someone instantly on us. It meant walking through the medina could be exhausting and we had a twenty minute journey through it twice a day. We’ve been to other destinations where poverty is an issue, but there was something different about the vibe in Marrakech, something edgy.
We met some great people in Marrakech and it was a fascinating place to visit. But it’s not a destination I would return to in a hurry.

And so our limited experiences of Africa have see-sawed. With what I’ve read so far about Cape Verde and the diversity of its islands, I’ve high hopes this will be one of the more enjoyable varieties of African adventures.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

“What’s your name?” I asked the smiling, pretty girl who’d been persistently offering to show us a good time despite our polite but firm rebuttals.

“Lisa,” she replied.

“As in Lisa Lane?”

She didn’t get it. In fact you’d probably have to be Scottish to get it. Out of the four of us in the group only Lisa and Andy weren’t Scottish. But Andy, being married to me, was sort of honorary Scottish and has Irish roots, so not a massive difference. Three of us laughed. Lisa looked bemused and slightly annoyed. She knew the laughing was connected with her, but she didn’t know why. She left. It was a result.

It was all my fault according to John and Andy. I had managed to pick up a couple of female friends whilst they had visited the loos.

In my mind, they were the ones to blame. Their bladders were clearly not as sturdy as mine and the thirty minute walk from our hotel along the dusty road to the centre of Malindi (or at least the first decent looking watering hole) meant they had left me on my lonesome as soon as we entered the cosy warmth (i.e. sweltering heat) of the unfamiliar bar.

Within seconds I had been approached by a couple of stunning looking local girls who a) told me I was very handsome and then b) expressed genuine distress when they heard I’d be leaving their beautiful Kenya the following day. Nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary, just the usual stuff when I enter a bar (yeah, right).

By the time John and Andy re-appeared from the bamboo lined toilets I had a girl on either arm.

“So who are you with?” One asked Andy, quite prickly that another woman had appeared on the scene. Andy pointed at me. One of the girls huffed and puffed and pouted before toddling off.

Lisa decided to stay.

“No problem (I want to say she said hakuna matata but it wasn’t true), we can all have some fun… together,” she smiled.

I’m not sure, but I didn’t get the impression she was talking about having beer drinking competitions and singing out of date songs at the top of our boozy voices.

The bar was intriguing. In many ways it looked like the sort of establishment you might expect to find in a tropical tourist resort – big and open with lots of bamboo and wicker furniture and a huge rectangular bar  with plenty of bar stools for people who like lounging on bar counters. It was a nice bar. But the clientèle gave it a totally different vibe.

The men were mostly middle-aged and white. The girls who sat with each and every one of them were young and Kenyan. I suppose we could have been jumping to conclusions but I can’t ever remember being in a bar where I’ve seen a girl go up to a stranger, pull down one side of her dress to expose her breast, then take the man’s hand and place it on it (actually I’m lying… might have seen that happen in Doncaster once).

We had a couple more beers as we watched the interaction taking place all around the bar. There was a spellbinding fascination to the place. The male clients didn’t look like tourists; they exuded a familiarity with the scene that suggested they either lived or worked in Kenya.

We stood out like voyeuristic sore thumbs. But it was a pleasant enough place to have a few drinks and once the regulars knew we were only there for the alcohol, we were left alone.

Our new friend John, whom we’d met at the hotel where we were staying, seemed to be the sort of person who is unfazed by anything and suggested we move onto a club we’d spotted next door to the bar.

Where the bar was fascinating but friendly, the club had an intense atmosphere that was uncomfortable. The clientèle were almost identical in their breakdown, but there was a sense that the scene was more serious and a few girls on the dance-floor glared at Andy despite the fact, I have to be diplomatic here, that she had a ‘couple’ of years advantage over them (phew, dangerous waters).

One drink was enough to convince us that this wasn’t a place to hang out if we weren’t there for… err business reasons. It was time to return to our hotel but – and this is where forward planning is always a good idea – there were no street lights and it was pitch black. We couldn’t see the way ahead and there were no taxis. Or, let me re-phrase that, there were no obvious taxis.

Nearby were a couple of teenage boys banging away at a rusty old tin can in the shape of a car.

“You need taxi?” One shouted.

We nodded.

“We have taxi,” he pointed to the tin can.

With no other option available we squeezed into the back of their car. The driver turned the key and the car sort of huffed and wheezed.

“No problem, no problem,” he smiled. “It needs a push.”

The driver’s mate, John and myself jumped out of the car and pushed the reluctant old car into the darkness. After about twenty yards it stopped wheezing and started growling, albeit with the occasional cough and splutter. The boys whooped with delight… and maybe a bit of surprise that it had actually sprung into life.

When we got back to the hotel we paid them an agreed amount, a lot less than an official taxi would have cost, that had them smiling smiles that threatened to split their faces open.

It had been an interesting night in Malindi and our taxi drivers helped end it in suitably off the wall fashion. They were, and still are, the most honest taxi drivers that I’ve encountered.

Off course, the car didn’t start and we had to give them a helping push to get them going again.

On occasions, the mode of transport that we’ve used to get to a new location has added a tasty dollop of exotic spiciness and adventure to the whole experience.

These have been some of our favourite ways to arrive at a destination.

Water Taxis in Symi
Step on board, chill out… and get slightly intoxicated. Getting to remote and idyllic beaches on the Greek Island of Symi involves taking a water taxi from Symi Town. These transported us to picture postcard bays with the most intense cyan seas and where vine-covered tavernas provided respite from an unrelenting Greek sun. The getting drunk part? Too much retsina over long meze lunches mixed with the obligatory ouzos that came as part of the water taxi fare.

River Boat in China
There’s something old school travel about journeying by river boat. Cruising up the Yangtse is one of the world’s great river trips. It provided a fascinating insight into life on a river that turned out to be more industrial than pagodas and pandas. The ridiculously early and jaunty wake-up music that couldn’t be turned off will stay with me forever.

Toyota Land Cruiser in Africa
Travelling between Safari lodges in Tsavo East and Tsavo West in Kenya by a dirty and dusty khaki Toyota Land Cruiser felt much more like the real deal than by one of the zebra mini buses. It was the way to get up close and personal with some local critters.

Luxury Train in Asturias
The most decadently luxurious way I’ve travelled anywhere was on the El Transcantábrico Gran Lujo; a sexy, sleek train that gently rolls along the track through exquisite countryside between San Sebastián and Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. Overwhelming opulence, first class food in first class dining carriages, a disco car and the most sophisticated shower I’ve never been able to figure out made it one of those classic travel experiences.

Fishing Boat on Bute
The last time we visited the Scottish Island of Bute, my birthplace, we did so in the most magical fashion. We sailed from Troon on my brother in law’s fishing boat, a lovely wooden affair that looked like something straight out of Para Handy. We sailed glassy waters through the Kyles of Bute, where basking sharks cruise and wild goats add life to the purple clad hills, for a barbecue on a get-away-from-it-all highland beach. Even though it was April, it was sunny and warm; a minor miracle in the West of Scotland.

By Foot on La Gomera
Let’s not forget arriving somewhere on those trusty plates of meat (feet – if you’re not familiar with Cockney rhyming slang). The two of us, a guide, a mule and a muleteer trekking through the Atlas Mountains to North Africa’s highest Berber village was very Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But the biggest WOW walking moment was when walking between hotels on the Canary Island of La Gomera, checking route directions for Inntravel, we descended a steep merchants’ trail from way up high to the town of Hermigua.

By Classic Car in Barcelona
The most fun mode way to arrive anywhere was during a tapas tour of Barcelona in bright yellow and blue Seat 600s (seiscientos). These little sweethearts turned heads at every bar we parked outside and made much more of an impact than if we’d turned up in a gleaming red Ferrari (which is so yesterday’s way to arrive anyway).

Parachute in Costa Brava
The most relieved I’ve ever been to reach a destination was getting my feet back on Terra firma following a sky dive at Empuriabrava in Costa Brava. Jumping out of a plane and free-falling for 60 seconds before the chute opened and I floated to safety was one of those things that I’m very glad that I’ve done; with the emphasis being on the word ‘done’.

Skimming the Water in a Dhow at Lamu
Arriving on a runway the width of a country lane on Lamu’s neighbouring island in a tiny plane flown by a pilot wearing no shoes was different in itself. But transferring to a small Arab dhow, complete with assorted animals and Hessian sacks filled with rice to glide across the waters to Lamu itself, one gunwale disturbingly level with the water, was just about the most exotic way we’ve arrived anywhere.

The Quintessential Bond Moment – Arriving in Style at Krabi
Still to be outdone though is our transfer to Krabi from Phuket. After being dropped off by a chauffeur driven air-conditioned car at a jetty in the middle of nowhere, a speedboat piloted by an officer in a pristine white uniform was our next mode of transport. Reclining in the back of the boat as we scythed through the water below Krabi’s incredible limestone peaks had that Bond theme off and running big time in my head. The golf buggy transfer to our villa at the Rayavadee Hotel (still the most impressive place we’ve stayed) after stepping off the speedboat (windswept but beaming) finished off this sensational way of turning up at a destination.

It’s the ultimate experience; I never thought for a second I’d get this close. But there’s always that urge to get a little bit closer, I lean forward for a better shot. He roars… very loudly. I retreat… very quickly.

The reality strikes home. This isn’t a zoo. This is his territory. One bound and I’m lunch. I shrink further into the Land Cruiser, respectful of who I’m dealing with here. My whole body tingles with electric excitement.

I expected a Kenyan safari to be good but an imagination fuelled by a childhood diet of old Tarzan movies, Daktari and Out of Africa didn’t come remotely close to preparing me for the real thing.

However, a few days safari in Tsavo East, Tsavo West and Amboseli isn’t all about thrilling, face to face encounters with the ‘Big Five’ and supporting cast.

The Big Five on Safari
First of all there’s the ‘Big Five’ moniker which has dodgy big-game hunting roots and probably deserves to be given a contemporary makeover.  Lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos will always be a ‘wow’ to spot… but a cape buffalo? I’m being animalist here but including the cape buffalo in the big five of safari animals is like including Jedward in a list of the big five of bands. Maybe that’s a bit unfair, a cape buffalo is much more interesting. The cape buffalo should be put out to pasture and replaced by a new kid on the block like the cheetah, or even the deliciously odd looking giraffe.

Waking Up to the Realities of a Safari
The reluctant morning sun casting a hazy mauve glow over the sprawling Africa plains is a sight to behold. However, at 5.30am and 6am, when most safaris start, sleepy eyes can prove remarkably defiant when it comes to being impressed by nature at her glorious best. Attempts to point out the first of the wonderful African world’s early risers are met with a sleepy ‘yeah, right, very nice…zzzz.’

Safari Dust Devils
Next time I go on safari I won’t wear anything white or light coloured. Everything will be the colour of my trusty Camel boots – reddish brown. Because that’s the colour everything ended up anyway – T-shirts, socks, trousers, underwear, skin and camera equipment. Safari equals a lot of dust.

Driving Endlessly
Wild animals being wild animals, they don’t line up conveniently to have their piccies taken. Subsequently searching for them can involve a lot of driving around and peering through binoculars accompanied by excited comments like ‘is that a cheetah over there?’ to which more often than not the guide’s reply will be a weary ‘no, that’s a termite mound.’

The Really Cool Things about Safari
The early rise, long hours of driving and dusty clothes are all forgotten the moment the first ‘big’ animal name is sighted. Herds of zebras and gazelle whet the appetite and then African things will happen; encounters that make each safari a personal and soaring experience that spoils all other travel experiences for a long time afterwards.

Things like the encounter with the male lion blending in so well with the scrub that only an eagle-eyed and highly experienced Kenyan tracker would ever spot him.

Descending through a thicket to a hidden leafy glade where a family of portly hippos wallowed happily in a sun-dappled pond; their big mouths looking like they were smiling with sheer contentment.

Stopping to watch a herd of tiny wild dogs yelp and tease a huge African bull elephant in a David and Goliath encounter where in this case we felt sorry for Goliath.

An ostrich mum with two youngsters in tow zig-zagging cartoon fashion ahead of the Land Cruiser on the dusty, ruddy track.

The graceful yet awkward neck of that most alien of creatures, the giraffe, rising above a baobab tree as the sun sets.

A deafening and unsettling roar that shattered the night as a herd of thirsty elephants descend on a watering hole beside the lodge.

And the cape buffaloes that unexpectedly charged the Land Cruiser as we passed a thicket of tall grasses which acted as a perfect spot in which to hide whilst waiting for any unwitting tourist who dissed their right to still be included in the ‘Big Five’.

Those and a million more little and big experiences make that African safari in Kenya still one of my favourite and most uplifting of travel adventures.

Being still in a trance-like state is the only explanation I can have for why, at some ungodly hour when the dawn chorus was still in the process of clearing its voice, a knock, knock, knock on the window of our hotel room didn’t send me into a blind panic.

Instead of being alarmed because a) someone was knocking on the window and b) the window was on the second storey of the VOI Safari Lodge in Kenya, I grumbled my way out of bed and over to the window and opened the curtains to find myself face to face with a full-sized baboon. The baboon eyed me curiously, tapped the window a couple more times and then swung away to give someone else an early wake up call, leaving me standing open-jawed as my brain caught up with reality.

It was one of the most surreal travelling moments I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing, although trying to eat breakfast a couple of hours later whilst baboons raced through the dining room trying to steal our sausages wasn’t far behind. Some people complained about the ‘cheekiness’ of the baboons but, in our view, if you don’t want to get up close and very personal with some of the local wildlife, what the hell are you doing going on safari in the first place?

That rude awakening wasn’t quite as rude or unnerving as the one experienced by the couple in the room next to us in The Gambia. We were woken by a loud crash followed immediately by hysterical screaming and the unmistakeable sounds of the premises being evacuated pronto. A hulking great six-foot monitor lizard had crawled onto the not very sturdily built roof of the hotel’s apartments, crashed through and landed in bed beside the couple to make up the sort of threesome that is the stuff of nightmares.

The poor thing was probably as shocked as they were. As the big lizards had a habit of crawling across the rooftops it made sleeping after that incident not a very sound business, especially as one of the staff suggested it wasn’t an isolated incident.

In reality these are the sort of deliciously unique travelling moments that we relish, the things that are just so off the wall in their weirdness and that can only happen in wonderfully exotic, far flung places where our sense of what’s the norm and what isn’t is completely turned on its head.

Our baboon experience happened during a Kuoni tailor made package to Kenya that included trips to Tsavo East, Tsavo West, Mombassa, Malindi and Lamu.

My jaw was weakening but the steak wasn’t. An American John Malkovich look-alike (maybe it was John Malkovich), a fellow diner at the hotel in Malindi, noticing my battle with the  particularly stubborn piece of steak leaned over to me and drawled.
“My shoe leather is more tender than that steak. You want to know where you can get a decent meal?”

Two days later I was in a tiny plane flying en route to the old Swahili trading port of Lamu just off the Kenyan coast. I was totally distracted from the epic African views below by a pilot who was barefooted and lounging on his chair with one foot resting on the instrument panel. He could have been nursing a tequila sunrise in a Mombassa beach bar rather than flying a plane. Not only that, the sound coming from his headphones wasn’t the reassuring voices of air traffic control; it was loud African pop music.

After 20 minutes in the company of the most laid back pilot on the planet we gently touched down at the tiny dusty airfield on Lamu’s neighbouring island, Manda before being guided to a waiting African dhow. The dhow’s cargo of steel canisters and sacks of rice caused the boat to list heavily so that the starboard beam was perfectly level with the sea as we crossed the channel between the islands. Visions of the Indian Ocean cascading into the dhow sending us to the bottom of Lamu harbour entered my head. But these guys knew their stuff and within minutes I stepped ashore at Lamu Town.

It was everything I had hoped an Arab trading port would be. Fishermen sat mending nets, small children catapulted themselves, laughing and screaming from canoes into the water and elderly men with equally elderly donkeys transported Hessian sacks to and from the dhows in the harbour.
It was tempting to order a G&T and spend the afternoon sitting on the terrace of the Lamu Palace Hotel watching scenes that had probably changed little since the town was established as an Arab trading port in the 14th century; instead I went for a wander around the town.

Some of Lamu’s streets were so narrow that I could stretch my arms and touch both sides of the peeling plaster walls. In some dark doorways shadowy carpenters sat carving Arabesque furniture; in others silversmiths painstakingly created original jewellery that sparkled so seductively that I bought a pair of unique ‘pure silver’ earrings for a friend (they turned her ears green).
Exploring the maze of alleys I stumbled across the town’s vibrant market with its rows of palm covered stalls displaying brightly coloured mangoes, avocados, custard apples and papayas. Unfortunately I made the mistake of clicking away haphazardly with my camera and was quickly told off by an angry eyed women wearing a black tunic and ivory hijab. Feeling like a culturally ignorant rookie I decided to return to my hotel for dinner.

John Malkovich had recommended the seafood platter so I went along with his advice. What arrived was like no seafood platter I’d eaten before…or since. A huge platter piled high with raw chunks of seafood was deposited on the table. Identification was required and the waiter duly obliged, pointing out two types of crab, shark, lobster, tiger prawns, swordfish and tuna. Once he’d introduced me to the cast of Finding Nemo he set up a mini paraffin burner, which he placed under a deep, heavy pan half filled with oil.
“You’re going to cook all this at the table?” I asked impressed at the idea of such personalised show cooking.
“No sir, you are,” to demonstrate he speared a piece of shark, dipped it into a bowl filled with batter and dropped it in the oil where it bubbled and puffed up into a golden morsel. The batter was crispy and the shark moist and slightly gamey – it was sensational.
“Leave only for a few moments,” He advised then moved away leaving me alone with my platter of all the highlights of the average aquarium.
Following Omar’s example, I began to work my way through the seafood. Everything was beautifully fresh, unsurprising as most had been caught a few hundred yards from where I sat.

After thirty minutes of continuous eating interspersed with numerous mouthfuls of Tusker beer, the seafood mountain still looked virtually untouched. I put my knife and fork down and the waiter was immediately at my side.
“Not finished already sir?” He asked…provocatively I felt.
“Naw, just a rest,” I lied and forced myself to continue for another ten minutes before I could eat no more and had to raise my napkin in surrender.
I sat back and took a long drink of beer. It had been the best meal I’d eaten in Kenya and what’s more, I’d cooked it myself.

He motioned for me to rest a hand on his shoulder and I stood on one leg, balanced on some cut logs like a pink flamingo (a result of the far too casual application of sun cream) whilst he washed the soft sand from my feet.

“He’s the chief of the village,” someone whispered.

I felt uncomfortable at the idea of this important man stooping to wash the feet of a nobody. In truth I felt uncomfortable at the idea of anyone stooping to wash my feet but I figured that it would be insulting to refuse him. So I let the chief carry on bathing my toes.

For some reason he seemed to take a liking to me and stuck by my side as he showed a group of us around his simple Pokomo village tucked away behind the mangroves on the Tana Delta in Kenya. He told us who everyone was, puffing up his chest proudly as he pointed out a son or daughter (of which there were lots) and demonstrated how to turn a handful of reeds into beautiful baskets and floor mats.

At one point we stopped at an umbrella shaped tree where the chief grabbed a few leaves and told me to chew them. Their fresh, tangy flavours were like an explosion of morning sunshine in my mouth and brought back a memory from my youth.

“They taste like Starbursts,” I beamed.

The chief probably didn’t know what Starbursts were, but he was clearly delighted by my wide-eyed reaction. He laughed, slapped me on the back affectionately (I think) and put his arm around my shoulders as we carried on walking through the village. Then came the question that changed everything.

“How many children do you have?” He asked.

“Oh, I don’t have any children.” I answered without hesitation. It was a statement that stopped him dead in his tracks.

“You have no children at all?” He was visibly astonished. I could see any respect he had for me was heading for the exits rapidly. “You have a problem?”

“No, not at all,” I replied, before immediately trying to defend myself by adding. “We enjoy travelling too much…children would restrict that.”

But it was no use. I was a childless man – end of story. In his world that made me about as manly as the toothless granny cackling away (probably at me) in the shaded doorway of one of the village’s mud huts.

The arm around my shoulders was withdrawn quickly and the chief wandered off to find one of the group who actually did measure up to what a man should be. I have to admit to feeling rejected and quite hurt.

If only I’d heard of Thomson’s ‘Couples Only Holidays’ (aka ‘leave your kids at home’ holidays) I could have told the chief a white lie and pretended I was on one of them. And, in the unlikely scenario that he was concerned that leaving the children at home might traumatise them, I would have explained it was character building for my twenty kids and would help prevent them from growing up being over clingy and unable to ever leave the family home. I reckon he would have related to that…and we’d probably still be bezzer mates.

We were on a Kuoni tailor made safari holiday when I let the chief down with my lack of seed sowing. Oddly the price of  a customised, tailor made safari turned out to be slightly cheaper than the packages on offer which was a very pleasant surprise. If you’re interested in having similar experiences, see the Kuoni link on this page.