Sleepy island of dunes you can't ignore

Rusting ship wrecked in 1968 on Santa Maria beach When Christopher Columbus arrived on the island of Boa Vista in 1498, he didn’t like it much.The great explorer was probably a bit cocky having already discovered the New World six years earlier

. Landing on this mass of volcanic rock, 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, must have felt a bit like finding some small change down the back of the sofa after winning the lottery.
But Boa Vista, the third largest island of 10 in Cape Verde, is gaining in currency as a holiday destination.
Thanks to the topography and with temperatures not dropping below 24C, these islands are variously described as the new Caribbean or Canary islands. But they have much more to offer other than a passing resemblance to fellow balmy destinations.
Tourist numbers are rapidly rising - visitors to the archipelago are expected to exceed 1 million annually by 2015 and last year, it made the Lonely Planet’s list of top 10 countries.
And so, accompanied by my girlfriend Helen, I spent a week on Columbus’s cast-off trying to discover what all the fuss is about.
The main attraction is obviously its beaches. Boa Vista has 55km of them, all pristine with impossibly clear, blue tides - often the only visitors are a couple of rutting goats.
There are fewer than 10 hotels dotted around the circumference of the island and many follow a similar format - all-inclusive, with everything necessary to keep guests content for the duration of their stay.
The 16km Lacacao beach is the adopted home of the newly-built Riu Touareg hotel, our accommodation for the week. Resembling a giant sandcastle, it provides guests with exclusive use of the beach. In the south of the island, an 620 sq km area, the hotel is the only civilisation as far as the eye can see.
With an excuse to be sprawling, the hotel accommodates some 1,700 guests and dwarfs many of the villages in the north of Boa Vista. Because water is scarce, it has its own desalination plant and imports most of its food.
Given the Touareg's isolation and the fact that hire cars are not recommended due to the poor quality of the roads, it’s not surprising that sun loungers are a premium.
The hotel has numerous pools, daily activities, tennis courts, football pitches and a watersports centre. The windsurfing is world class too.
We were also treated to some rather quirky entertainment in the evening and a health spa which offers first-class massages. Aside from the main cafeteria, there are three very good themed buffet restaurants and an a la carte section which must be booked three days in advance.
The colourful world beyond the boundaries of the hotel is waiting to be explored - first, the landscape.
Driving north from Lacacao, the ground is so rocky, red and lifeless, it probably has more in common with Mars than anywhere in the West Indies.
This was the main turn off for Columbus though the leper colony he encountered might also have had something to do with the brevity of his stay.
A 4x4 vehicle is generally required wherever you go as many of the roads - including the route from the airport to the hotel - are unfinished and at best, there is a cobbled track in its place.
One rocky road led us to the old capital of Rabil, where locals sit outside their characterful multi-coloured houses in the shade, some selling bananas or clothes, most just talking.

Wandering around Sal Rei, the capital and only town of Boa Vista, you get a feel for Cape Verde's unique culture, which weaves between Africa and Portugal. The islands gained independence from their colonial overlords in 1975.
There is a port and fish market where the locals speak in 'Crioulo' or Creole, though the official language is Portuguese. Women gut the fish with alarming rapidity after the men bring them ashore from their boats. Fishing, along with date farming, is one of the few traditional industries to survive.
Vendors at the souvenir shops revealed an inventive way to sell their wooden carvings and brightly coloured art work - two introduced themselves as Del Boy after discovering I live in the UK.
The locals are laid back - a common catchphrase is ‘no stress’ and can be dropped into a sentence at any stage: ‘No stress, come and do some funana (dancing)’; ‘Where are you from, no stress, do you want to buy a carving?’
The nearby Deserto Viana is characterised by vast windswept dunes and whispering palm trees. North is the Santa Maria beach, named after the Spanish ship that was wrecked here in 1968 and whose rusted frame is still assaulted by the tides.
Many of the island's sights can be seen in a day or two and the barren landscape and lack of access to more remote areas means, for now, it's best to be guided around them.
Last and possibly the most thrilling is a night-time tour to see the loggerhead turtles on the east and southern beaches as they nest in their thousands each year.
There are worries that mass tourism could be a threat to not only the turtle numbers but also the character of the island and, although the infrastructure will doubtless benefit, it would be a huge shame if Boa Vista lost its sleepy charm.
Despite what Columbus thought, this island is now well and truly on the map, no stress.