At the resort

The Arena

The centerpiece of the resort is a 900 m2 circular arena filled with sand. That is enough for 3 beachtennis courts, 3 footvolley or 3 volleyball courts. Professional volleyball players often want a little more space and divide the arena into 2 courts. Of course it could be even crazier; one Olympic field, to prepare in detail for Los Angeles or Brisbane! The field is also suitable for beach handball and beach rugby. Only for beach soccer is the field officially too small.

Around the Arena

All facilities are located around the field, starting with the reception, office, laundry (including for personal clothing), locker rooms with showers and toilets, physical therapy for teams bringing their own staff and a small conference room for meetings and presentations. The coziest room is the “cantina,” half inside, half outside; half canteen, half cocktail bar; half breakfast room, half snack bar. You order a snack and a drink and immediately stand next to the field with your teammates, opponents, coaches, spectators and our staff. At 7 a.m. get a boiled egg there; around midnight we sing the last round. The last part on the first floor consists of the equipment room and the strength room, which overflows to the outside, where you can also shower immediately.

Above the facilities, that is, on the second floor, are 18 hotel rooms. So as soon as you get out of the hotel room in the morning, you look straight down into the arena. Start the day sportily and immediately take a dip in the sand or turn around and dive back into bed for a while. In addition to the circular arena, there is another somewhat smaller playing field; during the day mainly suitable for warm-ups, yoga, or (cardio) boxing and in the evening for entertainment ranging from a DJ, a band, dancing, a movie or a sports game on the screen. Outside the round wall of the sports area is the restaurant with a beautiful terrace This restaurant is for hotel guests as well as tourists and residents of the island. This is the place where you hear or tell how great Santo Antão is, where you absolutely must have been and get to know the inhabitants of the island. When you’re done talking, take a seat on a bed next to the pool. Order what you like, enjoy the sun and then cool off in the pool. The pool is continuously filled with seawater. So no chlorine or other disinfection junk; just fresh water from the sea. Yes, that’s salt, which is why there are showers to rinse off the salt before you reapply. In the evening it gets dark early, earlier than we are used to in summers in Europe. The temperature remains pleasant. Perfect for outdoor dining. From the terrace you look across the sea to the lights of Mindelo on Sao Vicente. If your head is not with the lights of Mindelo, but more with your date of the evening, find a table for two cozily situated in the vegetation along the entrance to the restaurant. You might make even more of an impression than during the day on the sports field.

Around the circle

Surrounding the circle of hotel rooms will be 14 lower-level apartments. Around it, there is still plenty of room for all kinds of sporting activities. It’s still unclear what we will do there, but there are plans for a padel court, an “artificial natural” wind beach volleyball court, where we will control the natural wind, artificially, so that training can be done with side winds, headwinds, tailwinds, an upwind or crosswind, a volleyball court with an indoor floor, and run-up/jump/stroke technique circuit. In addition to this sporting expansion, other ways of spending the night are being considered. Because it rarely rains, we can offer a number of convertible hotel rooms. How exciting is that? You’re never going to see the northern lights with us, but how many stars do you think you can count?