Sodade is a Cape Verdean Creole word that describes a deep, bittersweet longing for someone, somewhere, or something that is absent. It is more than simply missing someone. It is a mixture of nostalgia, love, loneliness and beautiful memories — a sadness that you don’t necessarily want to get rid of.

I have started to suspect that my holidays are being organised by farm animals.

Last year, I stayed on a donkey farm in the Azores, where my mornings were accompanied by screaming donkeys and church bells. Apparently, God and the livestock had agreed on a joint wake-up service. This year, a rooster has taken over the morning shift on a remote volcanic island in Cape Verde. I don’t know what happened to the donkeys. Perhaps they were promoted.

It all began when the owner of the donkey farm discovered my MasterChef ambitions and started bringing me fresh herbs and vegetables. On my last evening, he invited me to dinner and told me about a wonderful island in Cape Verde. Beautiful, inexpensive, peaceful, with excellent fish. He even knew a French couple who owned a villa there.

Some people book holidays through travel agencies. I apparently rely on agricultural networking.

A year later, here I am. Naturally, getting here involved several countries, planes, trains, buses and an itinerary suggesting that the person responsible should probably not be allowed to travel without adult supervision.

But I had a plan. I always have a plan.

I have also never once followed the original plan on any of my journeys. At this point, I consider it a purely decorative document, rather like the terms and conditions of an insurance policy.

Before leaving Finland, I had made another questionable decision. I joined a dating app. For approximately three days.

Apparently, somewhere between working far too many hours and arranging a journey across Europe and the Atlantic, I had decided that perhaps it was time to introduce another human being into my life.

A bold experiment. Unfortunately, it barely survived Poland.

Warsaw: A Study in Human Evolution

Shortly before take-off, I discovered that my flight was arriving at Warsaw Modlin Airport, not Warsaw Chopin Airport, where I had assumed I was going. The country was correct. The city was technically correct, provided one was generous with geography. Only the airport was wrong.

A minor administrative detail.

Fortunately, I caught the last bus into Warsaw, where I had planned to spend the night at the railway station. This had seemed like an excellent financial decision until I met the other residents.

The station appeared to be operating as an unofficial research facility for the more unpredictable varieties of human behaviour. Several gentlemen interpreted my presence as an invitation to establish diplomatic relations, while others appeared to be conducting private experiments involving alcohol and consciousness. I declined the diplomatic proposals. Repeatedly.

At 4.30 a.m., the café finally opened. I ordered an espresso, then another, and another. Somewhere around the third, my brain achieved a level of clarity normally associated with near-death experiences.

A message appeared on my phone.

I had matched with two perfectly interesting men on the dating app. I had even taken the initiative. Yes. Me.

One of them worked in banking, a respectable profession presumably involving sensible decisions, financial planning and spreadsheets. He wanted to know how wonderfully my morning had started.

How lovely.

I began typing.

Well, actually, I just spent the night at Warsaw railway station after discovering that I’d booked a flight to a completely different airport from the one I thought I was flying to. I narrowly caught the last bus, spent the night avoiding several enthusiastic gentlemen and am currently recovering with my third espresso.

I stopped and looked around the station.

What the actual hell was I doing?

Here was a perfectly respectable man from the banking world, probably enjoying a civilised morning involving a proper bed, a functioning shower and perhaps a thoughtfully diversified investment portfolio. And I was about to introduce myself by explaining that I had accidentally arrived at the wrong airport and spent the night among Warsaw’s more adventurous nocturnal population.

Good morning. I’m an independent, financially questionable woman with a strong interest in railway-station accommodation and agricultural tourism. Shall we meet for coffee?

But the problem wasn’t really my travel arrangements. It was that I had already decided he wouldn’t like me. I had conducted the entire relationship in my head, identified several incompatibilities and terminated it on behalf of both parties.

All before breakfast.

Years ago, someone I was involved with had become thoroughly exasperated with this habit.

“Let me decide for myself whether I like you or not,” he said. “Let me decide what I like about you and what I don’t. Those are my choices. Stop making them for me.”

A perfectly reasonable request, which I had apparently filed away in my extensive collection of useful life lessons and done absolutely nothing with.

I can cross unfamiliar countries alone, sleep at railway stations and arrange holidays through donkey farmers without finding any of it particularly frightening. But allowing another person to decide whether they actually like me? Absolutely not.

Apparently, I am perfectly happy to surrender control of my travel arrangements to circumstances, strangers and farm animals. But when it comes to human relationships, I run a highly centralised dictatorship. No democratic participation. No appeals process.

I deleted the app.

Three espressos. Two potential dates. Zero survivors.

An extremely productive morning.

Then something extraordinary happened. I boarded my train to Berlin and, through an administrative miracle I have absolutely no recollection of performing, discovered that I had booked a remarkably inexpensive first-class compartment.

An entire compartment, just for me. Complimentary coffee and tea, breakfast service, privacy and comfort. Nobody attempting to establish diplomatic relations.

I had gone from surviving the night among the less predictable representatives of humanity to travelling like a minor European aristocrat. It was as though I’d accidentally boarded a spacecraft belonging to a far more advanced civilisation. They had mastered the concept of personal space. They brought me breakfast.

Extraordinary.

Naturally, I slept through most of the six-hour journey. By the time I woke up, I had almost forgiven humanity.

Almost.

Houston, We Have a Problem

In Berlin, I had booked myself into a capsule hotel designed to look like a space station. Not just a bed with a curtain, but a proper little spaceship compartment, complete with futuristic lighting, an electronic control panel and enough buttons to make you feel that you might accidentally launch yourself into orbit while trying to adjust the air conditioning.

It was magnificent, and I had plans. Excellent plans, in fact.

Naturally, I never saw them again.

Instead, I received some news from work. The sort of news that makes you wonder whether the people responsible have ever been introduced to the concept of common sense.

Houston, we have a problem.

Unfortunately, Houston was also the problem.

And then I started crying. Proper crying.

I had travelled all the way to Berlin, one of Europe’s most fascinating cities, and was now spending my day inside a plastic spaceship crying about work. What an absolutely magnificent use of international travel.

Some people come to Berlin for the history, some for the nightlife, some for the music. I apparently came to conduct a full-scale emotional breakdown in a simulated space station.

The most ridiculous part was that I knew exactly how absurd it was. I had just spent a night at Warsaw railway station, deleted two potential relationships after three espressos and travelled to Berlin in a private first-class compartment like a minor European aristocrat. Now I was lying inside a plastic capsule crying over the administrative behaviour of adults.

I felt spectacularly stupid. Not because I was upset — the situation was genuinely upsetting — but because the setting was so completely, gloriously ridiculous.

At some point, I began to wish the control panel had an emergency function. Not for oxygen. For common sense.

Sadly, none was available.

Eventually, I decided that I had conducted enough research into the darker corners of professional communication. I climbed out of my spacecraft, squeezed myself into a shower cubicle approximately the size of a domestic refrigerator and washed off what remained of my emotional breakdown.

Then I went looking for the best brunch Berlin could offer.

I ordered the three essential liquids required for human survival: coffee, orange juice and sparkling wine. Caffeine to restart the system, vitamin C to maintain the illusion of responsible adulthood, and sparkling wine because after that particular episode, plain water seemed hopelessly inadequate.

I sat there with my three glasses, looking remarkably like a woman who had everything under control. One of my more convincing performances.

The spacecraft had been repaired. The astronaut had been showered, caffeinated and lightly fortified with bubbles. The problems remained on Earth.

Unfortunately, so did my employment contract.

But I was ready for take-off. Again.

Welcome to Mars

A little later, I finally arrived in Cape Verde.

And apparently, I had landed on Mars.

Bare volcanic mountains, enormous empty spaces, winding roads and little villages that seemed to have been dropped into the middle of a geological experiment.

Somewhere among all this magnificent geological hostility was my villa. A beautiful, peaceful place overlooking the Atlantic, with a hammock, a terrace and a rooster who had apparently signed a permanent contract as my personal alarm clock.

No timetable, no meetings, no complicated explanations. Just me, some books, a few mini Super Bocks and the Atlantic Ocean.

Exactly what I needed.

There was also a green Suzuki Jimny, a proper little four-wheel-drive vehicle that seemed like an excellent choice for an island consisting largely of volcanic mountains and roads designed by somebody who considered gravity an optional inconvenience.

The car has five gears. I have yet to discover what the last two are for. I suspect they were included as decorative features, perhaps for use on other planets where roads have evolved beyond the vertical stage.

Most of my driving has involved negotiating bends, climbing hills and deciding whether the next corner requires second gear, first gear or a short prayer. At one point, I began to wonder whether the Jimny was actually a vehicle or a small mechanical mountain goat. Either way, it seemed considerably better adapted to the local environment than I was.

And then came my first serious obstacle on the mountain road.

Donkeys.

Of course.

I had travelled halfway across Europe and the Atlantic, following a holiday recommendation from a donkey farmer, only to find myself negotiating right of way with his colleagues on a volcanic mountain.

Apparently, the entire donkey community had been informed of my arrival.

They were in no particular hurry to let me through. Neither was I, as it turned out. I was still waiting for an opportunity to use fourth gear.

Once again, I was reminded of my extremely selective understanding of danger. A road disappearing around a volcanic mountain with a rather ambitious relationship to the laws of physics? Lovely. Let’s see where it goes.

A man asking whether I’d like to meet for coffee?

Absolutely not. Far too risky.

Perhaps the dating app should have included a four-wheel-drive option.

In Search of a Distant Voice

Nino, who looks after the villa, has promised to bring me a fish he’s caught. He catches the fish. I pretend to be a celebrity chef. Everybody wins.

Except possibly the fish.

Today was supposed to be a beach day. The beach is approximately 50 metres away.

Apparently, an insurmountable distance.

Instead, I have spent the entire day lying in a hammock, reading In Search of a Distant Voice by Taichi Yamada and drinking coffee. And although it’s still ridiculously early in the afternoon, I’ve decided to have a beer.

Because nobody is here to stop me.

In the book, I came across a haiku:

Turn to face this way —
Mine as well, this loneliness
The end of autumn.

Well, there it is.

Perhaps it would be rather nice to have someone here after all. Unfortunately, my current recruitment policy involves rejecting applicants before they’ve even been interviewed.

I suppose I should reconsider. Eventually.

For now, I have a beer to drink, a book to finish and a beach 50 metres away that I fully intend to continue ignoring.

Besides, there is already one male in my life who insists on getting my attention every morning.

Unfortunately, he’s a rooster.