Africa Princess Cruise, 1º Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Towards Canhambaque, through the History of Guinea Bissau


Twilight of the Weavers
The Ilhéu dos Porcos
The Ancient Capital
Amilcar Cabral Forever
ladies on the knee
The Old Hospital of Bolama
Tropical Barracks
Africa Princess in Canhambaque
Mr. Cape Verdean Cico
On the rice trail
Waiting for the Sunset
On my way
Ulysses Grant (the replica statue)
Mussolini's Crown
Arrival of the canoe “Mandon”
Bar Canema
The Africa Princess departs from the port of Bissau, downstream the Geba estuary. We make a first stopover on the island of Bolama. From the old capital, we proceed to the heart of the Bijagós archipelago.

From the upper deck, we appreciate the busy day-to-day between the colorful and colonial houses of Bissau and the pier.

Owners and workers cram a few cargo canoes. Lorries unload the one with which they entered the port. Boats arrive from Bubaque and from different stops in Bijagós. Others go there.

With all passengers on board, the Africa Princess inaugurates its itinerary through the vast Guinean archipelago, aimed at Ilha de Galinhas and Canhambaque.

We carry out a quick transfer to one of your support boats and a providential diversion.

We move away from the islet of the King and the city. Heading southwest, we bid farewell to the Turkish generator ship “metin bey” that keeps her energized.

We cross the line of schism between the waters of the Geba and those of the Atlantic that the difference in density and salinity separates.

On the Bolama Route

We are approaching the south bank of the Geba. We skirt the peninsula of Ilhéu do Mancebo and follow the floodplain east of Bolama.

We sailed along a treacherous route, full of shallows that the centuries-old silting continues to aggravate and where, a month later, aboard an overcrowded traditional canoe, we would run aground.

Protected by the lightness of the speedboat and the sea beach, we avoid the worst of the sandy coast. We zigzag down the channel, towards the Rio Grande de Buba, despite the name, a Benjamin brother of Geba.

As happened with the Portuguese and with Bolama, we are left between the two.

When we disembarked onto the high jetty along Av. Amílcar Cabral, the sun has barely come down from its zenith. Residents shelter in their homes.

Or in the shade of the hyperbolic trees that refresh the city's riverfront. As we approach the real terra firme, Bolama shows signs of life.

Dª Ermelinda, a vegetable seller, greets us from whom, conversation leads to conversation, without quite knowing how, we buy a few cucumbers.

Almost as innocently, next door, Bolama preserves what many consider one of the few surviving fascist monuments.

Mussolini's Memorial to the Fallen Aviators in Bolama

Almost a decade had passed since the success of the duo Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in the pioneering air crossing of the South Atlantic.

Infected by Mussolini's delusions of grandeur, Air Minister and pilot-general Ítalo Balbo planned the crossing of ten planes, divided into four squadrons and in formation, between Italy and Rio de Janeiro.

Having overcome several tribulations, the planes regrouped in Bolama, on Christmas Day. There they were celebrated by a ship of the Italian navy.

At dawn on January 6, 1930, Ítalo Balbo dictated the match. Two of the planes suffered accidents on take-off. Five airmen perished. Nevertheless, Ítalo Balbo forced the follow-up of the expedition.

In December 1931, Mussolini ordered the erection, in Bolama, of the memorial that surprises anyone who visits the city. It is shaped like two wings, one broken, the other raised to the heavens.

It is complemented by a laurel wreath and the inscription “Al Cadutti di Bolama".

Bolama Island and the Legacy of the Former Colonial Capital

We left Dª Ermelinda at the foot of the old memorial. We continue to discover the city. A few meters into the island, we are facing the Governor's Palace, today occupied by the Guinean military.

Some of them, talking, sitting on low chairs.

We greet them and two young men, presumably civilian military personnel, who face each other on a large yellow-checkered board, with the caption, in Creole, “Bópapiamas Stadium”.

We appreciate the welcome from the military. After that, we go up to Av. Amilcar Cabral.

At that hot hour, the main artery of the city remains almost deserted. As we examine the architecture Art Deco styles of the old cinema, three or four pigs cross it.

On the opposite side of the street, a mural depicts the leader of the PAIGC, Amílcar Cabral, the martyred protagonist of Guinea Bissau's independence course.

Ali, owner of a Pepsodent-like smile.

We continued to climb. After the “Som das Ilhas” discotheque, in the heart of an open square covered by dry bushes, we are surprised by a shining silver statue.

Ulisses Grant and the Complicated “Question of Bolama”

It honors US President Ulisses Grant, whom Portugal thanked for the verdict that resolved the complex “Questão de Bolama”.

At a certain point, the legitimate possession of the island of Bolama, settled between Portugal and the United Kingdom, almost led the old allies to go to war. Grant favored Portugal.

Even so, in 2007, its original homage disappeared.

The severed bronze statue was later found on the land of Commander Alpoim Galvão, mentor of the famous “Operation Mar Verde” which sought to control Guinea Conakry in order to eradicate the political-military opposition of the PAIGC to Portuguese colonial rule.

At the time the statue disappeared, Alpoim Galvão was a businessman based in Guinea Bissau.

The statue we admired there was nothing more than a replica.

The domain of Ulisses Grant is succeeded by Praça do Império, which the former American President validated as Portuguese, instead of British.

Slender goats and sheep roam the central garden, in search of plant snacks, on the face closest to the Military Police, the Catholic Church and even in a few bushes that emerge from the columned front of the imposing and ruined city hospital.

From there, we can still see the old military training center barracks, abandoned to time, to termites and the tentacular roots of prickly pear trees and the like.

Africa Princess heads to Canhambaque, via Ilhéu dos Porcos

An hour and a half had passed since the first steps in Bolama. Pinto, the bijagó guide in charge of the group, dictates the return to the boat. We fulfilled it, aware that Bolama deserved more time and attention.

And that we would go back there.

When we arrive at the starting point, the jetty is given over to a colorful and frenetic crowd. A canoe from Bissau had just docked. Dozens of passengers greeted those who came to receive them.

They disputed the unloading of their belongings among the many loads accumulated inside the vessel.

Without anyone expecting it, to reach the launch, we have to face the confusion and go around the canoe.

It takes what it takes.

As soon as he sees us on board, Charlesmagne, the Senegalese sailor and diola responsible for navigation, sets sail at full speed, heading southwest and towards the islands of Porcos and Canhambaque. Somewhere over there, the Africa Princess was waiting for us for the night.

Canhambaque is in full view, with the sun dropping to the opposite side of the island.

We disembarked on a neighboring strip of sand that the falling tide was increasing.

We bathe and relax along this striated extension of the Ilhéu dos Porcos.

Rice fields in the north of Canhambaque Island

When the sun begins to turn yellow on the horizon, we cross to the eastern tip of Canhambaque, the island where Pinto was a native, where he knew every nook, cranny and, we can say, all the inhabitants.

We overcame a first muddy coastline. Soon, we climbed from the wet sand to a wide section of the island full of dry rice paddies, not wetlands.

Pinto leads us along a trail parallel to the bottom of the island, destined for Inorei, the main village in the far north of Canhambaque.

Along the trail, we stop at some of the huts that the natives used to live in, tasked with protecting and processing the rice that fed them.

When we say “protect”, we are far from exaggerating.

Canhambaque was the fifth big Bijagó island that dazzled us, after the first-time landing on small Kéré and the raid on Orango, in search of archipelago hippos.

In the image of Caravela and Carache, palm trees with bare tops abounded there, with the fruits that yield palm oil and wine exposed. Palm trees that also hosted hundreds of nests of opportunistic weavers.

If the rice-growing people of the Bijagós stole a good part of the islands' trees from the birds, the weavers, in particular, proliferated with an inevitable revenge.

They inhabited the palm trees that dotted the rice paddies. Whenever the cultivators raised their guard, they raided the rice in large, hungry bands.

Unsurprisingly, in Canhambaque, as in all Bijagós, the natives abhor birds that they stone and chase away in every possible way.

We chat with elderly natives when, finally, the sun sets in the west of the island. Its glowing circle falls between the trunks of the surviving palm trees.

Capture us with their silhouettes, dotted with the straw nests with which the weavers decorate them.

From an exuberant fire, the west of Canhambaque turns to the dark blue of the afterglow.

Even though he feels he is one of his own, Pinto fulfills his duty to collect us.

That night, as on the following ones, we would call the Bijagós adventurer boat home.

HOW TO GO:

fly with the euroatlantic , Lisbon-Bissau and Bissau-Lisbon, on Fridays.

“AFRICA PRINCESS” CRUISE

Book your cruise through the Bijagós archipelago at: africa-princess.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +351 91 722 4936

Africa Princess Cruise, 2º Orangozinho, Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Orangozinho and the Ends of the Orango NP

After a first foray to Roxa Island, we set sail from Canhambaque for an end of the day discovering the coastline in the vast and uninhabited bottom of Orangozinho. The next morning, we sailed up the Canecapane River, in search of the island's large tabanca, Uite.
Bubaque, Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

The Portal of the Bijagós

On the political level, Bolama remains capital. In the heart of the archipelago and in everyday life, Bubaque occupies this place. This town on the namesake island welcomes most visitors. In Bubaque they are enchanted. From Bubaque, many venture towards other Bijagós.
Tabato, Guinea Bissau

The Tabanca of Mandinga Poets Musicians

In 1870, a community of traveling Mandingo musicians settled next to the current city of Bafatá. From the Tabatô they founded, their culture and, in particular, their prodigious balaphonists, dazzle the world.
Tabato, Guinea Bissau

Tabatô: to the Rhythm of Balafom

During our visit to the tabanca, at a glance, the djidius (poet musicians)  mandingas are organized. Two of the village's prodigious balaphonists take the lead, flanked by children who imitate them. Megaphone singers at the ready, sing, dance and play guitar. There is a chora player and several djambes and drums. Its exhibition generates successive shivers.
Kéré Island, Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

The Little Bijagó that hosted a Big Dream

Raised in Ivory Coast, Frenchman Laurent found, in the Bijagós archipelago, the place that enraptured him. The island he shares with his Portuguese wife Sónia accepted them and the affection they felt for Guinea Bissau. Kéré and the Bijagós have long enchanted visitors.
Kéré Island to Orango, Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

In Search of the Lacustrine-Marine and Sacred Bijagós Hippos

They are the most lethal mammals in Africa and, in the Bijagós archipelago, preserved and venerated. Due to our particular admiration, we joined an expedition in their quest. Departing from the island of Kéré and ending up inland from Orango.
Varela, Guinea Bissau

Dazzling, Deserted Coastline, all the way to Senegal

Somewhat remote, with challenging access, the peaceful fishing village of Varela compensates those who reach it with the friendliness of its people and one of the stunning, but at risk, coastlines in Guinea Bissau.
Elalab, Guinea Bissau

A Tabanca in the Guinea of ​​Endless Meanders

There are countless tributaries and channels that, to the north of the great Cacheu River, wind through mangroves and soak up dry land. Against all odds, Felupe people settled there and maintain prolific villages surrounded by rice fields. Elalab, one of those villages, has become one of the most natural and exuberant tabancas in Guinea Bissau.
Believers greet each other in the Bukhara region.
City
Bukhara, Uzbequistan

Among the Minarets of Old Turkestan

Situated on the ancient Silk Road, Bukhara has developed for at least two thousand years as an essential commercial, cultural and religious hub in Central Asia. It was Buddhist and then Muslim. It was part of the great Arab empire and that of Genghis Khan, the Turko-Mongol kingdoms and the Soviet Union, until it settled in the still young and peculiar Uzbekistan.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beaches
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

The Hidden Mozambique of the Creaking Sands

During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
Hippopotamus moves in the flooded expanse of the Elephant Plain.
safari
Maputo National Park, Mozambique

The Wild Mozambique between the Maputo River and the Indian Ocean

The abundance of animals, especially elephants, led to the creation of a Hunting Reserve in 1932. After the hardships of the Mozambican Civil War, the Maputo PN protects prodigious ecosystems in which fauna proliferates. With emphasis on the pachyderms that have recently become too many.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 3rd- Upper Banana, Nepal

An Unexpected Snowy Aurora

At the first glimmers of light, the sight of the white mantle that had covered the village during the night dazzles us. With one of the toughest walks on the Annapurna Circuit ahead of us, we postponed the match as much as possible. Annoyed, we left Upper Pisang towards Escort when the last snow faded.
Visitors at Talisay Ruins, Negros Island, Philippines
Architecture & Design
Talisay City, Philippines

Monument to a Luso-Philippine Love

At the end of the 11th century, Mariano Lacson, a Filipino farmer, and Maria Braga, a Portuguese woman from Macau, fell in love and got married. During the pregnancy of what would be her 2th child, Maria succumbed to a fall. Destroyed, Mariano built a mansion in his honor. In the midst of World War II, the mansion was set on fire, but the elegant ruins that endured perpetuate their tragic relationship.
lagoons and fumaroles, volcanoes, PN tongariro, new zealand
Aventura
Tongariro, New Zealand

The Volcanoes of All Discords

In the late XNUMXth century, an indigenous chief ceded the PN Tongariro volcanoes to the British crown. Today, a significant part of the Maori people claim their mountains of fire from European settlers.
Burning prayers, Ohitaki Festival, fushimi temple, kyoto, japan
Ceremonies and Festivities
Kyoto, Japan

A Combustible Faith

During the Shinto celebration of Ohitaki, prayers inscribed on tablets by the Japanese faithful are gathered at the Fushimi temple. There, while being consumed by huge bonfires, her belief is renewed.
EVIL(E)divas
Cities
Male Maldives

The Maldives For Real

Seen from the air, Malé, the capital of the Maldives, looks little more than a sample of a crammed island. Those who visit it will not find lying coconut trees, dream beaches, spas or infinite pools. Be dazzled by the genuine Maldivian everyday life that tourist brochures omit.
Obese resident of Tupola Tapaau, a small island in Western Samoa.
Lunch time
Tonga, Western Samoa, Polynesia

XXL Pacific

For centuries, the natives of the Polynesian islands subsisted on land and sea. Until the intrusion of colonial powers and the subsequent introduction of fatty pieces of meat, fast food and sugary drinks have spawned a plague of diabetes and obesity. Today, while much of Tonga's national GDP, Western Samoa and neighbors is wasted on these “western poisons”, fishermen barely manage to sell their fish.
khinalik, Azerbaijan Caucasus village, Khinalig
Culture
Chinalig, Azerbaijan

The Village at the Top of Azerbaijan

Set in the rugged, icy 2300 meters of the Great Caucasus, the Khinalig people are just one of several minorities in the region. It has remained isolated for millennia. Until, in 2006, a road made it accessible to the old Soviet Ladas.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Sport
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
Cable car connecting Puerto Plata to the top of PN Isabel de Torres
Traveling
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

The Dominican Home Silver

Puerto Plata resulted from the abandonment of La Isabela, the second attempt at a Hispanic colony in the Americas. Almost half a millennium after Columbus's landing, it inaugurated the nation's inexorable tourist phenomenon. In a lightning passage through the province, we see how the sea, the mountains, the people and the Caribbean sun keep it shining.
Colonial Church of San Francisco de Assis, Taos, New Mexico, USA
Ethnic
Taos, USA

North America Ancestor of Taos

Traveling through New Mexico, we were dazzled by the two versions of Taos, that of the indigenous adobe hamlet of Taos Pueblo, one of the towns of the USA inhabited for longer and continuously. And that of Taos city that the Spanish conquerors bequeathed to the Mexico, Mexico gave in to United States and that a creative community of native descendants and migrated artists enhance and continue to praise.
sunlight photography, sun, lights
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Natural Light (Part 2)

One Sun, So Many Lights

Most travel photos are taken in sunlight. Sunlight and weather form a capricious interaction. Learn how to predict, detect and use at its best.
António do Remanso, Quilombola Marimbus Community, Lençóis, Chapada Diamantina
History
Sheets of Bahia, Brazil

The Swampy Freedom of Quilombo do Remanso

Runaway slaves have survived for centuries around a wetland in Chapada Diamantina. Today, the quilombo of Remanso is a symbol of their union and resistance, but also of the exclusion to which they were voted.
Efate, Vanuatu, transshipment to "Congoola/Lady of the Seas"
Islands
Efate, Vanuatu

The Island that Survived “Survivor”

Much of Vanuatu lives in a blessed post-savage state. Maybe for this, reality shows in which aspirants compete Robinson Crusoes they settled one after the other on their most accessible and notorious island. Already somewhat stunned by the phenomenon of conventional tourism, Efate also had to resist them.
Northern Lights, Laponia, Rovaniemi, Finland, Fire Fox
Winter White
Lapland, Finland

In Search of the Fire Fox

Unique to the heights of the Earth are the northern or southern auroras, light phenomena generated by solar explosions. You Sami natives from Lapland they believed it to be a fiery fox that spread sparkles in the sky. Whatever they are, not even the nearly 30 degrees below zero that were felt in the far north of Finland could deter us from admiring them.
Kukenam reward
Literature
Mount Roraima, Venezuela

Time Travel to the Lost World of Mount Roraima

At the top of Mount Roraima, there are extraterrestrial scenarios that have resisted millions of years of erosion. Conan Doyle created, in "The Lost World", a fiction inspired by the place but never got to step on it.
Train Kuranda train, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Nature
Cairns-Kuranda, Australia

Train to the Middle of the Jungle

Built out of Cairns to save miners isolated in the rainforest from starvation by flooding, the Kuranda Railway eventually became the livelihood of hundreds of alternative Aussies.
Girl plays with leaves on the shore of the Great Lake at Catherine Palace
Autumn
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Golden Days Before the Storm

Aside from the political and military events precipitated by Russia, from mid-September onwards, autumn takes over the country. In previous years, when visiting Saint Petersburg, we witnessed how the cultural and northern capital was covered in a resplendent yellow-orange. A dazzling light that hardly matches the political and military gloom that had spread in the meantime.
Mangrove between Ibo and Quirimba Island-Mozambique
Natural Parks
Ibo Island a Quirimba IslandMozambique

Ibo to Quirimba with the Tide

For centuries, the natives have traveled in and out of the mangrove between the island of Ibo and Quirimba, in the time that the overwhelming return trip from the Indian Ocean grants them. Discovering the region, intrigued by the eccentricity of the route, we follow its amphibious steps.
UNESCO World Heritage
Boat Trips

For Those Becoming Internet Sick

Hop on and let yourself go on unmissable boat trips like the Philippine archipelago of Bacuit and the frozen sea of ​​the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia.
Earp brothers look-alikes and friend Doc Holliday in Tombstone, USA
Characters
tombstone, USA

Tombstone: the City Too Hard to Die

Silver veins discovered at the end of the XNUMXth century made Tombstone a prosperous and conflictive mining center on the frontier of the United States to Mexico. Lawrence Kasdan, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner and other Hollywood directors and actors made famous the Earp brothers and the bloodthirsty duel of “OK Corral”. The Tombstone, which, over time, has claimed so many lives, is about to last.
Varela Guinea Bissau, Nhiquim beach
Beaches
Varela, Guinea Bissau

Dazzling, Deserted Coastline, all the way to Senegal

Somewhat remote, with challenging access, the peaceful fishing village of Varela compensates those who reach it with the friendliness of its people and one of the stunning, but at risk, coastlines in Guinea Bissau.
Christmas scene, Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Religion
Shillong, India

A Christmas Selfiestan at an India Christian Stronghold

December arrives. With a largely Christian population, the state of Meghalaya synchronizes its Nativity with that of the West and clashes with the overcrowded Hindu and Muslim subcontinent. Shillong, the capital, shines with faith, happiness, jingle bells and bright lighting. To dazzle Indian holidaymakers from other parts and creeds.
Serra do Mar train, Paraná, airy view
On Rails
Curitiba a Morretes, Paraná, Brazil

Down Paraná, on Board the Train Serra do Mar

For more than two centuries, only a winding and narrow road connected Curitiba to the coast. Until, in 1885, a French company opened a 110 km railway. We walked along it to Morretes, the final station for passengers today. 40km from the original coastal terminus of Paranaguá.
Society
Margilan, Uzbekistan

An Uzbekistan's Breadwinner

In one of the many bakeries in Margilan, worn out by the intense heat of the tandyr oven, the baker Maruf'Jon works half-baked like the distinctive traditional breads sold throughout Uzbekistan
Saksun, Faroe Islands, Streymoy, warning
Daily life
Saksun, streymoyFaroe Islands

The Faroese Village That Doesn't Want to be Disneyland

Saksun is one of several stunning small villages in the Faroe Islands that more and more outsiders visit. It is distinguished by the aversion to tourists of its main rural owner, author of repeated antipathies and attacks against the invaders of his land.
Gandoca Manzanillo Refuge, Bahia
Wildlife
Gandoca-Manzanillo (Wildlife Refuge), Costa Rica

The Caribbean Hideaway of Gandoca-Manzanillo

At the bottom of its southeastern coast, on the outskirts of Panama, the “Tica” nation protects a patch of jungle, swamps and the Caribbean Sea. As well as a providential wildlife refuge, Gandoca-Manzanillo is a stunning tropical Eden.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.