Santiago, Cape Verde

Santiago from bottom to top


Summits of São Jorge dos Órgãos
The serrated top of the mountains seen from the Mirador de Tancon in São Jorge dos Órgãos.
Assomada II
The upper and lower houses in Assomada.
Bouganvillea girls
Friends pose and play in front of a large colony of bouganvilleas.
Assomada II
A sharp peak protrudes from behind Assomada's houses.
Countryside Dancing
Peasant dances above the great Kamauma Pé di Polón.
At the foot of Pé di Polon
Couple to spare from the great Pé di Polón.
Boiling Cane Juice
A group of producers accompany the boiling of the sugarcane juice.
Alembic Tasks
Elders deal with the assembly of an alembic.
Molasses
A well-mixed proof of grogue with molasses.
Heavy Load
Peasants carry sacks of grain near the base of the Pé di Polón.
Picos (Achada da Igreja)
Church of the Savior of the World
The Church of St. Savior of the World at the base of Mount Guililância.
Dona Teresa
Resident of Leitãozinho in the vicinity of the local warehouse.
Peaks in the Horizon
Successive peaks above a scattered houses in Santiago.
serra da malagueta
Deep river valley seen from the top of Serra da Malagueta.
fire volcano
The cone of Fogo volcano high above Santiago's highest line.
Tarrafal in sight
The houses of Tarrafal, at the top northwest of the island of Santiago.
The Fogo Island and Volcano
Sunset oranges the horizon and reinforces the silhouette of the island and Fogo volcano.
Landed in the Cape Verdean capital of Praia, we explore its pioneer predecessor city. From Cidade Velha, we follow the stunning mountainous ridge of Santiago to the unobstructed top of Tarrafal.

We arrive at the roundabout that interrupts Circular da Praia near Cape Verde's National Stadium.

Two roundabouts imposed on the parched and thorny vastness distribute traffic to Praia and other directions. A sample of a herd of cows is kept on a central divider in the road leading to the Cidade Velha.

Strange, unexpected, the sight distracts us. It makes us miss the correct exit. We take another walk, accompanied, with suspicion, by the cattle. Finally, following the second roundabout, we hit the north of Santiago.

In a flash, the road narrows. Fits the two most common senses in Cape Verde. A few kilometers later, having crossed the Pedegral and the village of Ribeirão Chiqueiro, it enters a pre-gorge mode that prepares us for the imposing and jagged terrain.

One of the winding roads that passes through Caiada and Água Gato leads us to the municipality of São Lourenço dos Órgãos and to the mountainous and dramatic stronghold to which we hoped to spend some time.

The Mountainous and Verdant Domain of São Jorge dos Órgãos

There, in the most leafy and flowery sector of the Superior School of Agrarian Sciences of the University of Cape Verde, we find the National Botanical Garden Grandvaux Barbosa.

It was created in 1986, named in honor of Luís Augusto Granvaux (1914-1983), a Portuguese botanist hyper-dedicated to the overseas flora, especially to Cape Verde.

In the free rein we used to walk, we preferred to admire it in its context and natural ecosystem. Accordingly, we proceed to the heart of São Jorge dos Órgãos.

Right in the middle of the village, the relief confronts us with the blue church of São Jorge, tucked between elevations with sharp peaks.

We felt the urge to distance ourselves from the houses, to find a worthy vantage point. We got into that way, along a narrow detour, on badly beaten earth that zigzagged up one of the slopes above.

Suspicious about the damage that the aggravated floor could cause to the car, we found in a group of peasant women, sitting on sacks and sacks of dry corn, the ideal pretext to abort the madness.

A Well-Disposed Community of Solidarity Peasants

“We got together here in community work” they explain to us, as if it were a commonplace. “In these more isolated parts, the villagers struggle to handle the crops just for themselves. So we help each other.”

Raised in large part in the countryside of Beiras, we remembered when this community harmony prevailed there. But we were also aware of how individualism and facilitism had wiped it out, especially from the 90s onwards.

Delighted with the survival of this nostalgic solidarity, we surrendered to a chatterbox, in Portuguese familiar to everyone and in Creole badu to which the ladies resorted, among themselves, whenever a new remark or joke was imposed.

In his company, we contemplate the double peak of Pico de Antónia (1394m), the highest point on the island, third in Cape Verde, the heart of a national park of the same name.

Although, in this case, the namesake has to be told. The more we investigate, the more we see how much the name diverged from the zenith of Santiago.

The Unstable Historical and Semantic Context of Santiago roof

Supposedly credible sources explain that, from an early age, the mount was treated by Piku D'Antoni as it was one of the first elevations in Cape Verde recorded by the Genoese navigator António da Noli, in the service of Infante Dom Henrique.

Over time, it was referred to in documents and even in the lyrics of the Cape Verdean popular songbook. Nuns, it appears as António. In others, in the female.

Somewhere during the history of Santiago and its vernacular treatment, the people will have changed the gender of its discoverer. Surrounded by women from Santiago, we agreed.

Gilda, one of them, is late, more than an hour and a half on foot from São Jorge dos Órgãos, the village to which it was convenient for us to return. We give her a lift, we go down the mountain to talk and we give her to her life.

Then we went up to a viewpoint called Tancon. Leaning over its generous parapet, we once again admire Pico de António and its neighbors, now, from west to east, frontal and, as such, more defined and distinguished.

With renewed wonder, we resumed the path. Chã de Vaca is left behind. We alternate between the municipalities of São Lourenço dos Órgãos and the contiguous one of São Salvador do Mundo when a natural monument in Santiago demands a detour to the depths of Leitãozinho.

Pé di Polón: in search of the Biggest Tree in Santiago

We went down to the immediate slope. On the opposite side, we find the plant colossus we were looking for, Pé de Polião, in Creole, Pé di Polón, a baobab or kapok tree (ceiba pentandra) endemic celebrated as Cape Verde's supreme tree and one of the oldest.

At that time, already with some foliage, the woolen tree hung over the thalweg. It was sustained by colossal roots that rippled down the slope, thirsting for the water tables that Santiago's short rainy season unfolded.

Wild on arrival, the place quickly reveals its life to us.

Two young people from the area are walking along a path at the foot of the tree, loaded with sacks overflowing with some grain, as if that wasn't enough, one of them pulling a large goat attached to a rope.

Moments later, a couple succeed them on their way to their land, they too walking a pair of black goats eager for pasture.

Hundreds of photographs later, we set off for a walk that we considered to be short through the cultivated surroundings. We lingered longer than we counted.

Sugarcane and Grogue Production in the Region

A few meters above, between a solitary coconut tree and shallow banana trees, we came across a peasant. When she sees us, instead of greeting us back, she shows us an ecstatic, uncomplexed dance, and thus we are forced to conclude, drunk.

We praise you and your plantation with the diplomacy that comes to mind. Back at the top of the village, we detect the most likely reason for its animation.

We come across local residents gathered by the local warehouse, around a well of sugar cane juice in which a steaming yellow boil is bubbling. A worker in a beret stirs the liquid with a long shovel.

From time to time, take a sample to a dish and examine the thickness and appearance of the compost.

Dona Teresa and Sr. Zé Maria, owners or, at least, in charge of the warehouse, recognize the photographic effort we put into the operation. They call us aside.

Secure them with a half coconut shell, filled with alcoholized molasses. You know us like sour cherries. Much better than cherry, we must assume it.

Aware of the extreme orographic profile of what we had to do, we rejected a third dose.

Instead, we follow the assembly of the still, a process that proves to be too complex and dragged out for the time we had at our disposal.

Santiago Island Above: by Achada Igreja e Assomada

We say goodbye, grateful for the patience and welcome of the hosts. We've unlocked a bunch of big boulders just barely unloaded.

Once the top of the slope is clear, we return to the asphalt and head towards the north of Santiaguense.

We pass by Achada Igreja (Picos), a village installed on a crest, crowned by the church of São Salvador do Mundo.

And, prominently, by a huge and eccentric boulder. The people of these parts call it Monte Gullance.

He sees in it a man mounted on horseback, with such symbolism for the municipality that he is even compared to the statue of the Marquis of Pombal.

Next is Assomada, the city of Santiago's inland cities, peculiar to match, with its houses divided into two levels, one main and one above, on top of a plateau from which the serrated top of Monte Brianda seems to rise.

Another, symbiotic, lodged at the back of the table.

Assomada is home to the best-stocked and most active market in Santiago, and it is not unknown that the surrounding Santa Catarina county has become the island's undisputed granary.

Santiago, island, Cape Verde, Assomada

The upper and lower houses in Assomada.

The Gale Hills of Serra da Malagueta

We continue through Boa Entrada and Fundura. Soon, through the Serra da Malagueta above, sometimes exposed to some trade winds so powerful that we fear they will see our car.

From these same hills of the Santiaguense gales, still at a good distance, we admire the flatter lands that welcomed Chão Bom, the city of Tarrafal and, between them, the infamous prison camp of Morte Lenta, ordered to be built in 1936 by the government of the Portuguese New State .

They were stops to which we had decided to dedicate their own article. Accordingly, we turn to look west.

We admire the consolidation of the triangular silhouette of the Fogo volcano adorning the homonymous and neighboring island, overlooking and facing the highest lines of Santiago.

Cidade Velha, Cape Verde

Cidade Velha: the Ancient of the Tropico-Colonial Cities

It was the first settlement founded by Europeans below the Tropic of Cancer. In crucial times for Portuguese expansion to Africa and South America and for the slave trade that accompanied it, Cidade Velha became a poignant but unavoidable legacy of Cape Verdean origins.

São Nicolau, Cape Verde

Photography of Nha Terra São Nicolau

The voice of the late Cesária Verde crystallized the feeling of Cape Verdeans who were forced to leave their island. who visits São Nicolau or, wherever it may be, admires images that illustrate it well, understands why its people proudly and forever call it their land.
Chã das Caldeiras, Fogo Island Cape Verde

A "French" Clan at the Mercy of Fire

In 1870, a Count born in Grenoble on his way to Brazilian exile, made a stopover in Cape Verde where native beauties tied him to the island of Fogo. Two of his children settled in the middle of the volcano's crater and continued to raise offspring there. Not even the destruction caused by the recent eruptions deters the prolific Montrond from the “county” they founded in Chã das Caldeiras.    
island of salt, Cape Verde

The Salt of the Island of Sal

At the approach of the XNUMXth century, Sal remained lacking in drinking water and practically uninhabited. Until the extraction and export of the abundant salt there encouraged a progressive population. Today, salt and salt pans add another flavor to the most visited island in Cape Verde.
Boa Vista Island, Cape Verde

Boa Vista Island: Atlantic waves, Dunas do Sara

Boa Vista is not only the Cape Verdean island closest to the African coast and its vast desert. After a few hours of discovery, it convinces us that it is a piece of the Sahara adrift in the North Atlantic.
Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde

Santa Maria and the Atlantic Blessing of Sal

Santa Maria was founded in the first half of the XNUMXth century, as a salt export warehouse. Today, thanks to the providence of Santa Maria, Sal Ilha is worth much more than the raw material.
Santo Antão, Cape Verde

Up and Down the Estrada da Corda

Santo Antão is the westernmost of the Cape Verde Islands. There lies an Atlantic and rugged threshold of Africa, a majestic insular domain that we begin by unraveling from one end to the other of its dazzling Estrada da Corda.
Fogo Island, Cape Verde

Around the Fogo Island

Time and the laws of geomorphology dictated that the volcano-island of Fogo rounded off like no other in Cape Verde. Discovering this exuberant Macaronesian archipelago, we circled around it against the clock. We are dazzled in the same direction.
São Nicolau, Cape Verde

São Nicolau: Pilgrimage to Terra di Sodade

Forced matches like those that inspired the famous morna “soda” made the pain of having to leave the islands of Cape Verde very strong. Discovering saninclau, between enchantment and wonder, we pursue the genesis of song and melancholy.
Chã das Caldeiras a Mosteiros, Fogo Island, Cape Verde

Chã das Caldeiras to Mosteiros: descent through the Ends of Fogo

With the Cape Verde summit conquered, we sleep and recover in Chã das Caldeiras, in communion with some of the lives at the mercy of the volcano. The next morning, we started the return to the capital São Filipe, 11 km down the road to Mosteiros.
Brava, Cape Verde

Cape Verde Brave Island

During colonization, the Portuguese came across a moist and lush island, something rare in Cape Verde. Brava, the smallest of the inhabited islands and one of the least visited of the archipelago, preserves the authenticity of its somewhat elusive Atlantic and volcanic nature.
Príncipe, São Tomé and Principe

Journey to the Noble Retreat of Príncipe Island

150 km of solitude north of the matriarch São Tomé, the island of Príncipe rises from the deep Atlantic against an abrupt and volcanic mountain-covered jungle setting. Long enclosed in its sweeping tropical nature and a contained but moving Luso-colonial past, this small African island still houses more stories to tell than visitors to listen to.
Rhinoceros, PN Kaziranga, Assam, India
Safari
PN Kaziranga, India

The Indian Monoceros Stronghold

Situated in the state of Assam, south of the great Brahmaputra river, PN Kaziranga occupies a vast area of ​​alluvial swamp. Two-thirds of the rhinocerus unicornis around the world, there are around 100 tigers, 1200 elephants and many other animals. Pressured by human proximity and the inevitable poaching, this precious park has not been able to protect itself from the hyperbolic floods of the monsoons and from some controversies.
Prayer flags in Ghyaru, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 4th – Upper Banana to Ngawal, Nepal

From Nightmare to Dazzle

Unbeknownst to us, we are faced with an ascent that leads us to despair. We pulled our strength as far as possible and reached Ghyaru where we felt closer than ever to the Annapurnas. The rest of the way to Ngawal felt like a kind of extension of the reward.
A Lost and Found City
Architecture & Design
Machu Picchu, Peru

The City Lost in the Mystery of the Incas

As we wander around Machu Picchu, we find meaning in the most accepted explanations for its foundation and abandonment. But whenever the complex is closed, the ruins are left to their enigmas.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Adventure
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
orthodox procession
Ceremonies and Festivities
Suzdal, Russia

Centuries of Devotion to a Devoted Monk

Euthymius was a fourteenth-century Russian ascetic who gave himself body and soul to God. His faith inspired Suzdal's religiosity. The city's believers worship him as the saint he has become.
Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St. Kitts, Berkeley Memorial
Cities
Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis

A Capital at the Caribbean Sea Level

Nestled between the foot of Olivees Mountain and the ocean, tiny Basseterre is the largest city in Saint Kitts and Nevis. With French colonial origins, long Anglophone, it remains picturesque. It is only distorted by the gigantic cruises that flood it with hit-and-run visitors.
Meal
Markets

A Market Economy

The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
scarlet summer
Culture

Valencia to Xativa, Spain (España)

Across Iberia

Leaving aside the modernity of Valencia, we explore the natural and historical settings that the "community" shares with the Mediterranean. The more we travel, the more its bright life seduces us.

Swimming, Western Australia, Aussie Style, Sun rising in the eyes
Sport
Busselton, Australia

2000 meters in Aussie Style

In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
Plane landing, Maho beach, Sint Maarten
Traveling
Maho Beach, Sint Maarten

The Jet-powered Caribbean Beach

At first glance, Princess Juliana International Airport appears to be just another one in the vast Caribbean. Successive landings skimming Maho beach that precedes its runway, jet take-offs that distort the faces of bathers and project them into the sea, make it a special case.
small browser
Ethnic
Honiara e Gizo, Solomon Islands

The Profaned Temple of the Solomon Islands

A Spanish navigator baptized them, eager for riches like those of the biblical king. Ravaged by World War II, conflicts and natural disasters, the Solomon Islands are far from prosperity.
Rainbow in the Grand Canyon, an example of prodigious photographic light
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Natural Light (Part 1)

And Light was made on Earth. Know how to use it.

The theme of light in photography is inexhaustible. In this article, we give you some basic notions about your behavior, to start with, just and only in terms of geolocation, the time of day and the time of year.
bangka, lake kayangan, coron, busuanga, philippines
History
Coron, Busuanga, Philippines

The Secret but Sunken Japanese Armada

In World War II, a Japanese fleet failed to hide off Busuanga and was sunk by US planes. Today, its underwater wreckage attract thousands of divers.
North Island, New Zealand, Maori, Surfing time
Islands
North Island, New Zealand

Journey along the Path of Maority

New Zealand is one of the countries where the descendants of settlers and natives most respect each other. As we explored its northern island, we became aware of the interethnic maturation of this very old nation. Commonwealth as Maori and Polynesia.
Correspondence verification
Winter White
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
Baie d'Oro, Île des Pins, New Caledonia
Literature
Île-des-Pins, New Caledonia

The Island that Leaned against Paradise

In 1964, Katsura Morimura delighted the Japan with a turquoise novel set in Ouvéa. But the neighboring Île-des-Pins has taken over the title "The Nearest Island to Paradise" and thrills its visitors.
Viewpoint Viewpoint, Alexander Selkirk, on Skin Robinson Crusoe, Chile
Nature
Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile

Alexander Selkirk: in the Skin of the True Robinson Crusoe

The main island of the Juan Fernández archipelago was home to pirates and treasures. His story was made up of adventures like that of Alexander Selkirk, the abandoned sailor who inspired Dafoe's novel
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Kayaking on Lake Sinclair, Cradle Mountain - Lake Sinclair National Park, Tasmania, Australia
Natural Parks
Discovering tassie, Part 4 - Devonport to Strahan, Australia

Through the Tasmanian Wild West

If the almost antipode tazzie is already a australian world apart, what about its inhospitable western region. Between Devonport and Strahan, dense forests, elusive rivers and a rugged coastline beaten by an almost Antarctic Indian ocean generate enigma and respect.
Embassy, ​​Nikko, Spring Festival Shunki-Reitaisai, Toshogu Tokugawa Procession, Japan
UNESCO World Heritage
Nikko, Japan

The Tokugawa Shogun Final Procession

In 1600, Ieyasu Tokugawa inaugurated a shogunate that united Japan for 250 years. In her honor, Nikko re-enacts the general's medieval relocation to Toshogu's grandiose mausoleum every year.
now from above ladder, sorcerer of new zealand, Christchurch, new zealand
Characters
Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand's Cursed Wizard

Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
Bather rescue in Boucan Canot, Reunion Island
Beaches
Reunion Island

The Bathing Melodrama of Reunion

Not all tropical coastlines are pleasurable and refreshing retreats. Beaten by violent surf, undermined by treacherous currents and, worse, the scene of the most frequent shark attacks on the face of the Earth, that of the Reunion Island he fails to grant his bathers the peace and delight they crave from him.
knights of the divine, faith in the divine holy spirit, Pirenopolis, Brazil
Religion
Pirenópolis, Brazil

A Ride of Faith

Introduced in 1819 by Portuguese priests, the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo de Pirenópolis it aggregates a complex web of religious and pagan celebrations. It lasts more than 20 days, spent mostly on the saddle.
Flam Railway composition below a waterfall, Norway.
On Rails
Nesbyen to Flam, Norway

Flam Railway: Sublime Norway from the First to the Last Station

By road and aboard the Flam Railway, on one of the steepest railway routes in the world, we reach Flam and the entrance to the Sognefjord, the largest, deepest and most revered of the Scandinavian fjords. From the starting point to the last station, this monumental Norway that we have unveiled is confirmed.
patpong, go go bar, bangkok, one thousand and one nights, thailand
Society
Bangkok, Thailand

One Thousand and One Lost Nights

In 1984, Murray Head sang the nighttime magic and bipolarity of the Thai capital in "One night in bangkok". Several years, coups d'etat, and demonstrations later, Bangkok remains sleepless.
Coin return
Daily life
Dawki, India

Dawki, Dawki, Bangladesh on sight

We descended from the high and mountainous lands of Meghalaya to the flats to the south and below. There, the translucent and green stream of the Dawki forms the border between India and Bangladesh. In a damp heat that we haven't felt for a long time, the river also attracts hundreds of Indians and Bangladeshis in a picturesque escape.
São João Farm, Pantanal, Miranda, Mato Grosso do Sul, sunset
Wildlife
Fazenda São João, Miranda, Brazil

Pantanal with Paraguay in Sight

When the Fazenda Passo do Lontra decided to expand its ecotourism, it recruited the other family farm, the São João. Further away from the Miranda River, this second property reveals a remote Pantanal, on the verge of Paraguay. The country and the homonymous river.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.