Fajã de Água

If Fajã de Água wouldn´t already exist, I´m pretty sure some writer or film director would make it up. It resembles too much a dream or a fantasy, and it is too close to at least a million clichés we´ve been fed with through movies, advertisement and pulp literature, because it´s the place at the […]

Brava, the wild one – Brava, die Wilde

With only 64 km2,Brava is the smallest of the nine inhabited islands of the archipelago, an underwater stratovolcano that had been lifted to the surface over the course of thousands and thousands of years. There is no volcanic activity anymore, but clusters of minor earthquakes occur from time to time, a proof that there is […]

Nova Sintra

The capital of Brava Island is Nova Sintra, sitting about 500 metres above Furna down at the seashore. A winding road leads up to Nova Sintra which takes no more than ten or twelve minutes, but you come to a totally different world. Where Furna is hot, humid and rocky, Nova Sintra is green, humid, […]

Furna

Furna is a tiny settlement at the northeastern coast of Brava, facing Fogo, its bigger brother, but even though less than 1.000 people call Furna their home, it is an important place for Brava in general, because it is the only decent port on the island. Founded at some point in the first half of […]

Chã das Caldeiras

The island of Fogo (fire) is a single giant volcano rising from the Atlantic Ocean. Once, it had been more than 4.000 m high, but 73.000 years ago its eastern flank collapsed into the sea, leaving a huge caldera at an altitude of around 1.700 m. Since then, regular outbreaks (at least one or two […]

Salinas do Porto Inglês

Between Cidade do Maio and Morro, the 5 km long and 1.5 km wide saltpan is the most important feature of the island, because historically it had brought some wealth to Maio, at least for some time. A line of dunes separates the pan from the sea, and it is only at high tides that […]

Cidade do Maio (Cidade do Porto Ingles)

The capital of Maio is located at the southwestern tip of the island and has the only decent port. Some 3.000 or 4.000 people are living there, and all the island´s students attend high school in town. Maio had been discovered in 1460 but was of no further interest because of being barren and hostile. […]

Pedra de Lume

Pedra de Lume is a small settlement on Sal´s northeast coast that has grown around a tiny port. After long years of only being a stopover for turtle hunters, the interest in the island began to rose when Manuel António Martins started the exploitation of the salt ponds in the nearby crater in 1796. Water […]

Cidade Velha

In 1462, Antonio da Noli, an Italian seafarer exploring the Atlantic Ocean for the Portuguese, built a settlement at the exit auf Ribeira Grande, a beautiful valley at the south coast of the island of Santiago. This is the beginning of human history on the archipelago as the settlement started to flourish, being granted the […]

Praia

With approximately around 160.000 or even more inhabitants, Cape Verde´s capital Praia is by far the biggest city not only on the island of Santiago, but in the whole country. It might look like some Peruvian or Bolivian city in the Andes, but it is not – unfortunately. Then it wouldn´t be so bloody hot […]