Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin)

Tolagnaro, also known by its French colonial name Fort Dauphin, is Madagascar´s southernmost city, built on a peninsula at the south-eastern tip of the island at the place of the former settlement Tholongar. After a brief visit of Portuguese castaways in the Antanosy region at the beginning of the 16th century, it has been the […]

Moramanga

Moramanga, `the place of cheap mangoes´, is a junction town with around 60.000 inhabitants along the RN2 running from Tana to Toamasina at the east coast. From here, you can either go to Lake Alaotra in the north, visit nearby Andasibe-Mantadia National Park or one of the associated protected areas like famous Mitsinjo reserve, or […]

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 […]

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, […]

São Filipe

São Filipe is the capital of the volcanic island of Fogo and behind Cidade Velha on Santiago the second oldest settlement in Cape Verde, founded in the 16th century. It is located on the west coast of the island with a small airport on the edge of town as well as the port Vale de […]

Calheta

Calheta is located at the west coast of Maio and with more than 1.000 inhabitants the second-largest settlement on the island. It consists of two different villages, Ribona a bit inland and Baxona right at the sea. Most of the people live in Ribona where there are at least half a dozen informal bars, a […]

Maio

Maio is the easternmost of the Sotavento islands (“under the wind”) of Cape Verde and besides Sal the oldest island of the archipelago. Its 269 km² are quite flat except for some old volcanic mountains in the interior of which Monte Penoso (436 m) is the highest. The island is dry, barren, hostile, and the […]

Espargos

Espargos is a small, lovely desert town in the centre of Sal, right at the International Airport. It is the official capital of the island but of no further interest for tourists – if it wasn´t for the impressive volcanic desert landscape surrounding it. To fully enjoy this stunning scenery, one must walk up 107 […]

Santa Maria

Santa Maria is truly a non-place, a place that was not meant to be, an absurd place living only through and because of the people who are going to leave that place within a matter of ten or fourteen days, which gives it an atmosphere of elusive briefness. It once had been a small fishing […]

Assomada

Assomada lies at 550 m elevation on a plateau in the centre of the island of Santiago amidst a picturesque mountain scenery. Therefore, the climate is cooler and thus more pleasant than in muggy Praia, and the surrounding landscape is characterized by farmland as well as the nearby mountains of Serra Malagueta in the background. […]