The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-24)

The Sunday Times April 24, 2022 15

Cape Verde’s Santo Antao

island, far left; seaside

horse riding, inset; the

beach at Santa Maria on

the island of Sal, left

CAPE VERDE

Santa Maria

Sal

Santo Antao

Porto Novo

Mindelo

Sao

Vicente

50 miles

long, empty tracts of blond sand. I take

an early morning stroll around the main

town of Santa Maria; exuberantly coloured

houses and scrappy grey breezeblocks

sit side by side. Explosions of magenta

bougainvillea thatch the occasional roof.

Fishermen unload their catch and women

crouch over baskets to clean the fish, the

scales sequinning their arms.

I paddle with lemon shark pups on

Shark Bay and float in the saline craters of

Pedra de Lume. The minerals are said to

take ten years off you, so if I come every

day for the next three days I wonder...

My experience of horses extends only

to knowing which is the bitey end;

nonetheless I decide a ride will be a great

way to say goodbye to the island. Arriving

at the stables I am surrounded by lofty

Scandinavian equestrians all champing at

the bit to gallop down the beach. I am the

lone novice. My sedate white rescue

horse, Ufa, saunters along as the others

tear off into the distance. I can’t speak for

Ufa but I’m perfectly happy swaying

across the dunes taking in the view.

We pass desiccated acacia trees and

crystalline salt flats that mirror the sky.

I spend half the ride plotting my return,

to explore the grand dunes of Boa Vista

island, snorkel with loggerhead turtles

and hike the craters of Fogo.

Three islands down, seven to go.

Jenni Doggett was a guest of Cape Verde

Experience, which has seven nights’ B&B

on the islands of Sal, Sao Vicente and Santo

Antao from £1,549pp, including flights,

ferries and transfers (capeverde.co.uk).

For entry requirements see gov.uk

At dusk the dusty Saharan winds cast an

ochre glow. The wind growls and whistles

around my room, conducting an

orchestra of trees outside my window.

The next day Odair collects me in

another aluguer and we head south,

across scorched desert. Goat enclosures

pepper the hills and faded pink aloe

plants thrust their serrated tentacles up

out of the ground. Fortified by another

grogue stop we explore Tarrafal’s volcanic

black beach glittering like coal dust, offset

by roiling white seas.

My time in Santo Antao is exhilarating.

I feel as though I’ve crossed whole

continents, but after two days rattling

around in the back of a truck I am ready

for the lazy beach holiday bit of my trip.

Sal is the most developed of the islands in

terms of tourism and you can reliably find

I want to stay all night, but

thoughts of an early ferry in the

morning have me tucked up

by 10pm.

Crossing from Mindelo to

Porto Novo at dawn the next

day the engines judder and

buck in the swell, a clear

reminder that we are in the

untamed Atlantic. On the bow

deck spray salts my eyes but I

cannot tear myself away from the

bewitching view as we depart. I’m so

mesmerised by what’s behind us I very

nearly miss the view ahead. Santo Antao

rises out of the ocean in towering lizard-

back crags. Clouds snagged on the peaks

sit uncannily still, shrouding the summit

from view.

Although the islands that I visit share

certain flavours, each has a distinctive

character — so it feels as though I’m

having three quite different trips. If Sao

Vicente is the artist of the archipelago

then Santo Antao is the gardener. While

much of Cape Verde’s terrain is arid and

depopulated, Santo Antao is an explosion

of wild figs, palms and dragon trees.

In Porto Novo I jump into the open back

of an aluguer, a shared pick-up truck, for

a tour of the island with the guide Odair

Gomes. We wind sluggishly up the cobbled

Old Road. These epic mountain routes

show Cape Verdean tenacity writ large,

painstakingly constructed over decades

with little more than grit and pickaxes.

Likewise the epic terraces scored into

sheer basalt gorges seem to defy physics.

We ascend into a microclimate of dense

fog, stopping briefly to pile on layers and

inhale a bitter jolt of coffee in the Planalto

Leste Forest. Red iron-rich earth and

proud conifers edge the road. The air is

suffused with aromatic mimosa blooms.

We continue our giddying journey

through the Ribeira Valleys, past the

fairytale Fontainhas village — the view of

this sky-kissing cluster of homes is said by

National Geographic to be one of the most

beautiful in the world. I watch as a tourist

nearly eliminates himself from the gene

pool trying to capture it on the cliff ’s edge.

We turn off-road into what looks like a

ditch but leads us to a veranda restaurant.

A shot of grogue, the ubiquitous local

sugar-cane liquor, and homemade goat’s

cheese are followed by crisp hibiscus juice

and flavourful pork stew.

I spend the night at Pedracin Village,

a retreat in the Ribeira Grande Valley.

LUKAS BISCHOFF, BORGES SAMUEL /ALAMY