Cabeço dos Tarafes Travel Guide

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During a tour of Boa Vista island in May 2011, we visited the cluster of three villages in the north east of the island, one of which is Cabeça dos Tarafes.

Our guidebook stated that these villages were located in the greenest part of the island, in an area known as "The Garden of Boa Vista". They didn't appear to be particularly green, but compared to the rest of the island (which consists of sandy beaches and a rocky, dusty interior) there was certainly more plant life here than elsewhere. There were trees lining some of the streets and bright pink and red bougainvillea on the front of many of the homes.

We first arrived at Cabeça dos Tarafes having travelled up the east side of the island over rough tracks in a 4 wheel drive pick-up truck. Compared to the road that we had travelled along up until this point, the road into Cabeça dos Tarafes and onto the other two villages was of a much better standard. It wasn't a tarmac road, but at least it was a clearly defined, if somewhat cobbled, road. You could easily drive between the villages in a standard car (i.e. not an off-road vehicle) and that is more than can be said for much of the rest of the island!

Cabeça dos Tarafes was almost deserted as we passed through; we saw only one solitary lady walking along one of the streets and into what appeared to be a bar/grocery store. We didn't stop here, we just drove through slowly and snapped a few photos from the back of the truck. There were a few dozen pretty little houses, all low rise and some painted in bright colours and boasting small gardens outside. There didn't appear to be much here to attract a visitor's attention for too long; in fact a satellite map of the village on www.boavistaexperience.com marks only two buildings out for a mention and both of those are bars/grocery stores.