Unique Places in Cape Verde

in a distance we could see the hughe mountains coming out of the sea - some sort of an 'unreal world', as we were sailing several days from Barbados without seeing any small islands, and all of a sudden there are rocks and mountains, more than 2800 meters high.

The Cap Verde islands are quite remote from ordinary cruise-itineraries, and when-ever you get a chance to get there, I may highly recommend to take that chance to explore a completely different , exotic world.

Every island of Cape Verde is different from the other ones. You can reach them by plane or boat.
Maio is one of the three islands, with Sal and Boavista, protected by the 'Cabo Verde Natura 2000' an environmental plan of the Las Palmas University (Canary Islands). Here there are some little white beaches where in the summer the turtles come to lay their eggs. Maio is an island not yet touched by the tourist development.
Brava is a little island called 'the Garden Island', because there are many tropical plants and flowers. It has no beaches, just high cliffs, and you can visit it and hike the mountains.
Santo Antao is an island full of mountains and valleys. Here the farming is well developed and there are distilleries that produce the typical liquor of Cape Verde, the 'grogue', which is a sort of aguardiente extracted from the sugar can. You can drink the grogue everywhere in Cape Verde.
Sao Vicente is well known for its local handicrafts. The artisans make wood carvings with ebony and teak, woods that come from the near Senegal, pictures made with the several sands of the islands, artifacts made with coconutshell and beautiful batiks.
Sao Nicolau is a typical volcanic island, with beaches of black sand and many mountain paths, so here you can walk and hike.
Santa Luzia is an uninhabitated island. You can reach it only from Calhau, on Sao Vicente Island, asking a passage on a fisherman's boat. It has to be a beautiful wild island, with a black mountainous desert, white beaches with high dunes and an emerald green sea (and the most important thing, no tourists!!)

Cape verdians are really warm and friendly people. The kids are always asking for caramels, candies, bottled water.... They got really excited was when andré started taking them pitctures with his digital camera, and then showed them the pic!... It was great to see they're joyfull reaction to they're picture!!

Curral Velho is a deserted village. It's set on a spectacular place, just near a beautifull beach, although quite windy, and with a wild sea! There used to be a stream passing through and that would give the water they needed, but because doens't rain very often, the stream dried out 30 years or so ago, and so people had to leave they're houses. All you see now is the beautifull landscape surrounding it, the ruins of the houses and some goats.

Cidade Velha Old Town (SANTIAGO Island)
Situated on Santiago Island with the Sao Joao Baptista Fortress as neighbour.
Remains as the first European settlement in Africa entirely buid by Europeans.
Sao Pedro Beach (SAO VICENTE Island)

visit a typical village, stil rather unknown for and to tourists..you should be able to speak at least a little Portuguese as the local 'crioula'=mix of African, French and Portuguese..is quite difficult to understand

THE MOUNTAIN BLEW ITS TOP IN 1995. HERE IS A DESCRIPTION FROM THE WEB: Seven vents were active on the first day of the eruption, with fire-fountains feeding pahoehoe lava flows, ejection of volcanic bombs, and a gas-and-ash plume 2,000 m high. A scoria cone was soon built, from which lava flows were directed SW before turning NW towards the caldera wall. As the main flow approached the caldera scarp it turned N, covering the settlement of Boca de Fonte by 9 April and approaching Portela and Bangaeira. Less vigorous fire fountaining continued on 12-16 April, and fed new lava flows on top of the previous flow. There were occasional periods of Strombolian spatter ejections. By late on 16 April the remobilized flow-front was ~4 km from the source vent and only a little more than 500 m from the nearest house in Portela.

THE HIGHEST POINT OF THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS IS MT. FOGO, ELEVATION 2829 METERS, A VOLCANO LOCATED ON THE ISLAND OF FOGO. HERE IS SOME INFO ON IT FROM THE WEB: Friday morning we took a taxi to the top of Fogo. The top of the island is a huge crater, that is open on the south side so you can drive into it, about 2000m above sealevel, the peak is another 800 meters of climbing, but we did not go. The vulcano erupted last time in 1995 leaving a lot of fresh lava and ashes, unfortunately also destroying the 5000 homes.