Excerpt
There are fine mountains, wildernesses of desert dunes, and warm waters. But Cape Verde really takes hold of your heart in that rare moment, that flush of empathy, when you begin to understand what they mean by sodade.”
The rugged peaks and canyons of northeast Santo Antão are one of the worlds great landscape dramas. Precarious roads trace the tops of its ridges giving sheer views down thousand-metre cliffs on each side into the tiny settlements below. The people live in a series of deep valleys, their worlds enclosed by colossal volcanic walls. As you ascend the valleys on foot you discover that their dwellings persist high among the cliffs, clinging to the ledges.”
Fogo rises steeply from the ocean, pokes through the clouds and towers above them. From the coast of Santiago or the peaks of Sao Nicolãu it can seem like a fortress. Fogo is a volcano, still active, and inside the crater the latest eruption still smokes gently. Fogo is a menacing place: the arrested flows of darkened lava reach down its eastern side to the ocean. But it has a soft heart. Amongst the clods of cold lava that have covered much of the floor of the crater are fertile fields. Spilling over its northeast side are woods of eucalyptus and cool valleys in which grow coffee and vines.”
A key part of the Cape Verdean experience is to hear the bitter-sweet morna wrought from a collection of guitars and violins in an evening café; or the more lively, escapist strains of the funana embellished with the scratching of some unique percussive instrument. Music-making happens everywhere in the nightclubs of Mindelo where people dance into the small hours, in restaurants, in peoples homes.