Travel
Cape Verde: The ups and downs of a mountain trek
We hike around the Cape Verde archipelago and discover an unexpected Jewish heritage
April 22, 2016 09:45
We hike around the Cape Verde archipelago and discover an unexpected Jewish heritage
April 22, 2016 09:45It's a tiny island off the coast of Africa, so who would have thought that there would be a village called Sinagoga, named after the ruins of a large synagogue here?
I'm in Santo Antao, one of the Cape Verde group of islands where the first wave of Jewish immigration began in the 15th century, at the time of religious persecution in Portugal.
The synagogue here probably dates from the mid 1800's when a second wave arrived from Morocco and Gibraltar. Most of them were men who married local girls and today there are virtually no practising Jews on the islands, although a great many Cape Verdeans can claim Jewish ancestry.
The group of ten islands are around 1,000 miles south of the Canaries, in the Atlantic Ocean. Unless you are going to the tourist resorts on Sal or Boavista, then getting here from the UK involves going via Lisbon.
I arrive in Praia, the capital of Santiago, the largest island and the first to be colonised in 1462 by the Portuguese. That's the language spoken here as the islands only gained their independence in 1975.
Getting there
Package: HF Holidays' offers a 10-night guided walking holiday in Cape Verde. £1,745 per person. 0345 470 8558.
My first walk takes me on an easy amble down a fertile valley to the sea, passing ramshackle rum distilleries, to Cidade Velha.
This was once the capital, but attacks by pirates, including one by Francis Drake, meant the settlement was abandoned in 1712. A handful of locals now live amongst the ruins of its cathedral, churches and fort and it has been declared a Unesco heritage site. A handful of seafood restaurants line the front and there are just a couple of places to stay the night.
The toughest walk on the island is up to the highest point, Pico do Santo Antonio at almost 1400m. Fortunately there's a road up most of the way but even so it's not for the faint hearted. The path is obscure in places and you skirt round the peak before beginning the step climb to the top.
Visibility is perfect and it's easy to make out the active volcano on Fogo, the next island. Unfortunately it's rather hot and recent rain makes the going particularly treacherous as we begin the final ascent. It's at this point that the guide calls it a day, saying it's too dangerous to risk but I can't conceal my disappointment. I don't get another chance as the next day I take the one hour flight north to the island of Sao Vicente.
Mindelo, the capital, has opulent colonial buildings, wide streets and cobbled squares and a wide, naturally curved harbour. Its heyday was in the 19th century, when it became a coaling station for British steamers on their way to the Americas and South Africa. When ships switched to oil and started to use the Suez Canal, the town entered into a soporific slumber, but it's still an attractive place to wander around. At night, bars and restaurants often have live music, including the local "Morna" made famous by singer Cesaria Evora, Cape Verde's most famous export.
The rest of the island is barren volcanic mountainous rock, striking in its desolation. There's not much good walking here, but it's worth a trip to Monte Verde, at 750m often hidden in mist.
Cape Verde saves the best until last and Santo Antao couldn't be more different, fertile and green, and just an hour's ferry ride away. It's a hiker's paradise with enough trails in the North East of the island to occupy you for a week or more.
I start at the top of the extinct volcano, Cova de Paul, and then it's downhill all the way to the coast.
I cross the fertile crater floor, packed with orange trees and fields of sugar cane, then hit a finely crafted winding cobbled path, bounded by dry stone walls. Villages cling to every available ledge and the scenery is reminiscent of the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal. The trail leads through coffee groves, growers selling beans, then into guava and mango plantations, before reaching the coast at Cidade das Pombas.
After the serenity of the lush interior, it's quite a shock to be confronted by a bubbling boiling sea, waves battering steep black cliffs, but that all adds to the charm of the place.
All the next day, I have constant views of the churning Atlantic as the path takes a high level route skirting the side of the hillside. Centuries of work have created layers of terraces, some abandoned, but others still home to mango, papaya, cassava, and bananas.
My trail is the only connection between villages, and there are no other walkers, just locals carrying goods back from market on their heads.
At the end it is a steep descent to the coast where I find the ruins of the abandoned synagogue at Sinagoga. Apparently, after it was abandoned, it served as a leper hospital, and it's a wild place, surrounded on three sides by the ocean.
The final walk follows the Northern coast from Cruzinha da Garca to Ponta do Sol. It's a roller coaster of a trek, descending to sea level, then suddenly climbing up the side of steep cliffs, the path hacked out of the bare rock.
The views are stunning and there are more hikers on this walk, but it doesn't distract from the natural beauty. After about five hours I reach the outskirts of the Ponta do Sol, straddling the flat tip of a breezy peninsula, and one of the oldest colonial towns on the island.
I pass a huge cemetery and catch sight of a platform with a neat menorah mosaic. It leads to seven Jewish graves, the most recent being Abraham Brigham's, a prominent merchant who died in 1941.
They may now all be gone but at least they're not forgotten.
