Geoff Brock & Bruce Gamble
         
     
   
 
 
 
Sal:
 
São Vicente:
 
Santo Antão:
 
São Nicolau:
 
Brava:
 
Fogo:
 
Maio:
 
Santiago:
 

Santo Antão: Spectacular scenic beauty
and a nail biting drive to Fontainhas
Tuesday 15th November 2022
 
Looking ahead to the island of Santo Antão, a short distance from Mindelo where we had remained docked overnight. It is a much bigger island than São Vicente but with a far smaller population. It looked rugged and mysterious. We were in for a magical two days there. We just didn't know that yet.
 
A regular ferry service links Mindelo with Porto Novo. Of course, we didn't need to use it because we had our own beautiful ship!
 
Today was Geoff's birthday. It didn't go unnoticed!
 
A new birthday shirt from Ros and a good breakfast of poached egg on toast and bacon.
 
Looking back to Mindelo and the island of São Vicente...
 
...and forward to Porto Novo and the island of Santo Antão.
 
 
 
 
Porto Novo
 
 
 
 
Today's planned visits: We did everything described below, but not in the order specified.
 
 
Our route today, starting in Porto Novo, took us along the coast, initially north-east and then towards the north-west past Janela. Reaching Paul, we turned left into the Paul Valley, where we were able to do a hike through some amazing scenery. Returning to the coastal road, we continued on to Ribeira Grande, before heading inland again to the Pedracin Village Hotel for lunch. Afterwards, we drove back to the coast and headed further west to Ponta do Sol from where we embarked upon a nail biting drive along a track to (and back from) the village of Fontainhas. Returning to Ribeira Grande, we stopped at a local cafe/restaurant for an afternoon snack, before driving south over the mountains on the return journey to the port. We stopped a few times to admire some truly amazing sights, before eventually arriving back in Porto Novo and our ship.
 
A fleet of nine minibuses awaited us as we disembarked. Until today, the buses had been larger, seating around 20 people. For the first time, we were venturing off the main tourist islands and onto an island with fewer people and some really rugged terrain, unsuitable for bigger vehicles, let alone coaches.
 
 
 
 
Setting off, nobody told us that we would be driving for almost an hour before stopping. There were some wonderful coastal views that would have been worth pausing to admire, but we alos didn't appreciate how much we would see later.
 
The landscape was quite dry and the road wasn't too bad, which was good.
 
 
Janela
 
Between Janela and Paul
 
 
Shortly after turning inland from Paul, we were struck by the contrast in the vegetation in the Paul Valley. Earlier, one of our guides, sensing our slight frustration at not being able to pause to admire the coastal scenery, told us to be a little patient and that we would soon be in "Shangri-la"! He wasn't wrong. The valley was absolutely beautiful.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The road through the valley took us slightly uphill until we got to the most scenic area, where we were all able to disembark and walk back downhill to where the vehicles would be waiting for us once again.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The scenery and nature along the way was amazing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Along the way we visited a place which makes the "grogue" that most of our party had sampled previously.
 
Trapiche Beth D'Kinha
The best definition I can find for "trapiche" is a mill made of wooden rollers used to extract juice from fruit, originally olives, and since the Middle Ages, sugar cane as well. By extension the word is also sometimes applied to the location of the mill, whether the workshop or the entire plantation.
 
 
 
 
 
 
After a tour, including an explanation of the manufacturing process, samples were provided for tasting. Once again, Bruce declined and so did Geoff this time...
 
...preferring instead to admire the scenery from the distillery's terrace.
 
A dragon tree (Dracaena draco) in the distance.
 
We would have been happy to stay in the valley for much longer,
so it was almost disappointing to see our minibuses again!
 
From the heart of the Paul valley, we drove back to the coast and on to Ribeira Grande, where we once again turned inland to where we would be having lunch at the Pedracin Village Hotel.
 
 
Driving through Ribeira Grande.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Our lunch stop at the Pedracin Village Hotel - near Boca de Coruja
 
 
 
Our table. Lunch was presented buffet style and there was plenty of it.
 
 
 
 
 
After lunch, we set off once again, driving back down to Ribeira Grande and on to Ponta do Sol (which has an abandoned airport), before taking the stunningly scenic "track" to Fontainhas. Geoff didn't enjoy the twists, turns or the steep ascent one bit! It would have been nice if somebody had warned us about this part of the drive beforehand so that people could have made their own decisions about whether or not to go, especially as we were all going to have a coffee break later in Ribeira Grande and those who didn't want to go could have spent more time in the town.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Our destination - the village of Fontainhas.
 
 
Our impressions were of quite a poor village without a lot to commend it, apart from being set in an idyllic location. The journey to it, and back from it. were clearly what the excursion was all about except if, like Geoff, you had your eyes shut tightly the whole time!
 
 
 
It didn't take long to have a quick look around, admire the views and steer clear of the spiders!
 
 
The return journey seemed a little less bad than the one getting there, probably because we knew where we were going and how long it would take. We were headed back to the main road at Ponta so Sol and then the coast road back to Ribeira Grande for our promised coffee and snack stop.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ponta do Sol, once again.
 
 
After quite a bit of research, I'm now pretty certain that this is a pig farm!
 
Only just visible between the town and the sea is a disused runway. The airport closed in the early 1990's after a fatal accident highlighted safety concerns. It was the island's only airport, named after a resident Angolan exile, Agostinho Neto who became the first president of Angola after independence from Portugal in 1975. Neto's name was familiar to Bruce, being very much in the news at the time and the sworn enemy of South Africa. Thankfully, those days are long since past.
 
 
 
 
Ribeira Grande, and the cafe/bar where we had a stop.
 
 
Back on the bus, our route took us inland once again to go up and over the mountains. Once again, we didn't really know where we were being taken at the time, which is why we've had to do quite a lot of research afterwards. It was another stunningly scenic drive, however and we made a few stops along the way to take in the views.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Delgadinho mountain ridge with breathtaking scenery on both side of the narrow road. If we are looking slightly apprehensive, it was because we were sitting on a narrow ledge with a precipitous drop behind us.
 
 
 
More twists and turns before reaching the next scenic viewpoint near Faja de Cima.
 
 
Unfortunately there were no views... just clouds.
 
 
From here the route descended back to the port. The vegetation changed suddenly from very lush and green to drier, although there was still a fair amount of green to be seen.
 
 
 
The outskirts of Porto Novo
 
After an adventurous day, it was good to see the port again...
 
...and of course, our ship, gleaming in the setting sun.
 
 
The day's fun wasn't over yet. There was still Geoff's birthday to celebrate. And yes, in the end he did decide to go for the full public spectacle of a cake being presented to him at the end of dinner, accompanied by a singing trio, with others joining in. Sitting next to Geoff is Sylvia, who we had last met on a river cruise from Amsterdam to the Black Sea in 2018. On her left is Elizabeth. We enjoyed the company of both ladies.
 
 
 
The final birthday treat when we returned from dinner, thanks to our cabin attendant, Benji. (It was the third trip in a row that he had been our attendant!)
 
 
 
©Geoff Brock and Bruce Gamble