São Vicente is broadly accepted as the cultural heart of the Cape Verde islands and its capital city Mindelo vibrates with life. Weathered Portuguese-colonial-era architecture lines the busy port. We wander the streets at dusk debating where to have dinner. I double-take as we pass a giant disembodied head in a courtyard, a pre-covid carnival relic. The pandemic took a heavy toll but aid from the million-strong Cape Verdean diaspora helped the islanders survive. More Cape Verdeans live away from the islands than on them.

Stories of generations lost to drought, emigration, slavery and the sea are among the melancholic themes of morna – a form of music and dance made famous by Cesária Évora. Murals and dedications to the Barefoot Diva, as she was known, appear round every corner. Edson and I watch the sunset paint the harbour violet and decide to eat at the marina where his friends are playing. We feast on freshly caught amberjack and tart white wine from Fogo Island. Various singers join the band who segue seamlessly between spirited funaná and reggae classics. Edson delivers a devastating morna to the night sky.

We move on to a small jazz club where the band play outside on the street. The mood is mellow and welcoming. Locals on their way home from work stop to listen; one man dances on the road, indifferent to the traffic. Creole chitter and ambient street sounds somehow enhance the songs - it feels like everything here is music. I want to stay all night but thoughts of an early ferry in the morning have me tucked up by ten.

Crossing from Mindelo to Porto Novo at dawn the next day the engines judder and buck in the swell, a clear reminder that we are in the untamed Atlantic. On the bow deck, spray salts my eyes but I cannot tear myself away from the bewitching view as we depart. Sunlight pierces the overcast heavens focusing a seemingly divine spotlight on Mindelo Bay.

I’m so mesmerised with what’s behind us I very nearly miss the view ahead. Santo Antão rises out of the ocean in towering lizard-back crags. Clouds snagged on the peaks sit uncannily still, shrouding the summit from view. 

Although the islands that I visit share certain flavours each has a distinctive character - so it feels like I’m experiencing three quite different trips. If São Vicente is the artist of the archipelago then Santo Antão is the gardener. While much of Cape Verde’s terrain is arid and depopulated Santo Antão is an explosion of wild figs and dragon trees, coconut palms and alpine firs. 

In Porto Novo I jump into the open back of an aluguer, a kind of shared taxi pick-up truck, for a tour of the island with resident guide Odair Gomes. We wind sluggishly up the cobbled Old Road. These epic mountain routes show Cape Verdean tenacity writ large, painstakingly constructed over decades with little more than grit and pick axes. Likewise the epic terraces scored into sheer basalt gorges seem to defy physics. 

We ascend into a micro-climate of dense fog, stopping briefly to pile on layers and inhale a bitter jolt of coffee in the Planalto Leste Forrest. Red iron-rich earth and proud conifers edge the road. The air is suffused with aromatic mimosa blooms. I squint at what appears to be a hay bundle with legs ambling out of the mist. Besides the odd tourist-laden aluguer and a few hikers - really, the best way to see the island is on foot - these over-freighted donkeys are the only other traffic on the road. 

We continue our giddying journey through the Ribeira Valleys, past the fairytale Fontainhas village – this sky-kissing cluster of homes is claimed by National Geographic to be one of the most beautiful views in the world. I watch as a tourist nearly eliminates himself from the gene pool trying to capture it in a selfie on the cliff’s edge.

We turn off-road into what looks like a ditch but leads us to an airy verandah restaurant. A bracing shot of grogue, the ubiquitous local sugar-cane liquor, and home-made goat’s cheese are followed by crisp hibiscus juice and flavourful pork stew. Entertainment is provided by a delinquent sparrow trying to thieve a yam twice his size. 

I spend the night at Pedracin Village, a picturesque retreat in the northern Ribeira Grande Valley. At dusk the dusty Saharan winds cast an ochre glow rendering all the scenery unreal, as if in an antique sepia photo. The wind growls and whistles around my room, conducting an orchestra of trees outside my window. 

The next day Odair collects me in the aluguer and we head south, across scorched desert hills. Goat herd enclosures pepper the landscape and faded pink aloe plants thrust their serrated tentacles up out of the ground like petrified sea creatures. I can just about make out São Vicente in the distance, almost indiscernible from the sea. The wind whips through my hair as we chicane down to sea level. Fortified by another grogue stop we explore Tarrafal’s volcanic black beach glittering like coal dust, offset by roiling white seas. 

My time in Santo Antão is exhilarating. I feel like I’ve crossed whole continents, but after two days rattling around in the back of a truck I am ready for the lazy beach holiday bit of my trip. Sal is the most developed of the islands in terms of tourism and you can reliably find long, empty tracts of blonde-sand beach. I try to stay put and soak up the sun but feel so energised by the previous adventures I can’t sit still.

I take an early morning stroll around the main town of Santa Maria. Exuberantly coloured houses and scrappy grey breezeblocks sit side by side. Waterfalls of magenta bougainvillea thatch the roofs. Dogs are everywhere, draped inert on the street, as if melted by Salvador Dali. The town pier fizzes with industry. Fishermen unload their catch and women crouch over baskets to clean the fish, their scales sequinning the women’s arms. 

I paddle with lemon shark pups in Shark Bay and float in the saline craters of Pedra de Lume. The minerals in these pools are supposed to take ten years off you so if I come every day for the next three days I wonder… but apparently it doesn’t work like that.  Still I want to see more. 

My experience of horses extends only to knowing which is the bitey end; nonetheless I decide a ride will be a great way to say goodbye to the island. Arriving at the stables I am surrounded by lofty Scandinavian equestrians all champing at the bit to gallop down the beach. I am the lone novice. My sedate white rescue horse Ufa saunters along as the others tear off into the distance. I can’t speak for Ufa but I’m perfectly happy swaying across the dunes taking in the view. We pass dessicated acacia trees reaching out in a seeming state of longing and crystalline salt flats that mirror the sky. I spend half the ride plotting my return, to explore the grand dunes of Boa Vista island, snorkel with loggerhead turtles and hike the craters of Fogo. Three islands down, seven to go.

Words + photography: Jenni Doggett