01 The island almost nobody visits
Cape Verde is ten islands, and international tourism concentrates almost entirely on two of them, flat and sandy, at the eastern end of the archipelago. Santiago is another thing: 991 square kilometres, 54.9 long by 28.8 wide, mountainous in the centre and north, with a 1,392-metre peak and half the country's population living on it.
02 Inland and upwards
The plan that justifies the trip begins by leaving the city for the interior. At the island's centre stands the Pico de Antónia massif, with its natural park, and in the north the Serra Malagueta, between Assomada and Tarrafal, with its own. Between them they protect 3.68% of the island: not a large area, but it is where the height is.
The climatic contrast within a 55-kilometre island is the part that surprises. The interior and east coast receive more water and are wooded; the south and south-west lie leeward of the central uplands, in their rain shadow, and are arid. You can go from a ravine full of banana plants to a bare slope in twenty minutes of driving.
Five days cover the capital, the interior, the north and Cidade Velha, with time to spare. The whole island fits in a day's driving.
03 The port as a door
The second half of the argument is on the quay. Praia's port is the country's second busiest and has a passenger terminal, with direct ferry routes to Maio, to Fogo and to São Vicente. Which is to say: you can arrive by plane and continue by boat, which is how people have always moved between these islands.
And here an honest warning: sea timetables in this archipelago do not work like a European train ticket. They are confirmed on the ground, they change and sometimes they fall through. If you are going to hop islands, leave slack. If your return flight is tight, come back to Praia a day early.
04 What you have to accept
First, the month. August and September hold 129.9 of the 176.9 millimetres that fall in the whole year, humidity climbs to 76%, and September is the least sunny month after August. The rest of the calendar is effectively dry. November is the best month; March to May the brightest.
Second, the urban scale. Praia is not a monumental capital: it is a small nineteenth-century centre on a plateau with a working city around it, spread across other plateaus. If your yardstick for a capital is the number of things to visit, this one will strike you as thin.
And third, the topography. The city is built on plateaus separated by ravines, which means going from one neighbourhood to another is almost never flat. That is no problem if you know it; it is a nuisance if you expected a seafront promenade.
If the profile fits, the argument is this: you arrive at an Atlantic archipelago through the door almost nobody uses, you settle on the island where half the country lives, you climb a 1,392-metre peak, you hear the music played on a cloth, and if you feel like it you carry on by boat to the next island. Twelve rain days a year are not going to spoil any of that.
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