Hiking on Santo Antao – Cape Verde

Yesterday we all went hiking in Santo Antao, Cape Verde. The goal with this was to learn to survive on our own with limited resources and opportunities

We were six people in my group: Ally, Alicia, Hannes, Uno, Xochitl and me, but to make it all less expensive we united our group with another group of six. When we first came to Riviera Grande which was the “city” (more like village) we had to stay in for 24 hours we could not find any hotels nearby. We had to ask multiple locals for tips and recommendations but nearly all of them said no hotels existed in Riviera Grande. They said we had to go to Ponta do Sol because it easier bigger and better for tourists, but we were no tourists, we were hikers and we really had the mindset that we would find somewhere to sleep in the city we got placed out in.

After looking around a bit we found a man who showed us a place to sleep at. We had four rooms and didn’t even pay much for them. The rooms were placed in a sketchy apartment building where everything echoed a lot and the rooms were decorated extremely weird with pictures of bikes and plants. We had two single beds, a shower and a toilet in every room. There were also wardrobes where we could lock our stuff in before we went away for the hike. Even though the beds were hard, and the walls were weirdly decorated and painted, the worst thing in the apartments were the bathrooms. The bathrooms were flooded, and we had to wear shoes to walk into the room. There was no toilet paper since the paper that used to hang over the toilet had fell into the water.

Even though the rooms kind of sucked we were excited enough for the hike to not care. We decided to pick the hike that took 6 hours and about 10 kilometers (I think). We saw mangos papaya and bananaplants on the way, but the best thing was the interesting shapes of the mountains. We also saw donkeys, goats and even a monkey. The monkey was tied to a tree and I think it was tame and imported from another country because I don’t think monkeys live in Cape Verde.

After walking we took a taxi to the hotel for some rest. We changed our clothes and went to eat with two other groups from our class. We also met our teachers outside the restaurant and spoke to them for a while. In Cape Verde everyone latterly lives for the quote “No Stress”. Therefor it takes over an hour every time you order food at restaurants. The chefs really don’t stress.

We went home to sleep at 23.30 but we actually slept at like 4.00 since everyone hung out in mine and Sonja’s room for a long time. The doors in the apartment accidentally got locked when we shut them so three people got locked outside their rooms and had to sleep in our room. We slept five people in a bed for two. It was uncomfortable, and I will never do it again, but I think I actually got the most sleep of us all. Hiking where actually much more fun than I thought but we should have taken a shorter path because my legs can barely move today.

Irma SAS2326