Santo Antão

We went for a day trip to Santo Antão, the greenest island in the archipelago. Long gone – fortunately – are the days of Nauta and Carvalho, the boats that used to make the crossing, extremely unsafe and untrustworthy (it was not uncommon for people to fall overboard or for the boat to turn around due to the wind); now there are good ferries that cross the channel between Mindelo and Porto Novo in 40 minutes and with no hazards.
I had been to Santo Antão before, also on a day trip, and remembered it as a most beautiful and magical place (probably also because I was living in the dry São Vicente then). And it lived to its reputation – it’s indeed a magically beautiful place. We hired a guide recommended by a friend in S. Vicente, and it was a perfect choice (Nhô Adelino d'Garça) – he was funny and helpful, we talked a lot and learned so much about the island, its stories and folklore, and shared memories of old songs.

Santo Antão is a remarkable volcanic island – one crosses the mountains and reach lush and green valleys, with banana trees, acacias, sugar cane plantations, where they produce the grogue, the spirit so characteristic of Cape Vert. We tasted it at a trapiche, where lovely girls tended the shop. Ribeira Grande – the same in the song Nhô Anton Escaderode – is a lovely little town where we had lunch listening to two girls rehearsing their singing, as is Ponta do Sol, with its quaint colonial buildings.

From there we went to the Fontainhas village, rated by some as one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. It’s indeed beautiful, the old road is impressive, and we gave a ride to a few kids back from school at Ribeira Grande – they usually walk several miles to their villages.
Santo Antão is a land of contrasts – the lush valleys and the barren hills, impressive mountains and rugged coasts. It would be wonderful to stay there for a few days and do some hiking along those mountains – even with my fear of heights.

São Vicente - looking for remains of the past

This being a kind of down-the-memory-lane trip, I was of course anxious to see the places I remembered from my childhood – and I was somewhat fearful that, since I was not yet 9 when I left, I wouldn’t recognize any of them. I was actually surprised how accurate my memories were. My old school was no more, a new building is in its place. But the Pracinha with its bandstand, the palace with its spiral staircase and the terrace, the eagle by the harbor, the Leão’s drugstore, were exactly as I remembered them (curiously, I had no memory whatsoever of the Belém tower replica).

I felt especially thrilled when I found the places where we used to live. The old army officers’ mess is now a university, our old apartments became classrooms, and the dining room – where I spent so many hours looking at a reproduction of Brueghel’s Peasant Wedding – and the living room now auditoriums. But the building is the same, even if now surrounded by villas of doubtful taste, where once were bare hills where we used to play. And the old three cannons were still there, one of them turned sideways to make room for a sculpture representing Baltasar Lopes’ books.
And our old house was still standing! Recently renovated, it was much uglier than it used to be, but they kept the inside plan, the cleaning woman was there and let us in, and how strange it was to see again the old verandah/living room, our bedrooms, the back yard and the front garden, I could picture our dear German Shepard there, the bed where I used to read, the kitchen where once lobsters jumped out of boiling water, the place where once a cockroach crawled inside my sandal scaring the living daylights out of me…

My mother and sister were lavishly received at the high school where they had been teacher and student. The teachers were extremely nice and deferential towards my mother, and the students were lively and funny. The name changed, but the building is the same.

We rented a car to go to Baía das Gatas, the beach where we used to go on weekends. The road is new and fairly good; leaving Mindelo was not that easy, due to a lack of road signs, and we were somewhat shocked by the poverty of the city outskirts, contrasting with the relative prosperity of the centre. We stopped at Salamansa – the beach still wild and beautiful, the village still very poor, although we didn’t see goats with a tin can on their necks as there used to be.

Baía das Gatas was a huge disappointment. What used to be a vibrant beach is now a deserted and forlorn place, not only it seems much smaller but also mostly abandoned and neglected – I guess that’s because there is now the beautiful Lajinha beach in Mindelo, so people don’t have to go to Baía das Gatas as they used to when it was the nearest white sand and protected beach.

On the other hand, the drive to the São Pedro fishing village was lovely. The place is beautiful, the lighthouse we had seen from the plane upon landing is on a fantastic setting. Fishermen had just come from the sea, big tunas were unloaded, old women were repairing fishing nets, stray dogs were roaming the beach, teenagers were talking and cooling in the shade, cats dozed, a couple of children were helping their elders. And the sun was setting and the whole place was just beautiful.

Back to São Vicente, Cape Vert, after 45 years

For a long time, I had doubts about returning to Cape Vert, where I spent 2 years of my childhood. I had so many good memories about that tie, I feared they could be spoilt by seeing it again, so any years later; wouldn’t it be too different, wouldn’t my childhood memories be somewhat shattered? But then my sister talked me into going, and off we went, a family trip down the memory lane – my mother, sister and niece.

I’ glad we did it. We landed in S. Vicente airport (now named after Cesárea Évora), and the landscape of barren hills immediately felt familiar. As the sight of Mindelo harbor, and the Pracinha, where we stayed in a very nice hotel.
My first impressions of the city were how small it looked! The centre was so much tidier than before, and everything I remembered was in a short walking distance – my old school, the beach where Matiota used to be, the palace where I played as a child.

The centre of Mindelo is very well preserved, very clean - the bright colours of the houses and the old colonial architecture wonderfully kept. Everything we remembered – shops, cafés, the eagle statue, the palace, the Pracinha – was in walking distance, and I mean like a 5 minute walk.

There was a great exhibition of African art at the Palace, and there were a lot of tourist shops, but also genuine nice cafés. And the Leão drugstore was exactly the same as I remembered it. As was the Monte Cara, the same beautiful sight as always. The weather was unusually humid, so there was a mist stopping us from having a clear view of the Santo Antão mountains.

The food was, as expected, a wonderful experience. The first restaurant we went to was the Cocktail, where we had a buffet of hearty and tasty food, and later we tried several different restaurants, the Nautilus being the best, in my opinion. Tuna cooked in different ways, cachupa, cheese goat from Sto. Antão, cheese pudding – all delicious, as the white wine from Fogo.

The Burning Library, by Edmund White

I've read a few of Edmund White's novels, but I always liked much more his essays and memoirs - My Lives is excellent. Edmund White's essays are extremely interesting and sensible. I highly recommend this book.

Maria Accanto, by Matteo B. Bianchi

I discovered Matteo B. Bianchi through a friend who recommended me Generations of Love, his first novel. I read it in a Spanish translation, and loved it - a fresh, funny and insightful coming out novel, full of references to the 1980s I also lived in and could relate so much to his writing and impressions. I wanted to read more of his work, so when his novel Maria Accanto came out, I waited for a translation, but it was taking too long, so I decided to read it in Italian.

Italian is a Latin language, I am Portuguese and know French, so it seemed a doable project. And it was, I had to use the dictionary lots of times at first, since I lacked the basic vocabulary and there were a lot of "false friends" words, but I managed to understand it pretty well and enjoy the reading. It was worth it, the book is very good, it reminded me of a Woody Allen movie - an out-of-worldly experience by a common girl, that makes her think and grow. All in a casual and funny tone and an optimistic mood, you feel happy upon reading it.

I'd really wish Matteo's books to be translated to English to get them the audience they deserve.