We are now on Santo Antao, our third island in Cape Verde to visit. Santo Antao is both the most westerly island and the most northerly island of the country. It's also the second largest island in Cape Verde. It's a volcanic island, very mountainous, has two high plateaus, several steep river valleys, and is known for its verdant mountains and lush interior, but not the whole island is like that. In fact, the southern part has a desert climate. Santo Antao has genuinely rugged mountains and many remarkable vistas. The island is so mountainous and rugged that it does not have an airport. People need to fly to Sao Vicente island and take a Ferry here.

We were in Santo Antao for two days and had some interesting experiences. Our first visit was a short drive to the village of Janela. We were told that Janela means "window" in Portuguese and the window is the rock formations along the coast here. I'm not sure if I saw the window or not. I'm also uncertain about the exact location of Janela. I think that the first village we saw might be a separate village but I'll point it out below. You can see the coastline and the village is on the right in the distance and in the Sahara sand.

When we reached the village in the above photo, we turned up into the mountains. There are evidently several villages up in the valley of the river Ribeira da Janela. We were told that we were in the village of Janela. Below, you can see that we are driving up the river valley and it is a steep and rugged valley but with plenty of water and agriculture.

One of the features that most impressed me was the terracing done for agriculture. It had to be a real challenge to put in all those terraces on such a steep hillside.

As we got off our bus at the bottom of the valley, the lushness and productivity of the agriculture was very evident. In these photos, we see bananas, papayas, breadfruits, sugar cane, mangoes, manyak (tapioca), yams, and others.

Below is a part of the village. Even being very low down in the valley, everything was still steep and had to be terraced to make the street below.

Most of the village of Janela was rugged mountains as you can see below. Some of the houses appeared to be very utilitarian but not all of them.

In the next post, we will take a hike through this village, which was a substantial uphill and downhill hike.