- Where
- Atlantic Ocean, the north-west of Cabo Verde
Barlavento (windward) islands - Coordinates
- 17.0700° N
25.1710° W - Size
- 785 km², about 43 by 24 km
(Wikipedia) - Highest point
- Tope de Coroa, 1,979 m
- People
- 38,200 (2019 estimate)
three municipalities - Getting there
- Ferry from Mindelo (São Vicente)
to Porto Novo, about an hour - Best visited
- November to June (the dry season)
The boat crossed from a bare brown island to a tall one, and above the cloud everything turned green. Terraces climbed the valley walls like stairs built for giants, each held up by hand-stacked stones, and the air by the cane mill smelled sweet and sharp at once. High above, a village balanced along a ridge as thin as a knife, and for a while I said nothing at all.
The short answer
Santo Antão is the north-westernmost island of Cabo Verde, the archipelago off the coast of West Africa, and at 785 square kilometres the largest of its northern, Barlavento group and the second-largest island in the country, by Wikipedia’s figures. It is volcanic and very mountainous, with two high plateaus and steep river valleys, and rises to 1,979 metres at Tope de Coroa in the west. The south of the island has a desert climate; the north-east and the heights are wetter. About 38,200 people lived there in 2019, in three municipalities, Porto Novo, Paul and Ribeira Grande. The island has had no airport since the one at Ponta do Sol closed in the 1990s, Wikipedia records, so it is reached by sea from Mindelo, on neighbouring São Vicente.
Why it's worth knowing
A farmed mountain. Because the island is so steep, Wikipedia explains, most of its farming is done on terraces, which rule out machinery and take great manual labour; the crops include sugar cane, yams, cassava, bananas and mangoes. UNESCO’s tentative-list description of the Cova-Paul-Ribeira da Torre Natural Park, in indexed text, calls its terracing centuries old, with a system for capturing rain for irrigation, and a network of local roads and paths built to fit the landscape. The park, 20.92 square kilometres in the east of the island, takes in the Cova crater, the upper valleys of the Ribeira do Paul and Ribeira da Torre and the summit of Pico da Cruz, and has been on the World Heritage Tentative List since 2016.
Cane into grogue. The island’s best-known product is grogue, a spirit distilled from sugar cane, whose name Wikipedia derives from the English “grog”. Its production is mostly artisanal: the cane is crushed in a press called a trapiche and the juice distilled, and Wikipedia names the Ribeira do Paul and Ribeira da Cruz on Santo Antão, with the island of Santiago, as where most of it is made. Mills in the Paul Valley still distil it.
The field notes
A crater full of fields
Cova is a volcanic caldera about a kilometre across in the east-central part of the island, formed between 1.4 million and 700,000 years ago, with its floor at 1,166 metres and its rim at about 1,500, Wikipedia records. Trade winds bring it more rain than most of the island; maize and beans are grown on the crater floor, pine and cypress cover its south-facing walls, and the 2010 census counted ten people living in the small village inside it. From the rim, paths drop north-east into the Paul Valley, where the Ribeira do Paul, a seasonal stream, runs through a narrow, steep gorge past small farms of cane, coffee, yam, banana, papaya and mango to the sea at Pombas.
Plants found nowhere else
Wikipedia counts 50 endangered plant species on Santo Antão, the most of any island in the country, and two, Tornabenea insularis and Tornabenea ribeirensis, found on this island alone. The natural park around Tope de Coroa, 84.92 square kilometres in the west, holds 61 per cent of Cabo Verde’s endemic flowering plants, a quarter of them on the red list of endangered species, and Wikipedia names free grazing as a threat to them. The summit itself is young rock for the island, formed between 200,000 and 170,000 years ago.
Settled late, by sea
The island was sighted in 1461 or 1462 by Diogo Afonso, sailing for Portugal, along with São Vicente and São Nicolau, Wikipedia records; settlement began in the first half of the sixteenth century, at Ribeira Grande, whose earliest evidence of settlement dates from 1548. Ponta do Sol, the northernmost town in Cabo Verde, grew from a small fishing village from the 1880s. Mindelo, across the channel, drew migrants from Santo Antão during the droughts and famines of 1940 to 1958, in which about 45,000 people died across the archipelago.
The north coast, where terraced slopes end in sea cliffs.
Photograph: Konstantin Krismer · Coastline Santo Antao · CC BY 3.0 · cropped
The cobbled mountain road, cut along the ridges.
Photograph: Zinneke · Santo Antão, Cabo Verde 2017-04 --5 · CC BY-SA 3.0
A wooden cane press (trapiche), used for grogue.
Photograph: Richard Leeming · Santo Antão-Trapiche · CC BY 2.0 · cropped
Green valleys inland after the rains, seen from a footpath.
Photograph: Joehawkins · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
- Catch the morning boat and find a place by the rail, island side. It starts out brown and changes its mind on the way up.
- Walk the valley downhill rather than up, and let your knees file their complaints with the list. Mine are under review.
- The terraces are somebody’s fields. Keep to the stone path, shut each gate you open, and leave the cane where it grows.
- Accept one small glass at the mill if it is offered, sip it, and thank whoever pressed the cane.
- Look up from the valley floor toward evening, as the cloud slides down the ridges. Then look up again later.
A trapiche. The press in which Santo Antão’s sugar cane is crushed for grogue, the island’s cane spirit, whose making Wikipedia describes as fundamentally artisanal; mills in the Paul Valley still distil it, and the juice the trapiche gives up goes to the still. It belongs to the mill and the family that works it, and is seen when they show it.
Tally, in the marginAll morning I took the still for the clever part. Only when the press began to turn, slow and creaking, did I realise that I had walked straight past the first step to get to the second.
Getting there
How to get there. By air to São Vicente, then by ferry. Cesária Évora Airport, near Mindelo, has flights from Lisbon and other European cities and from Praia and Sal, by Wikipedia’s airport listing. From Mindelo’s port, CV Interilhas runs ferries to Porto Novo several times a day, Portuguese press reported in indexed text, and travel writers put the crossing at about an hour. From Porto Novo the national roads run north over the mountains and round to Paul, Ribeira Grande and Ponta do Sol.
When to go. November to June, the dry season. Rain on Santo Antão falls mostly from July to October, by the climate figures Wikipedia gives for the highlands, and Cabo Verde’s authorities, reported by Lusa, warn that rockfalls on the mountain roads are more frequent in that season. Travel guides add that Atlantic swell can delay or cancel the ferry, most often from December to March, so leave a spare day at either end.
What to arrange ahead. A bed on the green side of the island (Paul, Ribeira Grande or Ponta do Sol) if you mean to walk, transport from the ferry at Porto Novo, and the ferry back in time for your flight. Wikipedia describes hiking, trekking and cultural tourism as most of what the island offers visitors; a local guide is worth having for the longer routes.
Safety. The State Department rates Cabo Verde Level 1, exercise normal precautions (advisory dated 15 December 2025 in its feed, read 5 October 2026). Its one Level 2 area is Praia, the capital, on the island of Santiago, where it reports an increased risk of crime, from pickpocketing to mugging, armed robbery and assault; that warning names Praia alone, which is about 290 kilometres south-east of Santo Antão by the editor’s measurement. The hazards here are the place’s own: rockfall and landslides on mountain roads, worst in the rains, and steep paths. A rockfall on the coast road between Porto Novo and Janela killed two people in January 2025, Lusa reported, and in August 2025 the storm that became Hurricane Erin brought landslides and cut roads on the island.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where is Santo Antão?
Santo Antão is the north-westernmost island of Cabo Verde, in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa. At 785 square kilometres it is the largest of the Barlavento (windward) islands and the second-largest in the country; its nearest neighbour is São Vicente, across the São Vicente Channel to the south-east.
How do you get to Santo Antão?
By ferry. Santo Antão has no airport, so visitors fly to Cesária Évora Airport on São Vicente and take a ferry from Mindelo to Porto Novo, which CV Interilhas runs several times a day; travel writers put the crossing at about an hour.
Why does Santo Antão have no airport?
Santo Antão’s Agostinho Neto Airport, near Ponta do Sol on the island’s northern tip, was closed for safety reasons in the 1990s, Wikipedia records. Plans have been made for a new airport near Porto Novo, but the island has been reached only by sea since then.
What is grogue?
Grogue is Cabo Verde’s sugar-cane spirit, an aguardente whose name comes from the English “grog”. It is made mostly by hand: cane is crushed in a press called a trapiche and the juice distilled. Wikipedia names the Paul and Cruz valleys of Santo Antão, and the island of Santiago, as where most of it is produced.
Is Santo Antão safe to visit?
The State Department rates Cabo Verde Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level (advisory dated 15 December 2025). Its one Level 2 area, for crime including armed robbery, is Praia, on the island of Santiago, about 290 kilometres from Santo Antão. On Santo Antão itself the main hazard is rockfall on mountain roads, worst in the July-to-October rains.
When is the best time to visit Santo Antão?
November to June, the dry season, is best for walking on Santo Antão. Most rain falls from July to October, when Cabo Verde’s authorities, as reported by Lusa, warn that rockfalls on the island’s mountain roads are more frequent; travel guides add that swell can disrupt the ferry from December to March.
What is the highest point of Santo Antão?
Tope de Coroa, at 1,979 metres, in the west of Santo Antão. Wikipedia records that it lies in a natural park of 84.92 square kilometres that holds 61 per cent of Cabo Verde’s endemic flowering plants, and that its volcanic rock formed between 200,000 and 170,000 years ago.
Is Santo Antão a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Not yet. Santo Antão’s Cova-Paul-Ribeira da Torre Natural Park, 20.92 square kilometres in the east of the island, has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage Tentative List since 2016, for its centuries-old farming terraces and rainwater irrigation, its volcanic landscape and its endemic plants.