Serra Malagueta Natural Park

Serra Malagueta Natural Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Serra Malagueta is the mountain range in the north of Santiago, the main island of Cape Verde, an hour and a half from the capital Praia on the road to Tarrafal, and it is the island's hiking park, sold from Praia and from the Tarrafal beach hotels as day walks with a guide, transport and a lunch cooked in a village house. The classic hike descends from the park house on the ridge road, at about 1,000 metres, down the valley of Ribeira Principal through terraced fields, sugar cane and the hamlets of the rabelados country to Hortelão or the coast road, four to five hours almost all downhill, with the driver waiting at the bottom;

the variants go down the Gongon valley to the east or along the ridge to the summit viewpoints and the Xaxa and Mato Correia hamlets in a shorter loop. The island tours that include the park stop at the ridge for the view on the way between the Assomada market and Tarrafal, which is a glimpse. The park entrance fee is paid at the Casa do Ambiente on the road, where local guides from the community association can be hired, and the cultural-experience versions visit a grogue still, a weaver or a family farm. A guide is sensible for the valley descents, since the paths fork among the terraces and the pick-up has to be arranged. Independent visitors take an aluguer minibus from Praia or Assomada towards Tarrafal and get off at the park house.

Visiting Serra Malagueta Natural Park: what you will see

The park was created in 2005 and covers about 7.7 square kilometres of the Serra Malagueta, the second range of Santiago, a volcanic ridge rising to 1,064 metres across the waist of the island between Assomada and Tarrafal, whose importance is out of proportion to its size: it catches the mist of the north-east trade winds on an island that is otherwise dry for nine months, and its cloud-fed slopes are the source of the streams that water the valleys below and the refuge of much of the island's native flora. The ridge road runs along the crest with drops on both sides, and from the viewpoints the deep green valleys of Ribeira Principal and Gongon fall away to the sea on the east, terraced to the last metre with maize, beans, sugar cane, bananas and mangoes, while the dry plateau of Assomada and the peak of Pico da Antónia, the island's summit, lie to the south.

The vegetation on the heights is a mix of the eucalyptus, cypress and pine of the reforestation and the endemic plants of the cliffs, the Cape Verde bellflower, the língua-de-vaca and the dragon tree in a few places, and the birds are the reason naturalists come: the Cape Verde purple heron nests in the island's interior, the Cape Verde warbler, swift, sparrow and buzzard are all here, and the grey-headed kingfisher sits on every wire. Vervet monkeys, brought by the Portuguese, raid the fields. The valleys are the home of the rabelados, a community that rejected the reforms of the Catholic church in the 1940s and withdrew to the hills, and of the batuku and tabanka traditions of Santiago, the most African of the islands; the sugar cane is distilled into grogue in stills the hikers pass.

Serra Malagueta Natural Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park house is open daily from about 8 am to 5 pm and the trails at all times. The best months are from October to January, just after the rains, when the valleys are intensely green and the streams run; February to June is dry, brown and hazy with the harmattan dust, though walkable and cool on the ridge; the rains from August to October bring mist, mud and occasional washed-out paths. The ridge is often in cloud by midday, so start early. Allow a full day from Praia or Tarrafal. Tarrafal's beach and the former political prison are half an hour north, Assomada's market twenty minutes south, and Cidade Velha, the first European town in the tropics, is near Praia.