Paúl Valley

Overview

Paúl is the valley that runs inland from the northeast coast of Santo Antão, climbing from the sea at Vila das Pombas to the rim of the Cova crater about 1,150 m above it. The seasonal stream that made it, the Ribeira do Paul, rises in the steep ground near Cabo da Ribeira between Cova and the Pico da Cruz and runs southwest to northeast through a narrow gorge, past Campo de Cão and Eito, reaching the Atlantic at Vila das Pombas. Cape Verde’s national tourism directorate calls Paúl the greenest municipality in the country, and the valley is the reason.

What you look at from anywhere on the valley floor is an amphitheatre of terraces. The slopes are cut into stone-walled steps and watered by a network of catchment dams, reservoirs and open channels known as levadas, a system the same inventory describes as the backbone of the municipality’s farming. Sugar cane dominates: it takes more than two thirds of the municipality’s irrigated land. Around and above it grow bananas, yams and other root crops, vegetables, coffee, papaya and mango, while the drier high ground behind the valley runs to maize, beans and sweet potatoes.

The upper part of the valley sits inside the Cova-Paul-Ribeira da Torre Natural Park, one of ten natural parks in Cape Verde, which covers 20.92 km2 across three municipalities and takes in the Cova crater, the upper Ribeira do Paul, the upper Ribeira da Torre and the Pico da Cruz at 1,585 m. Cape Verde put the park on its UNESCO World Heritage tentative list in March 2016 under three criteria, arguing that the terraces, water channels and stone footpaths amount to a working cultural landscape rather than scenery.

History

Farming shaped this valley before anything else did. The UNESCO dossier dates settlement inside what is now the natural park to the end of the 16th century, when about 350 families lived there working the land and keeping goats, and it credits the terracing, the traditional water intakes and the network of basalt-paved paths to centuries of incremental work by those households rather than to any single scheme.

The municipality around the valley has been assembled and taken apart repeatedly. A royal decree of 3 April 1867 split Santo Antão into two councils, Ribeira Grande and Paúl. Paúl was abolished in 1895 and folded back into Ribeira Grande, restored in 1917 as an administrative junta, and cut down to its present size on 2 September 1962, when the new municipality of Porto Novo took more than 70 per cent of its territory. What was left is the smallest council on the island, 54.3 km2 with a single parish, Santo António das Pombas.

Cane and its by-products have carried the valley economy throughout. Grogue, the Cape Verdean sugarcane spirit, is made almost entirely by hand: the cane is crushed in a press called a trapiche, the juice is fermented and then distilled in a copper still, and the same cane also yields molasses. Production is concentrated on Santo Antão, and the Ribeira do Paul is one of the two places usually named. The Banco de Cabo Verde thought the machine emblematic enough to print it: the back of the 2007 issue 500 escudo note carries a Santo Antão landscape with an oxen-powered trapiche, opposite a portrait of the Santo Antão-born chemist Roberto Duarte Silva.

People have been leaving. The municipality counted 8,385 residents in 2000, 6,997 in 2010 and 5,770 at the 2021 census, and Vila das Pombas itself held 1,356.

Visiting

Getting into the valley

Vila das Pombas sits at the mouth of the river at about 9 m elevation, 7 km southeast of Ribeira Grande and 15 km north of Porto Novo, where the ferry from Mindelo docks. Two national roads reach it, the EN1-SA02 along the coast from Ribeira Grande and the EN1-SA03 from Porto Novo, and they cross in the town with the road that runs up the valley. Shared minibuses and pickups called aluguers do the work: Wikivoyage puts the fare from the ferry to Paúl at roughly 400 to 500 CVE per person in cash, with at least one departure every half hour or so on the Paúl to Ribeira Grande and Paúl to Chã de Padre runs, and a privately hired vehicle, a frete, from Porto Novo to Paúl at around 4,000 CVE for the car.

The classic descent from Cova

The route most visitors come for starts at the top. Cape Verde’s tourism directorate describes a circuit of about 15 km from the Cova crater through Chã de Manuel dos Santos, Campo de Cão and Figueiral to Vila das Pombas, calls it one of the most used walks on the island and a favourite among visitors, and notes it can be done in either direction but recommends the Cova to Paúl sense. A vehicle can drive down to the crater floor beside the agricultural nursery there; from that point you climb the northern rim just below Pedra Rachada, which is where the whole valley opens up in front of you, green from the streambed to the ridgeline.

From the rim the inventory gives two ways down. You can stay on the road through Chã de João Vaz and past Passagem all the way to Vila das Pombas, or take the westward path at the head of the track and walk through Chãzinha among coffee trees and fruit trees to Boca de Figueiral, rejoining the road for the last stretch into town. Cova’s floor is at 1,166 m and its rim reaches about 1,500 m, so the drop to the sea is substantial and almost entirely one way.

Walking inside the valley

You do not have to start at the crater. The valley can be walked end to end on its network of footpaths and secondary roads, and the road itself climbs from Vila das Pombas to Cabo da Ribeira, a settlement of about 900 people at roughly 500 m elevation some 5 km southwest of the town. Side paths climb out of the valley in both directions. Wikivoyage rates the walk from Chã de Padre to Cabeça de Figueiral and Boca di Figueiral as moderate with steep sections, 4 to 5 hours and about 200 m of height change, and the long link from Chã de Padre over Cova to Chã de Fazenda as hard, 7 to 8 hours, with 1,000 m of climbing.

Vila das Pombas

The town at the river mouth is the seat of the municipality and holds its administration, and it was raised from town to city status in 2010. The tourism inventory calls it the least mountainous and most populous part of the municipality, living off farming and retail trade, with a building stock that mixes newer construction and older colonial houses. On a hill just outside stands a statue of Santo António das Pombas, at a spot with a 180 degree view over the valley and the ocean. The seafront here is rock and cobble rather than sand, and the coast road continues southeast towards Janela.

Tips

Walk downhill. The national tourism directorate specifically recommends the Cova to Paúl direction, and it is the sense that keeps the valley in front of you rather than behind. Arrange the drop-off at the crater and the pick-up in Vila das Pombas before you set out, since you finish a long way from where you started.

Cloud is the variable that decides the day. The trade winds push moisture up the head of the valley and over into the Cova crater, and the UNESCO dossier describes it pouring down the inner wall like falling water, which is fine to watch and less fine if you wanted the view. The same document notes that in the July and August rains the walls above 1,000 m carry waterfalls. Set off early, and treat the stone paths as slippery after rain.

For grogue, timing matters. Wikivoyage notes that the distilleries work between March and May, which is when you can watch a press and a still in operation and buy directly from the producer; outside those months the spirit is sold in shops across the island. Cane presses in the valley are private working equipment on private land, so ask before walking in, and expect to be shown around by the family that owns it rather than by a guide.

There is no entrance gate and no fee: the valley is inhabited countryside crossed by public roads and paths, and neither the park documentation nor the municipality publishes an admission charge. Services are thin and concentrated at the bottom. The health centre for the municipality is in Vila das Pombas, with smaller health posts at Pontinha de Janela and Chã de João Vaz and basic units in the upper settlements. The municipal council is based in Vila das Pombas and publishes a switchboard number of +238 235 1195. Carry cash, and if you are combining Paúl with the north coast, Ponta do Sol and Fontainhas are an easy add-on from Ribeira Grande; the wider context is on the Cape Verde country page.