Pico do Fogo

PeaksFogo,Cape Verde

A 2,829-metre cone inside a nine-kilometre caldera on Cape Verde whose floor people farm, growing the country's only vineyards in black sand beside 2014 lava.

September·Quiet month

Sep–Oct

The rains peak now — September is the wettest month — so the ash trails turn slippery and low cloud hides the summit views. The grape harvest is over. The caldera turns green, and the village, its guesthouses and its guides stay open all year.

Year-round The cone, the bare 2014 lava and the vineyards in black sand are here every day, and the caldera is climbed year-round. What changes with the season is the clarity of the air, the rains, the trail underfoot and the harvest.

Pico do Fogo is a cone of 2,829 metres in Cape Verde, the highest ground in the country, and it stands inside a caldera nine kilometres across whose floor people farm. The Bordeira, the caldera's western wall, draws a thousand-metre cliff around half the horizon, and the sense of standing inside something enormous never quite leaves you. The eastern side is missing. About seventy-three thousand years ago that flank slid into the Atlantic, and the wave it raised struck the next island, fifty-five kilometres away. Inside, the floor is broken volcanic rock that crunches and rings underfoot, some of it only a few years old. The vines go straight into the black sand and lapilli, the only grapes grown in any quantity in Cape Verde. They make Manecom, the dark, sweet, faintly smoky wine of Chã, poured in the village cellars. The climb starts in the dark. Guides leave the village around four in the morning, because the ash slope is kinder cool, and it takes you four hours to the rim. Up there the crater opens 500 metres wide and 150 deep, fumaroles venting along its edge and the air turning sharp with sulphur, the island and the Atlantic laid out below you. Going down is the payment for it. The ash is deep enough to run, every stride sinking in and carrying you several metres, so the whole grind uphill is gone in minutes. Back on the floor, the 2014 lava stopped in Portela and Bangaeira with houses half inside it. Roofs and door lintels still surface out of the black rock, and the new homes stand a few metres away. There is somewhere else for these families to live. After an earlier eruption the government built them housing down at Monte Grande, and it stands almost empty, because it is too far from the caldera to farm from day to day. So after 2014, as after 1995, they rebuilt on ground that had just been declared too dangerous to build on, and put the winery up again with them.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Guides set off from the village in the dark, around 4am — the 1,100-metre ash slope is far kinder in the cool, and you reach the crater rim before the day's heat builds.
The grape harvest runs from July into early September, when the caldera fills with pickers and the cellars open the new Manecom — though it overlaps the rains, when the trails are at their roughest.
The climb starts in Chã das Caldeiras, not in São Filipe — take a local guide from the village itself, and plan to come up the evening before and sleep inside the caldera.
Gaiters, ankle boots and a windproof layer earn their place here — the fine ash pours into low shoes, and the summit can sit near freezing at night while the coast is still at 25°C.

Things to do

1
Climb to the crater rim and run the ash back down
At the rim the crater opens 500 metres wide and 150 deep, fumaroles venting along its edge and the air turning sharp with sulphur, the whole island and the Atlantic laid out below. Going down is the reward: the ash is deep enough to run, each stride sinking in and carrying you several metres, so the grind uphill disappears in minutes.
2
Cross the black lava fields under the Bordeira
The caldera floor is a field of broken volcanic rock that crunches and rings underfoot, some of it only a few years old. Above it the Bordeira draws a thousand-metre wall around half the horizon, and the sense of standing inside something enormous never quite leaves you.
3
Drink Manecom in the black-sand vineyards
Chã is the only place in Cape Verde that grows grapes in any quantity, and the vines are planted directly into volcanic sand and lapilli. In the village cellars and at the rebuilt co-operative you can taste Manecom, the dark, sweet, faintly smoky house wine the caldera is known for.
4
Stand at the rooftops the 2014 lava swallowed
In Portela and Bangaeira the lava stopped with houses half-buried in it, so that roofs and door lintels still surface from the black rock. New homes now stand a few metres away — the clearest picture anywhere of what it means to live on an active volcano and refuse to move.