Cape Verde Bus Independent transit guide
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Ferry guide

Hiking island

Santo Antão

There is no scheduled bus network. Every arrival is the ferry into Porto Novo; beyond the port, aluguers (shared vans) run between towns without a published timetable, and no authority publishes an aluguer time or fare. Ask locally where they leave from.

By bus

Getting to Santo Antão

There is no scheduled bus network. Every arrival is the ferry into Porto Novo; beyond the port, aluguers (shared vans) run between towns without a published timetable, and no authority publishes an aluguer time or fare. Ask locally where they leave from.

  • Published ferry crossing: 40 minutes, São Vicente to Porto Novo.
  • Aluguers run without a published timetable; ask locally where they leave from.
  • Agree the fare before you set off; none is published.

Source: CV InterIlhas: Routes, schedules and island-to-island crossing times · ENAPOR: Ports of Cabo Verde · Turismo de Cabo Verde: Getting around each island by land

Check the Barlavento ferry crossing

Before you go

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Check the Barlavento ferry crossing
Cloud spilling over the jagged peaks and farming terraces of the Paúl valley, Santo Antão
Photo: CaptainDarwin, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

Worth your time

What Santo Antão does best

Santo Antão is a green vertical world of terraced ribeiras, sugar-cane stills and footpaths cobbled by hand. There is no airport, so every visitor arrives by the same 40-minute boat from Mindelo into the dry moonscape of Porto Novo — then crosses the spine of the island and drops into the wet north, where Ribeira Grande, Paúl and Ponta do Sol sit under 1,800-metre walls.

The Ribeira Grande valleys

Terraced fields stacked to impossible angles, villages clinging to the walls, and grogue stills working the cane by hand. This is the walking everybody comes for.

The old cobbled road

The original hand-laid road over the crater rim to Cova is a piece of engineering as impressive as the view from the top of it.

Ponta do Sol

The northern tip, where the coastal path to Fontainhas hangs off a cliff above the sea — the most photographed footpath in Cape Verde, and rightly so.

Good to know

  • German and French walkers make up much of the traffic here; trail information circulates in those languages first.
  • The south is desert and the north is green — do not judge the island from Porto Novo.
  • No source says when the last vehicles leave Porto Novo; if your boat arrives late, ask locally before you rely on onward transport.

While you’re there Guided hikes and transfers cover the ribeira valleys where no scheduled service reaches. See Cape Verde experiences

Keep exploring

Evening light over Mindelo and Porto Grande bay with the Monte Cara ridge behind, São Vicente Music island São Vicente Mindelo: the country’s cultural capital, its liveliest port, and its least documented bus network. Plan the ride Turquoise shallows at Santa Maria beach on Sal with a catamaran and yachts at anchor Gateway island Sal The main international arrival point, with the flattest landscape and the thinnest public transport in the country. Plan the ride Rusting hull of the Cabo Santa Maria shipwreck standing in the surf on Boa Vista Dune island Boa Vista Sahara dunes, nesting turtles and sand roads — three hours from Sal by sea and nothing scheduled on land. Plan the ride

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