Monte Largo (Cape Verde)
Monte Largo is a village on the Cape Verde island of Fogo . It is not far from the southern edge of the crater of the Pico do Fogo volcano , the main attraction of the island, but was spared from destruction during the last eruptions in 1951 and 1995. The place is called Monti Largu in Creole , which literally means "Long Mountain" in German.
Infrastructure
Monte Largo is connected by a well-developed road that can be used in all weathers with the island's capital São Filipe , which is around 20 km away and is located southwest of Monte Largo, and with the already relatively well-developed tourist region of the Parque Natural do Fogo . Several times a day (not on Sundays or public holidays) the village can be reached from São Filipe with the Aluguer buses typical of Cape Verde . They operate on a specific route, but not according to a fixed timetable, but depart as soon as enough passengers have arrived.
In São Jorge there is a school, a simple restaurant and shops for daily needs, but currently no accommodation for tourists. The place consists for the most part of single-storey houses with a flat or hipped roof , but various multi-storey new buildings have also been built in recent years, although not all of the owners live in Cape Verde.
Since cultural and nature tourism has developed to a certain extent on Fogo in recent years, tourism could become an additional source of income for the village in the foreseeable future. The distance to Pico do Fogo and the Parque Natural do Fogo is only around ten kilometers.
Attractions
The church of Monte Largo is worth seeing and worth a stop on the drive to Parque Natural do Fogo.
The landscape around Monte Largo is strikingly green: the island of Fogo receives the most rainfall of all the islands in Cape Verde. Monte Largo is located on the south side of the volcanic cone in a region that is relatively densely overgrown by Cape Verdean standards. In addition, significant afforestation has been carried out here in the last few decades in order to stop erosion. Most of the inhabitants of Monte Largo live from agriculture, which is partly done with the help of drip irrigation . It is of immense importance for the Cape Verde Islands, where only around a tenth of the food required is produced. In the fields of Monte Largo, which are in many cases walled to protect against erosion, mainly potatoes, maize and vegetables are grown. Papayas and tamarinds also thrive here. Since the rainwater seeps away quickly in the porous soil and there are no rivers on Fogo, the water is extracted through deep boreholes, which were initially carried out with the help of the German Society for Technical Cooperation.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nuno Augusto. Cabo Verde - um mundo a descobrir , p. 22. Lisbon 2009.
- ↑ Ingrid u. Peter Kirschey: Cape Verde , p. 147. Cologne.
- ^ Rolf Osang. Cape Verde Islands , p. 140. Cologne 2001.
Coordinates: 14 ° 52 ′ N , 24 ° 23 ′ W