PC Year One — Cape Verde: Pico da Antónia

Santiago’s biggest mountain, Pico da Antónia, loomed behind our house. At over 4500 feet tall, the mountain was visible from most parts of Santiago and from the neighboring islands as well. Not a bad view to take in with your morning coffee. Last year Jen highlighted a series of photos of Pico da Antónia titled “Our Mountain”.*

*Though Jen and I spent the first half of our Peace Corps service in Cape Verde, most of the photos we’ve shared on this blog have been of our second post — Benin. The next several weeks’ posts will be a flashback to our first year of service spent on the lovely island of Santiago.

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

January 6, 2012

4:30 p.m.

Our house and our mountain! This was our house for the past year, which we left Monday to head to Benin.

 

nos montanha :: our mountain

Happy Birthday to my sister Megan!!!

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

January 9, 2012

7:15 a.m.

January was a good month for pretty clouds.

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

June 7, 2012

4:45 p.m.

Taken from Serra Malagueta National Park, which is often shrouded in clouds even when the rest of the island is clear… which it was. This photo makes it look like there were heavy clouds extending for miles, but really they were only right around the peak we were standing on.

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

November 27, 2011

6:15 p.m.

Digging back in the archives some more, another beautiful sunset/moonrise shot from last year. These days at 6:15 p.m. it’s broad daylight!

 

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

November 26, 2011

6:00 p.m.

Our zone is very agricultural, and this is a field ready for planting, to be irrigated the old-fashioned way (as opposed to the newer drip irrigation being pushed by the Ministry of Rural Development). Traditional irrigation here uses rows of basins separated by short ridges. The basins are connected by canals, and water is pumped into a feeder canal. Each basin is opened in turn by removing a clump of dirt from the ridge. Somebody must stand and watch, and when the basin is full, the clump is replaced and a new clump removed from the next basin. Watering is only done every few days, or less. This particular field isn’t planted yet; plants could be placed along the ridges, or right in the bottom of the basin, depending on the crop.

 

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

April 24, 2012

4:15 p.m.

Taken from a zone on the outskirts of Assomada, the central city on Santiago island. The houses give you a pretty good idea of what construction looks like all throughout our island. Many homes are new, and very few are finished, so you see cinderblock and rebar all over the place. It really shows how much this country is growing. Every few houses, you’ll see an older home with a clay tiled roof and finished sides.

 

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

April 13, 2012

5:30 p.m.

 

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

May 5, 2012

4:15 a.m.

Last weekend was our town’s festa, the annual celebration in honor of the patron saint of our town. All the conselhos (counties) and zones here have annual festas, which last a few days and include festival (free live music), tenda electronica (a giant tent with club music), a special mass, and house parties where all your out-of-town friends come visit. I took this photo on my way home from festival on Friday. There were eight or nine musicians on the bill; the music started at about 11 p.m. and went until parmanhan (dawn). A very famous funana singer, Ze Espanhol, was set to play last, and I really wanted to see him and really tried to stay, but the crowd was dwindling and I just could not keep my energy going. I took this photo just before turning in.

nos montanha :: our mountain

We live in a valley near the foot of Pico d’Antonia, the highest peak on Santiago. Every day we are lucky to see the changing face of this beautiful mountain, and we wanted to share some of those wonderful views with you.

This week’s picture of our mountain…

April 7, 2012

11:00 a.m.

These days it’s dry, dry, dry around here… although at our elevation it’s much greener than the coast. For several months it’s been cloudy and cool as well, but the blue skies and strong sun are coming back now.