Country Information: Cabo Verde is also known as Cape Verde. It’s located on a volcanic archipelago off of the coast of Africa in the northwest. About 600,000 thousand people live here and the capital is Praia. The official language is Portuguese and the main religion is Roman Catholicism, which most of the population follows. The top exports are non-fillet frozen fish and processed fish, refined petroleum, railway cargo containers, and special purpose ships.
Jim’s Perspectives: Cabo Verde is often viewed as spectacularly beautiful, however I wouldn’t entirely agree. Perhaps Sal is … but Santiago and the country’s capital city, Praia is not. These cities are more industrial areas with non-descript downtown area.
The highlight of my time here was driving 2.5 hours to the other side of the Island and visiting most cities between. I took a pic with the children who were walking to the beach.
Over lunch, I had a long conversation with my guide, Aderito Alves, who shared a lot about slavery. Slaves were brought into North America in 1619, 150 years before the U.S became a country. Many Americans believed that slavery was uniquely American. Of the 25 million slaves sent from Africa to the Americas, it’s estimated that 500,000 went to North America and the remaining went primarily to to Brazil and the Caribbean. Even though in early 1800s the US outlawed accepting trans-Atlantic slaves, they didn’t abolish slavery until after the Civil War.
