Pedra de Lume

Archipelago

Pedra de Lume ( Portuguese: pedra 'stone' and lume "fire" ) is a small town on the east coast of the island of Sal in Cape Verde. It has about 500 inhabitants.

Geography

The small village is located in the east of the island directly on the Atlantic coast approximately at the same latitude as the island's capital Espargos. From there, the only paved road in the village about five kilometers away.

South of the town is the long-drawn Baía da Parda, at the north end adjoins a protected cove. There is the small harbor, around which the town has developed. The coast is mostly rocky. On the southern edge of the village is a small piece of sandy beach, but the quality falls short of the fine wide beaches of the south coast.

The place is surrounded by a shaped by erosion rolling hills of volcanic origin. The cinder cones are the remaining characters of the hotspot activity that is ultimately accepted as a reason for the development of the whole archipelago. From the volcanic landscape of the village's name is ultimately derived.

The largest with about 900 meters in diameter surrounding the volcano crater caused by a phreatomagmatic explosion, resulting in a tuff ring or maar.

Saline is a natural origin on its soil. Since the bottom of the crater is below sea level, can steadily seeping salt water through the rugged rock in the caldera, which leads there evaporates in the desert-like climate of the island and to the formation of Evaporitgesteins.

History

Pedra Lume is of the places on the island Sal one with the richest history. For many years, the interest in the arid island extremely low. Apart from occasional excursions yield -seeking turtle hunters, there was little occasion to call at Sal. Only towards the end of the 18th century the island by the entrepreneur Manuel António Martins Velho was opened, which was located on the neighboring island of Boa Vista. He founded the Saline and made them available to the yield.

In the natural Saltworks of Pedra Lume were dammed by little artificial lakes that are interconnected by a pipe system to use the system effectively. 1804, the crater wall was breached in order to gain better access to the interior. During the 19th century the first people settled near the Saline and there was the little white chapel standing in the center of the village.

The salt was at that time mostly sold to Brazil, due to the market -increasing protective tariffs eventually collapsed. Pedra Lume learned during the 20th century, however, new impetus by the French company Les Salines du Cap- Vert. This was allowed in 1919 to build a funicular, which reached from the interior of the crater to the port and for the transport of (theoretically) t salt was up to 25 conceived. The masts of the cable car system have survived to the present day, as the old freight station at the port, but now is located directly in a highly dilapidated condition. Pedra Lume salt was exported to the 1930s, then production fell further and further. Today in Saline not even enough salt for the needs of the island itself is generated.

Economy

The few villagers of Pedra Lume live mainly from fishing, which extends from the small -scale protected harbor. Shops there are in the small village not, goods must be imported from Espargos.

Salt production has now virtually no meaning, the saline is now in private ownership. Add the salt lakes, it is possible to take a bath or swim. Opportunity for showering or sunbathing, a small café half way down from the crater access to Calderagrund. Thus, here the tourism is slowly gaining importance as an economic factor, but at a significantly lower level than, for example, in Santa Maria in the south of the island.