Salto, Cape Verde

Salto is a village on the Cape Verde island of Fogo belonging. It is located about 15 km east of the island capital São Filipe and about twelve kilometers south of the crater of the volcano Pico do Fogo, the main attraction of the island. In recent outbreaks of 1951 and 1995 Salto was spared destruction. On the Creole place Saltu is called.

Infrastructure

With around 15 km from the island capital São Filipe Salto is connected to the well-maintained and passable in all weather ring road leading around the island of Fogo. In the center of Salto branches off to the north from a more well-developed road. It leads over Monte Largo in the touristy relatively well -developed area of the Natural Park, founded in 2003, do Fogo, which is the main attraction of the entire island with the active volcano Pico do Fogo. To the east of Salto can be reached via the village Cova Matinho, which is known for its beach Praia Casa, Mosteiros, the second largest town on Fogo.

Several times a day (not on Sundays or public holidays), the village of São Filipe from can be reached with the typical for the Cape Verde Aluguer buses. They do not operate on a particular route, but according to a fixed timetable, but run from as soon as enough passengers have arrived.

Salto has a school, a simple restaurant and shops for daily needs, but currently do not have accommodations for tourists. The village consists mostly of one-story houses with a flat roof, or hipped roof, but also single multi-storey new buildings were built in recent years, whose owners but not all living on the Cape Verde Islands.

Attractions and characteristics

For the economy of the island of Fogo is Salto, located on Cape Verdean conditions in an area with relatively lush vegetation, of paramount importance, since the place is the center of an agriculturally relatively intensively used area. The fields were surrounded for protection against erosion for the most part with high walls made ​​of natural stones are partly irrigated using drip irrigation. Some of the fields are laid out on terraces. Although the island of Fogo receives from all the islands of Cape Verde, the most rainfall, but there is on Fogo no rivers or streams that run year-round water. As the rainwater seeps quickly into the porous volcanic soil, one gains the water through deep wells, which were carried out initially with the help of the German Society for Technical Cooperation ( DGTZ ). For the Cape Verde islands, where only about one tenth of the needed food is produced in the country itself, this is of immense importance, and the transportation of imported foods from Mindelo and other international ports of Cape Verde is not rare to the smaller secondary islands such as Fogo with problems connected. In the fields around Salto are mainly potatoes, corn, and vegetables such as Peppers, cabbage and eggplant and isolated sugar cane grown. Also, banana, papaya and tamarind thrive in the area around Salto.

The Church of Salto is also worth seeing and worth driving to the Parque Natural do Fogo a stopover.