{"id":23245,"date":"2019-01-21T08:30:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=23245"},"modified":"2020-09-01T07:22:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T11:22:42","slug":"the-cape-verde-escape-hatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/the-cape-verde-escape-hatch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cape Verde Escape Hatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an experiment. The insanity engulfing Washington now is so overwhelming that I had to get far away from it. I wanted a place that very few people knew anything about. Then a challenge occurred to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

What could I learn about such a lost unknown place that Escape Artists would find interesting?\u00a0Could I possibly write something that would intrigue them?\u00a0So here we go \u2013 let me know how this experiment works.\u00a0The place I picked is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean 400 miles off of Africa called\u2026 <\/span>Cape Verde<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry about the German above, but it\u2019s the best map around. That\u2019s because hordes of Germans escape from their winter to lie on the beaches of Sal (non-stop flights from Frankfurt) and turn their skins bright pink.\u00a0That\u2019s all they do.\u00a0They don\u2019t go anywhere else or explore any other islands.\u00a0Their only movement all day is to turn over back-to-belly so both sides get equally lobster-roasted.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t the Germans who created Cape Verde, it was the Portuguese.\u00a0The Romans called the islands “Gorgades” \u2013 the land of the Gorgon monsters, the most famous being Medusa, killed by the Greek mythological hero Perseus \u2013 but never settled there.\u00a0No one else did either, so when ships sent by Portugal\u2019s Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) to explore the west coast of Africa reached them in 1456, they were uninhabited.<\/span><\/p>\n

A dozen years earlier, Portuguese explorers rounded the westernmost point on the African continent, which they called Cape Green, or <\/span>Cabo Verde<\/span><\/i>, as it was densely covered in vegetation.\u00a0(Now called <\/span>Cap Vert<\/span><\/i> as it\u2019s in Senegal, which is a Francophone country.)<\/span><\/p>\n

For some mysterious reason \u2013 maybe to attract settlers \u2013 Prince Henry decided to call these arid volcanic islands Cabo Verde as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

The settlers came, the first in 1462 on an island they called S\u00e3o Tiago (Santiago).\u00a0Why they stayed once they quickly learned the place was the opposite of green \u2013 mostly a burned-out desert wasteland with some acacia thorn trees \u2013 is a good question.\u00a0The answer turned out to be slaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore Africa\u2019s west coast, and they soon learned that tribal chiefs were eager to sell captured members of other tribes into slavery.\u00a0 There was a market, although not large, for slaves in Europe \u2013 and the settlement on Santiago turned out to be a useful transshipment point from the places in Africa where slaves were sold to places in Europe where they were bought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Portugal began its colonization of Brazil in 1500, sugar from sugar cane plantations became enormously profitable to export to Europe, the plantations required massive numbers of slave labor, and by the mid-1500s, the transatlantic slave trade had made Santiago rich.<\/span><\/p>\n

More settlers came to found more settlements, slaves escaped into the mountains and farmed wherever there was a bit of water, Portuguese men and the prettiest African women connected, and the initial generations of <\/span>caf\u00e9 au lait<\/span><\/i> Cape Verdean creoles came to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pirates and privateers came as well, to loot and pillage.\u00a0Sir Francis Drake, encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, sacked Santiago\u2019s main town of Cidade Velha in 1585.\u00a0Aside from these occasional annoyances, Santiago flourished from the slave trade for the next two hundred years.\u00a0 Then the Brits put an end to the slave trade, and by the early 1800s, Cape Verde\u2019s economy had collapsed.<\/span><\/p>\n

And who should come to the islands\u2019 rescue but the Brits, who discovered that S\u00e3o Vicente had a fabulous harbor at Mindelo Bay perfect for a coaling station to supply the new steamships plying the Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to 1838, the island was uninhabited and used only for cattle pasturage.\u00a0As one of the world\u2019s foremost trade posts for coal, Mindelo quickly became a flourishing cosmopolitan town filled with millionaires. Even more so after 1885, when it became the switching station for the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Verdeans, especially those who lived on the live volcanic island of Fogo, learned they had another resource \u2013 themselves.\u00a0They had a particular knack for the hard labor of whaling, and were sought after to crew on 19<\/span>th<\/span>-century American whaling ships.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, started the Cape Verdean diaspora to America, particularly New England. Large communities of Cape Verdeans are found today in such places as Nantucket and Providence. <\/span><\/p>\n

(There are now some 600,000 Cape Verdeans living abroad now, about half in the U.S. \u2013 more than the 500,000 who live in Cape Verde itself.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cape Verde economy collapsed yet again when steamships switched from coal to diesel fuel after World War II.\u00a0 And to its rescue rode not the Brits but\u2026 the airplane.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

European airlines such as Alitalia built an airport on the deserted desert island of Sal for a refueling stop between Europe and South America.\u00a0Then South African Airlines began flying from the US direct to South Africa \u2013 with a necessary fuel stop in Sal.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a long flight.\u00a0My only memory of here prior to now was groggily getting off the plane from JFK on the way to Joburg years ago, looking out to some volcanic peaks in the distance without a shred of green, and getting back on the plane thinking there sure is nothing here. How wrong I was.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are perfect beaches of perfect sand and perfect pure turquoise water with soft gentle waves on Sal, with perfect weather 350 days of the year.\u00a0The airport at Sal has brought a tourist boom.\u00a0You can fly here non-stop from Boston for $650 round-trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are non-stop flights from Europe and the U.S. to Praia (the capital on Santiago) now \u2013 but that\u2019s brought a business, not a tourist, boom.\u00a0You only see the occasional tourist on any island except Sal.\u00a0Remember all those Germans.<\/span><\/p>\n

The businessmen are here because Cape Verde has reinvented itself once again.\u00a0It has become <\/span>one of the best places to do business in Africa.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Now why is that?\u00a0Here the story starts to get interesting.\u00a0Not historically, but relevant to today.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can see one thread \u2013 Cape Verde geographically positioned to prosper from the slave trade, then the coal trade, then the jetfuel trade, then the tourist and business trade.\u00a0But that\u2019s just geography, and there are factors far more important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those factors are human.\u00a0They are cultural.\u00a0What makes the difference between failure and success for a race, a society, a nation, is not genetic.\u00a0The average <\/span>IQ of Cape Verdeans<\/span><\/a> is 76, which is frighteningly more than one full standard deviation below the norm of 100.\u00a0The critical difference is not racial, it is not IQ, it is <\/span>cultural values<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Verde has no natural resources. It is so dry and waterless there\u2019s not one single river flowing year-round on any of its islands.\u00a0Getting crops to grow out of its parched, rocky soil is really hard work.\u00a0The ocean has a lot of fish, but places to locate along its rocky shores are few.\u00a0Making a living here is not easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, Cape Verde has survived and even thrived \u2013 because of its human resources, a mix of attributes comprising the Cape Verdean character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Verdeans are affable and easy-going; they love music and dancing and drinking their moonshine rum called “<\/span>grogue<\/span><\/i>“; they are peaceful with very little crime or violence;\u00a0they are dependable and reliably responsible as workers;\u00a0they are devout Christians (mostly Catholic);\u00a0and they are honest.\u00a0Their honesty is what most critically sets them apart from the rest of Africa.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Since 1971, the UN has maintained a list of <\/span>Least Developed Countries,<\/span><\/a> the worst of the world\u2019s worst off.\u00a033 out of the list\u2019s 49 are in Africa (15 in Asia and 1 in the Americas:\u00a0Haiti).\u00a0In the almost 40 years since the LDC list\u2019s inception, only two countries have succeeded in graduating off it:\u00a0Botswana and Cape Verde.<\/span><\/p>\n

Botswana did it with money from diamonds and South African white-run safari tourism. Cape Verde did it by overcoming a KGB-sponsored Communist dictatorship.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1950s, the Soviets began targeting Portugal\u2019s African colonies \u2013 Cape Verde, Portuguese Guinea, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9, Angola, and Mozambique \u2013 for subversion.\u00a0KGB agents in the Communist Party of Portugal focused on students from these colonies studying in Lisbon. For Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde, they settled on a student of agronomy, Amilcar Cabral.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bankrolled by the KGB, Cabral set up a Marxist guerrilla group called the PAIGC, a Portuguese acronym for African Party for Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, in 1956.\u00a0Throughout the 60s, Cabral\u2019s guerrilla recruits, trained and heavily armed by Cuba and the Soviets, waged a war against the Portuguese military in Guinea \u2013 but failed to arouse any enthusiasm among Cape Verdeans.<\/span><\/p>\n

The KGB propaganda machine made Cabral an international celebrity, an African Ch\u00e9 Guevara.\u00a0He gave speeches in the Soviet Union <\/span>praising Lenin<\/span> as “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.”\u00a0Assassinated in 1973 by a PAIGC rival, he remains a Leftist hero to this day. <\/span><\/p>\n

The PAIGC was on the verge of defeat when the KGB engineered the overthrow of the government of Portugal by the officers of the Communist MFA, Armed Forces Movement, in April 1974.\u00a0The new Communist government in Lisbon ordered the surrender of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde to the PAIGC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without a single vote cast by Guineans and Cape Verdeans, the PAIGC one-party dictatorship \u2013 led by Amilcar\u2019s brother, Luis Cabral \u2013 was established in September 1974, and recognized as the legitimate government by the UN.\u00a0Cape Verde was now a colony of re-named Guinea Bissau, which was itself a Communist colony of the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Luis Cabral was overthrown in 1980 (the KGB decided to replace him with another guy), the Cape Verdeans saw their chance, declared their union with Bissau dissolved, and gained full independence.\u00a0Yet, still, it was one-party rule by the Cape Verde branch of the PAIGC, the PAICV (African Independence Party of Cape Verde).\u00a0But not for long.<\/span><\/p>\n

All through the 80s, more and more of the economy was privatized, and more political opposition was allowed.\u00a0Finally in 1990, full multi-party democracy was launched.\u00a0The next year, the PAICV lost parliamentary and presidential elections, and there was a peaceful transfer of power to the MPD (Movement for Democracy) party.<\/span><\/p>\n

The MPD promoted free trade, free market capitalism, and free elections. Its policies moved the PAICV away from socialism and towards the right.\u00a0Today political rule is almost evenly divided between the two.\u00a0Cape Verde is a true democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Transparency International\u2019s <\/span>Corruption Index<\/span><\/a> now ranks Cape Verde #48 out of 180 \u2013 only Botswana has less corruption (#34) of any African country (Guinea-Bissau is #171, tied with North Korea \u2013 note that the U.S. is only #16).<\/span><\/p>\n

The rankings don\u2019t give much of a full picture, however.\u00a0Corruption in Africa is simply overwhelming \u2013 thus, its relative lack in Cape Verde is like night and day by comparison.\u00a0That\u2019s why so many companies doing business in Africa have their offices and plants in Cape Verde now.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

They get whatever products they want from some African country shipped to them in Praia or Mindelo, process and package it (like fruit into juice), then transship it to Europe, Brazil, the U.S., etc. All without endless bribes to officials, courts, and police. Cape Verde is a businessman\u2019s paradise compared to the rest of Africa.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

And the resultant prosperity is showing, bursting out all over.\u00a0The government is spending money on new schools, hospitals, and roads.\u00a0Impressive new homes and condos are sprouting up everywhere. People are nicely and cleanly dressed. There\u2019s still lots of poverty but no hunger.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Character counts.\u00a0Freedom and honesty work.\u00a0High moral values are more important than high IQ.\u00a0These are lessons taught by the example of Cape Verde.\u00a0The world would be far freer and more prosperous if more countries would learn them \u2013 the United States included.<\/span><\/p>\n

OK \u2013 so much for learning, now let\u2019s have some fun.\u00a0The best way to start is with a local beer.\u00a0They make good beer in Cape Verde, and the best should be the favorite of Ayn Rand fans and Objectivists:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Watch out though \u2013 it\u2019s 8%\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll skip the tourist beaches on Sal and go to the locals\u2019 favorite, Tarrafal on Santiago:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then we\u2019ll head for the coolest island of all of them, San Ant\u00e3o.\u00a0To get there, we fly from Praia to Mindelo, then take a ferry to Porto Novo, where our driver meets us to drive over the mountain to Ribeira Grande. This is a drive you\u2019ll remember for the rest of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s steep and super-curvy with drop-offs of thousands of feet \u2013 but our driver is safe and slow so it\u2019s not scary, just astoundingly spectacular.\u00a0At the top, there\u2019s a volcanic crater, and from the rim you look down into the gorgeous valley of Pa\u00fal (<\/span>pow-<\/span><\/i>ool<\/span><\/i><\/span>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The drive down is even more spectacular \u2013 and impressive, as villagers have built thousands of stone terraces, even on high ridges and mountain tops:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We reach the coast and go past Ribeira Grande to this tiny, totally laid-back funky fishing village, Ponta do Sol, to watch the fishermen bring in the day\u2019s catch, gorge ourselves on fresh fish and lobster for a few bucks (washed down with a couple more Ego beers), then go for a swim in the natural ocean pools:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then it\u2019s back to Ribeira Grande to locate a local moonshiner.\u00a0Homemade booze is legal in Cape Verde, and the folks are real artisans at making it.\u00a0Sugar cane is crushed and the juice extracted, then fermented for two days.\u00a0Then it\u2019s distilled.\u00a0Here\u2019s a typical “distillery” operation out in the bush:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The product comes out of a pipe into a bucket, ready to drink or be bottled:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is George, ready to serve you a sample of his product in a piece of coconut shell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cape Verdeans are very proud of what they consider their national drink, which they call <\/span>grogue<\/span><\/i> (“grog”).\u00a0We\u2019d call it rum, and while it\u2019s homemade, it\u2019s smoother than any commercial rum or other kind of booze you\u2019ve ever had.\u00a0It goes down your throat like water.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve got to be careful \u2013 for it\u2019s 140 proof.\u00a0Pretty easy to get wasted.\u00a0Thank heavens our driver doesn\u2019t touch a drop.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

With our supply of grogue, we decide we\u2019ll just park it here in San Ant\u00e3o for a few days and let the craziness of Washington drain out of us.\u00a0All of the world\u2019s insanity seems so far away here. So peaceful, so friendly, and so beautiful:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
\u00a92019 Jack Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yep, we think we\u2019ll just stay. We\u2019ve found the perfect escape hatch for Escape Artists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpe diem<\/span><\/i>. Life is short. The time for a great adventure is <\/span>now.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Here are a few additional articles you may enjoy reading:<\/b><\/p>\n

All of Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

You Must Prepare Your Exit from South Africa Immediately<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond the Taj Mahal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an experiment. The insanity engulfing Washington now is so overwhelming that I had to get far away from it. I wanted a place that very few people knew anything about. Then a challenge occurred to me. What could I learn about such a lost unknown place that Escape Artists would find interesting?\u00a0Could I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":23252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,71,380],"yst_prominent_words":[2395,2394,2393,6695,9459,10453,10440,10439,10451,10441,10449,10445,2189,10452,10448,10444,10454,10255,10450,10446],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/image7-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23245"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40424,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245\/revisions\/40424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23245"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}