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Associação Let's go Hiking

Tourist Guides ALGH - Island of Santiago

At the turn of the year 2016, an association of English-speaking hiking guides was founded on the island of Santiago. The formal procedure was completed in spring. The start-up capital for the establishment of the association was provided by Reiseträume Kapverden as part of our efforts for sustainable tourism with social responsibility

The heads are Rony (Micael Rony Tavares) and Jo [: scho] (Miguel Aurora)

Lets go Hiking -Take a look at us

In the first place we guide or better said work as tourist guides because we like it, and for us it is a great satisfaction to show or “sell” what is most important and beautiful in our country and because we like to speak foreign languages especially English, being always in contact with nature. This way we can earn money to help us in our own life and support our families. Going for a walk or a hike, explaining and telling foreigners about our history, culture, shwoing them the beautiful scenery of Santiago Island we as well can always learn new things, not only concerning our country but also concerning the countries our customers come from.

RONY

Experiences we gained so far

In these years of working as a guide we made many experiences, among which we would like to highlight: the improvement of a foreign language, improving the knowledge we have of our country of our culture and history. We learned to handle and deal with a lot of different types of customers because each of them has different tastes and opinions. We learned to be more professional and every walk or hike no matter how many times we did it always has been differnet and acquired even more knowledge about our biodiversity.

What we can show to our guests

Generally we show all the best that we have to our customers, plants and animals, including some endemic, indigenous plants. Everything about our culture, music, dance, food, historic sites, beautiful landscapes, traditional handicraft products such as; woven clothes, necklaces, bracelets and more. Also we can show them how our famous white rum, the grogue is made and the lifestyle of our mainly country people. The most important thing for us is to find out what the costumer is really interessted in getting to know or to see about our country, so we can help to make the hike a great and safe experience for them.

What is the favorite walk for each one of us.

JO:

There are many spectacular hikes but there’s always one that stands out from the others and my favorite one is From Serra Malagueta to GonGon. During this walk we find a little bit of everything. Right at the beginning we can see and enjoy the traditional way of doing woven clothes which are very beautiful and also a useful product here in Cape Verde and could be a good memorable gift to take as a souvenir.

And yet all the way down we will see endemic plants, birds, monkeys. We meet local people and – if the sky is clear – we will have a spectacular view to Fogo island and his gigantic vulcano. Along this hike all is green, very much alive and we find mango trees, sweet potatoes, cassava, papaya, bananas, coconuts, sugarcane that is used especially for making national brandy called Grogue which is one of Cape Verde marks. We can -if desired and in work – see how the locals distill the Grogue and even can try and buy. This walk ends in a traditional, simple, clean space where we can have a refreshing drink or snack. The entire route is approximately 3h 30 to 4h. Enough time for a great unforgettable hike.

RONY:

All the hikes I’ve ever done and still will do, I like all of them and all are beautiful and each one is different from the other but among all of them my favorite is RIBEIRA DE TABUGAL. It is a simple wonderful hike because it is an evergreen valley, usually with small streams of water regardless if it is rainy season or not. There are many plantations of bananas, papayas, mangos, coconut, sugarcane which is an item of our country because it is used to make our traditional drink. Since the valley is situated in between two high rocks we can even sometimes see monkeys. The hike has a beautiful end in the port area of Ribeira da Barca which was an ancient port of embarcation. If the weather is clear we see right in front the island of Fogo with its unic vulcano and all this makes the hike unique and unforgettable.