Field note · Cabo Verde · Barlavento, Cape Verde

Santo Antão

Santo Antão has no working airport, so every arrival is the same one: fly to São Vicente, cross Mindelo to the Gare Marítima, and take the 45-minute to one-hour ferry to Porto Novo. Two ships share that channel – Chiquinho BS for the state-contracted CV Interilhas and Mar d'Canal for the private Nôs Ferry – and by government order they swap the morning and afternoon slots every 45 days, which is why a timetable you read two months ago is wrong. From the Porto Novo ramp on, the island runs on aluguers: Hiace vans and open-backed Hilux pickups that park beside the terminal, take the name of a village rather than a route number, and leave when they are full. They meet the ferries, thin out through the afternoon and are scarce by dusk. Two roads climb out of Porto Novo – the old cobbled Estrada da Corda over the Cova crater, and the newer coastal road by Janela that took most of the traffic away from it – and both are cut by rockfall often enough that drivers treat it as normal. In the far north, between Ponta do Sol, Fontainhas, Corvo and Cruzinha, there is no road worth using and the coastal footpath is the transport.

Researched: 22 September 2026
Reviewed: not yet
Ways of moving: 9, 32 sources
Not confirmed: 9
Fares seen: 2022–2026

How transport works here

9 ways of moving, each with its rule

We confirmed seven ways of moving to, from or around Santo Antão: two by water, three by road, one hired or on demand and one under your own steam, from 32 sources. Two entries are not a service at all but a rule that decides whether travel happens: a permit, a closure, a border, a season or an authority's say-so. One of them runs only on demand or when the seats are full, so there is no timetable to show; the rule is written where the timetable would be. One needs a phone call or a message before you turn up.

The fares were seen in 2022 to 2026; a fare from an older year is a floor, not a price. Three fares carry no year, because they could not be confirmed and the field says so. We rate 5 of the 9 high confidence, our own judgement of the sources. The entry was checked on 22 September 2026, and ends with nine things we could not confirm.

2 ways

Rules, permits and closures

service status

There is no airport: the ferry is the only way in

Cesária Évora Airport (VXE), São Pedro, São Vicente, to Santo Antão via Mindelo and Porto Novo

Do not look for a flight to Santo Antão. The old airstrip near Ponta do Sol is abandoned and has been for years – the island is the only inhabited one in Cape Verde with no air service at all. Every international and inter-island route lands at Cesária Évora Airport (VXE) at São Pedro on São Vicente, 9 km southwest of Mindelo. From there you have to reach the Gare Marítima on Mindelo's waterfront (16.88923, -24.99382), then cross by ferry to Porto Novo (17.01754, -25.05897). An airport for Santo Antão is a permanent item in election manifestos – it was promised again in the 2026 legislative campaign – but nothing is built and nothing is flying.

When: n/a – an indefinite closure, not a service
Takes: Allow 3–4 hours airport to Porto Novo if the ferry times line up, a full extra night if they do not
Fare: n/a

SeasonPermanent. Run byn/a.

service status

Two roads out of Porto Novo, and what closes them

Porto Novo to Ribeira Grande, either by the Estrada da Corda over the Planalto Leste and the Cova crater, or by the coastal road through Janela

Ask your driver which way he is going before you get in, because the two roads are different journeys. The old road is cobbled the whole way, climbs to around 1,500 m past Corda and the rim of the Cova crater, and is the one every photograph of Santo Antão is taken from. The coastal road via Janela is asphalt, faster and lower, and when it opened it took the through traffic away from Corda so completely that the village lost its roadside market and has been emptying ever since. Tour operators still run the mountain road daily in the October–April season. Both are cut regularly: the Janela road has near-constant rockfall, and slope-clearing work in February 2026 was itself breaking up the asphalt; the Tapume–Selada–Alto Mira road in the west had stones falling practically every day in mid-2026; and the August 2025 rains cut Caibros, blocked Lombo de Santa and damaged the Ponta do Sol road. After heavy rain, check locally before committing to a valley.

When: n/a – a condition, not a service
Takes: Coastal road Porto Novo–Ribeira Grande about 1 hour; the Corda road noticeably longer and much slower in cloud
Fare: n/a

SeasonRockfall year-round; the worst cuts follow the August–October rains. Cloud sits on the Corda road and the Cova rim for days at a time. Run byEstradas de Cabo Verde; Associação dos Condutores da Ribeira Grande speaks for the drivers.

2 ways

By water

ferry

Chiquinho BS – CV Interilhas, Mindelo to Porto Novo

Gare Marítima de Mindelo, São Vicente (16.88923, -24.99382) to Gare Marítima de Porto Novo, Santo Antão (17.01754, -25.05897)

The Mindelo terminal is on the Avenida Marginal north of the town centre, a 15-minute walk from the Praça Nova. CV Interilhas has a ticket desk inside; Nôs Ferry's desk is beside it, so read the sign over the window before you queue. Buy online at cvinterilhas.cv or at the counter – bring the passport or ID card whose name matches the ticket, because they check it at the ramp. Boarding opens about half an hour before departure. In Porto Novo the terminal is the modern building at the head of the pier with a few shops; the aluguers are parked immediately outside it.

When: Two round trips a day, every day. In the current timetable window (27 August – 10 October 2026): Mindelo 07:00 and 14:00, Porto Novo 09:00 and 16:00, Monday to Saturday; Sunday Mindelo 09:00 and 17:00, Porto Novo 11:00 and 19:00. From 11 October 2026 the same ship moves to Mindelo 08:00 and 15:00, Porto Novo 10:00 and 17:00 – it takes over the slots Nôs Ferry holds now. Check the current PDF before you plan anything.
Takes: About 1 hour; CV Interilhas' own matrix gives 00:40 São Vicente–Santo Antão
Fare 2026: Government-set tariff: 1,500 CVE one way for non-nationals, 950 CVE for nationals and residents (tariff in force since 1 February 2024, seen September 2026)

SeasonYear-round. Extra sailings are laid on for Easter and for the São João festival in Porto Novo on 23–25 June, when several thousand people cross from São Vicente in a weekend. BookingOnline at cvinterilhas.cv or at the terminal desk. For Easter and São João, book days ahead – travel packages sell out. Run byCV Interilhas (Grupo ETE concession), (+238) 350 033 0, info@cvinterilhas.cv.

ferry

Nôs Ferry Mar d'Canal – the competing sailing

Gare Marítima de Mindelo to Gare Marítima de Porto Novo, the same channel as Chiquinho

Nôs Ferry's own ticket offices are inside both terminals – Gare Marítima de Mindelo (+238 231 81 87) and Gare Marítima de Porto Novo (+238 222 23 60), open Monday to Saturday 07:00–18:00 and Sunday 08:00–17:00. Head office is at the Terminal de Cabotagem, Avenida Marginal, Mindelo, shops 2 and 3. Online sales run at nosferry.com and take Visa, Mastercard and the Cape Verdean Vinti4 card. The ship is an ex-Armas ro-ro rebuilt in the Mindelo yard and back in service since March 2022; a 2024 dry-docking improved the engines and cut the crossing to 45–50 minutes.

When: Two round trips a day. Currently Mindelo 08:00 and 15:00, Porto Novo 10:00 and 17:00 Monday to Saturday; Sunday Mindelo 08:00 and 14:00, Porto Novo 10:00 and 16:00. These slots rotate with CV Interilhas every 45 days under a 2022 ministerial order, so the two ships trade the early and late departures roughly every six weeks
Takes: 45–50 minutes since the 2024 engine refit
Fare 2026: Live fares quoted by the operator's own booking system in September 2026: 1,500 CVE adult non-national, 1,000 CVE adult national, 900 CVE child non-national, one way. Vehicles: 3,722 CVE for a family car, 4,465 CVE for a Hiace, 1,100 CVE for a motorbike, 500 CVE for a bicycle

SeasonYear-round; extra Sunday sailings at Easter. Bookingnosferry.com, or the terminal desks in Mindelo and Porto Novo. Run byNôs Ferry (Mar d'Canal), tickets.armas@nosferry.cv, +238 231 81 87.

3 ways

By road

share taxi

Aluguers from the Porto Novo ferry ramp

Gare Marítima de Porto Novo to Ribeira Grande, Ponta do Sol, Vila das Pombas (Paul), Coculi and Tarrafal de Monte Trigo

Walk off the ramp and they are there – surveyed aluguer stands sit 30–80 m from the terminal door at 17.01805, -25.05893 and 17.01821, -25.05837. They are Toyota Hiace minibuses and open-backed Toyota Hilux pickups with bench seats. The destination is sometimes painted on the vehicle and sometimes not, so say the village name out loud – Ribeira Grande, Ponta do Sol, Paul, Coculi, Tarrafal – and someone will point you at the right one. Then get in and wait: they leave when they are full by Cape Verdean standards, which is fuller than you expect, and they carry sacks, gas bottles and errands as well as people. Most of them time their runs around the arriving and departing ferries, so the boat you came on is the best aluguer you will ever catch. To get off, say "Para!" to the driver or the man collecting fares.

When: A wave of them meets each arriving ferry. Through the day, roughly one every half hour on the busy legs; they thin out badly after about 16:00 and are scarce after dark
Takes: Porto Novo to Ribeira Grande about 1 hour by the coast road, longer over the Corda; Porto Novo to Tarrafal de Monte Trigo about 1 hour since the road was paved in 2021
Fare 2022: 400–500 CVE per person Porto Novo to Paul, Ribeira Grande, Ponta do Sol or Coculi; about 700 CVE to Tarrafal de Monte Trigo; short hops under 10 km should not be more than 100 CVE. Cash only, in escudos (fares last checked on Wikivoyage in 2022 and unchanged since – treat as a floor, not a quote)Seen in 2022: a floor, not a price.

SeasonYear-round. Heavier traffic in the October–April tourist season and at Easter and São João. BookingNone. Pay the driver on arrival. Run byOwner-drivers; no company, no timetable, no phone number.

share taxi

Aluguers inside the northern valleys

Ribeira Grande (Povoação) to Ponta do Sol, Vila das Pombas (Paul), Coculi, Xoxo and Cruzinha

The northern network hangs off three stands, all surveyed in OpenStreetMap. In Ribeira Grande the aluguers cluster in the town beside the ribeira around 17.18289, -25.06331 and 17.18418, -25.06498 – four marked stands within 200 m of each other, so ask which one serves your valley. In Ponta do Sol the stand is at 17.20141, -25.09191, near the square at the top of the old town. In Vila das Pombas, the town people call Paul, they wait on the coast road at 17.14955, -25.01369. Coculi has its own stand at 17.16568, -25.09716 and Cruzinha one at 17.17026, -25.16656. Ask the night before at your pensão for the morning departure – guesthouse owners know which driver goes where and will phone one.

When: Paul–Chã de Padre, Paul–Ribeira Grande, Ribeira Grande–Ponta do Sol and Ribeira Grande–Coculi run at least every half hour in daylight. Ribeira Grande–Xoxo is about hourly. Ribeira Grande–Cruzinha is the one that catches people out: two vehicles a day, leaving roughly 11:00 and 12:00
Takes: Ribeira Grande to Ponta do Sol 15–20 minutes; Ribeira Grande to Cruzinha about 1 hour 30 minutes on the Garça road
Fare 2022: 100 CVE for trips between towns up to about 10 km apart; 100 CVE extra to be dropped at the door somewhere off the main road, for example Coculi to Lombo de Santa (2022 prices, per person, cash)Seen in 2022: a floor, not a price.

SeasonYear-round; the Cruzinha and Garça runs are the first to stop when rain closes the road. BookingNone, but for Cruzinha ask a driver the day before and tell him where you are staying. Run byOwner-drivers.

share taxi

Getting back: Mindelo port to Cesária Évora Airport

Gare Marítima de Mindelo to Cesária Évora Airport (VXE), São Pedro, São Vicente

Coming off the Porto Novo ferry at Mindelo you are on the Avenida Marginal, about 2 km from the airport road. A blue town taxi from the port costs about 1,000 CVE for the whole car and takes 15 minutes; a collective aluguer flagged on the main road costs about 100 CVE a head and takes nearer 30. Going the other way, from the airport terminal walk the 100 m up to the main road and flag anything heading for Mindelo. Around town, 150 CVE covers most trips. The important part is the margin: take the morning ferry, not the afternoon one, on the day you fly. If the sea or a breakdown stops the boat, there is no alternative crossing and no flight off Santo Antão, and Cape Verdean inter-island planes fill up first when a ferry is interrupted.

When: Taxis wait at the port and the airport; aluguers run the São Pedro road through the day
Takes: 15 minutes by taxi, 15–30 minutes by aluguer
Fare 2022: About 1,000 CVE per vehicle by taxi, about 100 CVE per person by collective taxi; about 150 CVE for a trip across MindeloSeen in 2022: a floor, not a price.

SeasonYear-round. BookingNone; your guesthouse in Mindelo will call a taxi for an early flight. Run byMindelo taxi drivers and aluguer owner-drivers.

One way

Hired, booked and on demand

private hire

Frete – hiring the whole aluguer

Anywhere on the island, from the Porto Novo ramp or from your guesthouse

A frete is the same vehicle and the same driver as the shared aluguer, taken privately. These are not the blue town taxis sitting at the ferry; they are the sturdier cars, often 4x4, with an aluguer sign on the roof. Ask the aluguer drivers at the ramp directly – if a driver cannot do it he will hand you to someone who can, and a private hire is a better day for him than waiting for a van to fill. Guesthouse owners will arrange one for arrival, departure or a day out, and will try to find other guests to split it with. Ask people on the ferry if you want to share.

When: On demand, any day, any hour you can find a driver
Takes: Porto Novo to Ribeira Grande about 1 hour direct with no stops; a full island day is 6–8 hours
Fare 2022: Roughly ten times the per-person shared fare for the same route: about 4,000 CVE Porto Novo to Paul, about 7,000 CVE Porto Novo to Tarrafal de Monte Trigo, and 8,000–12,000 CVE for a day of excursions for the whole car, which takes four to eight people (2022 prices)Seen in 2022: a floor, not a price.

SeasonYear-round; hardest to arrange at short notice during Easter and São João. BookingAgree the route and the price before you get in; cash. Run byThe same owner-drivers.

One way

On foot, by bike, or otherwise

walking trail

The coast path: Ponta do Sol – Fontainhas – Cruzinha

Ponta do Sol (17.2013, -25.0911) to Fontainhas (17.1880, -25.1041), Corvo, Formiguinhas, Chã de Mar and Cruzinha (17.1703, -25.1660)

This is transport, not a day out: there is no usable road between Ponta do Sol and Cruzinha, and the two aluguers a day to Cruzinha go the long way round by Garça. The path starts at the west end of Ponta do Sol and follows the cliffs, passing through Fontainhas, which sits on a rib of rock above the sea about an hour in. Most people walk it one way and take the aluguer back, which means timing the walk to reach Cruzinha well before the last vehicle leaves, or starting from Cruzinha on the late-morning aluguer and walking back. Google Maps is close to useless on these trails; download OpenStreetMap-based offline maps – Organic Maps, OsmAnd or Mapy.cz – before you land.

When: Walkable any day in daylight
Takes: 5–6 hours end to end, about 15 km, moderate with steep sections and about 200 m of elevation change. Ponta do Sol to Fontainhas alone is about an hour
Fare: Free; a local guide for the harder inland routes is roughly a day rate agreed in the village

SeasonYear-round. Exposed to the northeast trades, which blow hardest November to May; slippery and prone to rockfall after the August–October rains. BookingNone. Carry water – there is nothing to buy between Fontainhas and Cruzinha. Run bynone.

Not confirmed

What we could not find out

9 things the researcher looked for and did not find, in their own words, with where to ask instead. None of this goes into the planner; it stays here until someone confirms it.

01
The brief says the sea state decides whether the ferry runs. On this channel that is largely not true any more, and it is the one correction worth making. Bela-vista, which tracks Cape Verdean ferries and was updated in April 2026, says the São Vicente–Santo Antão boats are punctual and that cancellations and delays remain common on the other inter-island routes, not this one. The crossing is often rough – the northeast trades funnel through the Canal de São Vicente from about November to May – but rough is not the same as cancelled. Plan for seasickness, not for being stranded; then still take the morning boat on the day you fly.
02
No timetable exists for any aluguer on Santo Antão and none will. The procedure is: at Porto Novo, walk out of the terminal and ask at the stand 30 m away, naming the village; in Ribeira Grande, Ponta do Sol or Vila das Pombas, go to the stand in the morning, because the vehicles thin out through the afternoon; for anywhere off the main valleys, and for Cruzinha in particular, ask your guesthouse the night before and let them phone a driver. Nothing is bookable and nothing is published.
03
The brief says drivers charge differently for the Estrada da Corda and the coast road. No source found says so. What is documented is that the coastal road via Janela took the through traffic away from Corda, that tour operators still drive the mountain road daily in high season, and that a whole-car frete is about ten times the shared fare. Whether a shared aluguer surcharges for the mountain route could not be confirmed – ask at the stand.
04
Aluguer fares are the weak point of this page. The 400–500 CVE, 700 CVE and 100 CVE figures have sat unchanged on Wikivoyage since at least 2022; three revisions checked between January 2023 and June 2025 carry identical wording. No 2024-or-later per-seat fare for any Santo Antão aluguer route was found in Cape Verdean news, on operator sites or in government tariff documents. Treat them as a 2022 floor.
05
The brief says almost nothing runs on Sunday. Confirmed for the ferries only in the sense that Sunday runs on a later clock – the first Chiquinho sailing is 09:00 instead of 07:00 in the current window, so a Sunday arrival lands at 10:00 or 11:00 and misses the morning aluguer wave. No source was found that states aluguer frequency on Sundays. Assume a much thinner service and ask on Saturday.
06
Ferry timetables rotate. Bela-vista says they change every six weeks; the government order behind it says the two operators swap slots every 45 days, and the CV Interilhas PDF is published in exactly those windows (27 August – 10 October 2026, then 11 October – 25 November 2026). Any departure time in this file will be wrong within weeks. Re-read cvinterilhas.cv/css/pdf/horarios.pdf and nosferry.com before travelling.
07
Porto Novo harbour is about to become a building site. Enapor tendered the 32 million euro extension in March 2026 and was choosing sites for the contractor's yard in August 2026, with works starting in 2027 and running 30 months. Expect disruption around the terminal from 2027 onward; no source yet describes how passenger operations will be handled during construction.
08
Nothing reliable was found on the once-mentioned yacht passages from Tarrafal de Monte Trigo, on fishing-boat transfers between Tarrafal and Monte Trigo village, or on whether any scheduled boat still serves the island's west coast. Ask in Tarrafal de Monte Trigo itself.
09
Cape Verdean escudo is pegged to the euro at about 110 CVE to 1 EUR. Aluguers, fretes and small guesthouses are cash only; the ferry terminals take cards.

In the planner

What the planner can route today

The options above live on the place page, not in the departure board: a boat that comes when you phone has no time to show. What the board can do for Santo Antão is this.

Y: Scheduled flightsSão Pedro (VXE), 29 km
N: Trains and coachesno timetable feed known for this country
Y: Ferries30 min. fastferry / 55 min. normal ferry (oneway), 13 km; sailings estimated
Y: Driving and taxiOpenStreetMap roads; cab fare from the country band
N: Bike and scooter shareno share feed known
N: Cruisesno open itinerary source anywhere

Y routable now · F found, not yet implemented · N no source known. Nearest place with more: Mindelo, 28 km.