Beautiful Atlantic Islands Touched By Severe History An Archipelago Of 15 To 20 Volcanic Islands, Cape Verde Offers An Unspoiled And Peaceful Retreat

Forget the Caribbean.

You want exotica? Blue skies, blank slates? Crystalline sands and softly moonlit nights? Peace and passion? Endless sun and steady surf? Countless combinations of the races in faces, foods and tongues?

Come to the Cape Verde, an Atlantic archipelago of 15 to 20 volcanic islands. Nine are inhabited; others are little more than rock piles, left to the birds and native long-eared bats. They lie 400 miles off the west coast of Africa, parallel to Senegal and Mauritania.

In addition to having nearly all the admirable aspects of the Antilles, they are cheap and uncrowded, unAmerican and anonymous. Go to the beach - any beach - and you’re likely to be alone with the wind, roaring ahead. Only occasionally does it whisper of times gone by. There’s space to stretch and sketch a future.

Sit by your hotel’s saltwater pool, and you get another kind of white noise - no pun or offense intended. For the average American, that’s what the sound of flight crews conversing in Russian or Afrikaans amounts to. (Aeroflot and South African Airways do a lot of business here, changing shifts while their aircraft refuel at the international airport on the island of Sal.)

Add the occasional trill of a French family on holiday, and you get a subtle, if polyglot, sonata to accompany your thoughts.

For that small army of business people, development workers and academics embarking on the monster shuttle between the United States and the new South Africa, it’s a perfect place to break the 14-hour trip and decompress. It’s conscientious recreation. Sun with sense. Sightseeing with a historical twist.

These islands are unspoiled, but not untouched. Much of their beauty was born of horror, and the insistence of life over land. Their rugged people were patched together from the best traits of many: Mandingos and Fulas, Portuguese and Spaniards, Moors and Jews.

The Cape Verde is one of the relatively few places to be truly “discovered” by modern man. During the European Middle Ages, sailors from the African empire of Mali are believed to have explored the islands, but they didn’t settle here. That task fell to the pioneer Portuguese. And it wasn’t easy.

These are islands of endemic drought, where little or no rain falls for decades at a time; where the trade winds that powered the triangular trade involving slaves kick into third gear, tirelessly spewing gale-force gusts westward.

The Portuguese founded their colony here in 1462 on the island of Santiago, at the base of a cliff that once formed the giant bank of an ancient river that now flows only seasonally, if at all. They called it Ribeira Grande. Cape Verdeans now call it Cidade Velha, or the Old City.

It was a gateway to the New World and the first European city built in the tropics, boasting even its own cathedral.

It became a re-education and training camp for West African slaves. Once captured, they were brought here to be broken of the notion of freedom, taught a Latin language and converted to Catholicism. Those who survived the detour were worth much more on American markets than Africans who were shipped directly.

Just a 6-mile drive west of the current Cape Verdean capital of Praia, Cidade Velha seems stuck in the 16th century. Little has changed here since Sir Francis Drake - called a “master thief of the unknown world” by his European competitors - sacked and burned the port in 1586.

I make the Old City my first stop on a tour of the island that takes me through deserts and rain forests, to the tops of mountains and down to black-sand beaches.

The pistachio-green and black cabs are cheap: $50 for an entire day, including historical tips and translation from Crioulo, the Creole spoken here that is a mixture of medieval Portuguese and several West African tongues, to French.

First thing the driver does is pop a Frank Sinatra tape into the cassette player. Even though not much English is spoken here, Ol’ Blue Eyes is a big favorite.

On the way out of Praia, we round the port, where a half-dozen handsome, ocean-going sailboats await provisions before weighing anchor again. We climb up onto a plateau that runs along the coast, its edges dropping sheer to the water. And where the sea crashes against those rocky walls, it’s easy to see why Basil Davidson said the islands look like they wear a “necklace of Atlantic surf,” in his history of Cape Verde, “The Fortunate Isles.”

The flat, volcanic ridge that forms the southern coast of Santiago is lifeless except for some road-repair workers. Not much grows, nothing moves, hardly anything distracts from Sinatra until the horizon ahead is broken, Oz-like, by a grand fortress.

Fortaleza Real de S. Filipe, constructed in 1593, looks both like something out of Spartacus and like new. Its massive, red-rock walls are still smoothly pointed. The parade grounds within would just as smartly echo the taps of a soldier’s boots today as they must have back when.

The Old City lies directly below the fort, at the bottom of the coastal cliff, right on the water’s edge. It’s more of a medieval village, really.

Still standing, in the center square, is the iron and stone discipline dock, to which slaves were tied while they were whipped, four at a time. Tucked into the side of a hill, down a ways from the ruins of the cathedral, are tiny shops selling matches, hand-cut bars of soap and shots of the local grog, a mash made from sugar cane. Along the beach is a rainbow of brightly painted fishing skiffs.

Aside from the acacia trees, which sway and bend to the steadfast breeze, there’s not much action. A donkey passes slowly, prodded by a small child who is guiding a load of plastic jugs full of drinking water back home.

The houses are small and simple, built of stone and topped by thatch. The sun is strong but not hot. The sea shimmers, sparkles, beckons. Above it all floats a morna, the sadly sweet song that is to the Cape Verde what the blues are to America.

We head back inland to the main road, which runs along the top of the volcanic ridge, ringing the pear-shaped island. As we climb, the temperature drops. It’s at least 20 degrees cooler in the midland interior, where thousands of baby trees struggle to stand in long lines that stripe the hillside.

Cape Verdeans claim to have the most successful reforestation program of any African nation. Also lining the hills are dikes designed to slow drainage when the odd rain and resultant flash flood occurs, so that soil doesn’t flush into the rivers, and then out to sea. One of the more serious crimes a Cape Verdean can commit is to set foot on, or otherwise damage, these dikes.

It’s hard to imagine today how lush a sight must have greeted the Portuguese when they first arrived, inducing them to name the Cape Verde islands for their greenery.

They immediately imported West African slaves here, to Santiago, this now brown land, to cultivate sugar cane and maize. As the colony grew in wealth, it attracted pirates.

And each time it was plundered, slaves seized the opportunity to slip their bonds and escape inland, forming small clans on mountainsides or in hidden gullies similar to those of the maroons in Jamaica. There they remain, making Santiago the most African of the islands. Others of the islands are more mestizo, or mixed, in blood and culture.

Nestled in the very heart of the island, and close to its very top, is an oasis of greenery called Sao Jorge. Here the mountain peaks seem to pierce the passing clouds, forcing them to release a little rain. And here, everyone proudly points tourists toward the only botanical garden in Cabo Verde.

Well, yes, you think, it makes sense that there are not more. This is a place where starvation has been a way of life. Why not plant food everywhere it will grow?

The road twists and turns around the mountains, passing through villages, each of which has a church, a dusty soccer field and a still. It’s market day in Assomada, which lies some 40 miles up-island from Praia, and the streets are clogged.

The descent is fast from here to Tarrafal, on the northern tip of the island. Here is the best beach on Santiago, where folk come from all around to swim after church on Sundays, where boys play soccer at low tide.

Tourists are pointed toward a prison the Portuguese built for political upstarts, freedom fighters from Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Getting there: South African Airways (800-722-9675) flies from New York to Cape Verde for around $1,260 round trip. If you’re planning to break a trip to South Africa with a stop in Cape Verde, one of South African Airways’ four weekly flights departing New York - the Saturday one - stops on the Cape Verdean island of Sal. For no extra charge, you can disembark there, pick up the same flight a week later and continue on your way to South Africa. Alternatively, all the airline’s return flights from South Africa to the United States stop at Sal, allowing shorter stays. Getting around: It’s difficult to island-hop but worth it if you have the time. Inter-island flights are available on Cape Verde’s TACV airline to all the major islands. TACV has an office in Allston, Mass. (617-787-8814). For the more adventurous, there are ferry crossings. Currency: Few places accept credit cards, although dollars and traveler’s checks are good everywhere. Where to stay and eat: All the islands have great little hole-in-the-wall restaurants that serve Crioulo food in ample servings for trifling prices, along with fruity Portuguese wines. On Sal, stay at the Morabeza (about $66 a night) or the Belorizonte ($100 for your own bungalow). Both hotels have restaurants specializing in fresh lobster. On Santiago, stay at the Pousada Praia Mar for about $80 a night, which includes breakfast. Climate: It’s always windy, and it rarely rains, so you can count on getting a suntan without sweltering. July through November is the warmer, wetter season, with temperatures averaging 81 degrees at sea level. Between December and February is the season of harmattan, the breeze that rises from the Sahara and becomes the trade wind. December through June is the “dry” season, when temperatures drop 10 degrees or so. Visas: Visas are required and easily available from the Embassy of Cape Verde. Medical requirements: A cholera vaccination certificate is no longer a condition of entry, but cholera is considered a risk. Contact your doctor to determine whether you should be inoculated. Information: Embassy of Cape Verde, 3415 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20007 (202-965-6820).