[CAPE VERDE TRAVEL] - Meet the PROFESSORES of MINDELO at São Vicente`s incredible annual carnival, the largest carnaval in all of Africa. This video features the "Professores" parading through Mindelo at night.

Recorded February 10th 2024 - 8:00 PM

Map: maps.app.goo.gl/Wn3pxVxB5mieecPM8

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Sao Vicente was the last island to be colonised by the Portuguese, who were looking for fertile land to increase agricultural production. Here they founded the town of Mindelo in the 19th century, populating it with the last slaves and new generations of Creole mestizos. Today, the brightly coloured, Portuguese-style colonial buildings provide the backdrop for one of the country’s richest cultural lives and host Cape Verde’s oldest and most colourful carnivals.

Like the famous Rio Carnival, Mindelo’s Carnival originated from the Portuguese festival of Entrudo, which was celebrated between Epiphany and the beginning of Lent.

While today this tradition is also perpetuated on the island of Sao Nicolau, in a more intimate version, in Sao Vicente, it becomes an explosive and highly competitive event, comparable to the Brazilian one.

Each district presents a theme and handcrafts its own floats and costumes, within committees that have to watch over the highly secret construction of the monumental sets for months.

The streets fill up, the bars explode, rivers of grogue, the sugar cane distillate similar to rum, flow. Children, the elderly and the young flock to the heart of Mindelo in an unparalleled participatory festival that welcomes people from all the Cape Verdean islands and foreign tourists from everywhere.