| I left Cabeco das Tarafes and the scant vegetation | | | | a fossilised forest. At the beach I sat for a little and |
| of a ribeira, and the road deteriorated to a dusty | | | | watched the patterns of fine sand stream over the |
| track. Now I was in open upland dominated by Pico | | | | ground. |
| Estancia on the right. It is not a large mountain but in | | | | Beyond, the sea crashed on to the steep shore. |
| this emptiness I had lost a sense of scale and as it | | | | From Curral Velho I drove inland. Walls crossed the |
| shimmered in the heat it seamed massive. | | | | dry landscape, impressive monuments to generations |
| All around was dry rock. Once, I stopped and there | | | | of Boavistans who have put to good use the two |
| was no movement except for the drifting trail of | | | | resources that are not in short supply here: rock and |
| dust thrown out by the jeep. There was silence | | | | time. From time to time I passed the ruins of |
| except for the droning of the hot wind. The land was | | | | farmhouses and here and there an abandoned well |
| an endless brown and the skull of a donkey gleamed | | | | there is water, but it is bitter now. |
| like a white flower amongst the rocks. At last, after | | | | In places the track threatened to disappear |
| an eternity on the plateau of dry bones, the track | | | | altogether beneath thick drifts of dust. Elsewhere, |
| swung towards the coast and soon I was driving just | | | | the route was no more than a cleared path across |
| above the white sand. | | | | boulder fields. The sun sank and Santo Antonio |
| Curral Velho is a crumbling village next to a salt | | | | became an outlandish silhouette. I passed a tree |
| lagoon just behind the shore. It is built in warm honey | | | | blasted into a tortured sculpture by the prevailing |
| coloured stone, a place of stone, built on stone, | | | | wind - It was the first living thing since the crows, |
| amongst stone. The wind murmured through the | | | | hours before. There were low scrubby bushes and |
| gaping windows. Two of the largest, blackest crows | | | | then, at last, an attempt at cultivation. The field was |
| I had ever seen watched me from a broken gable as | | | | more like a fortress than a garden: first there were |
| I picked my way round the ruins. I found a path over | | | | walls to keep the goats out and then there was an |
| the dunes amongst the twisted roots and stumps of | | | | embankment around each plant to keep the water in. |