Chã das Caldeiras is one of those places that seem impossible: a village that lives inside the crater of an active volcano. At about 1.700 metres, inside the huge caldera of the Fogo volcano, a handful of families grow vines, fruit trees and vegetables among rivers of black lava, at the foot of Pico do Fogo, the perfect 2.829-metre cone that is the roof of Cabo Verde. The landscape —the Bordeira wall closing off the horizon, the fresh lava, the green vines on the ash— is simply breathtaking.
It is also a place with a story of courage. In November 2014 the volcano erupted and the lava buried much of the villages of Portela and Bangaeira, destroying homes, crops and the park headquarters. People lost almost everything, were evacuated… and came back. Against all advice, the people of Chã rebuilt their homes on the still-warm lava, replanted their vines and carried on living in the crater, because this volcanic land is their home and their livelihood.
This guide tells you how to visit Chã das Caldeiras and climb Pico do Fogo: how to get there from São Filipe, why a guide is compulsory and how much it costs, how hard the ascent is, where to sleep and eat inside the crater, and how to taste the famous Chã wine, which grows in volcanic ash. An intense experience, somewhere between a mountain adventure and the wonder of watching a community defy the fire with dignity and joy.
Chã das Caldeiras is the heart of the Parque Natural do Fogo and a unique case of a community living inside an active volcano. Its inhabitants are partly descended from a 19th-century French settler, Armand Montrond, and they have turned the volcanic ash into a flourishing patchwork of vineyards that produces the celebrated Chã wine. The volcano shapes their fate: it erupted in 1951, 1995 and, above all, in 2014, when the lava wiped out much of the village. Even so, people built again on the lava and replanted their vines. The full story —of the volcano, the vine and the resilience of Chã— is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The south of fire and flowers: the island of Fogo, with its active volcano and its lava wine, and tiny Brava, the island of flowers and of the morna poets, reachable only by boat.
Read the history of Fogo and Brava (the volcanic south) →They depart from Praia, 90 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Pico do Fogo and its caldera are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of volcanic activity in the middle of the Atlantic. The island of Fogo is a gigantic stratovolcano rising from the seabed, and Chã das Caldeiras sits inside its great caldera, a depression some 9 kilometres across, closed off to the west by a spectacular semicircular wall almost 1,000 metres high: the Bordeira.
Geologists believe the Bordeira is what remains of a much larger ancient volcanic edifice that collapsed in a catastrophic event, a gigantic flank landslide into the sea, tens of thousands of years ago. The caldera was left on top of that wound, and inside it a new cone kept growing: today's Pico do Fogo, which at 2,829 metres is the highest point in Cabo Verde and one of the most remarkable volcanoes in the Atlantic.
Since then, the volcano has never stopped making itself felt. Historical eruptions, documented since colonial times, have gradually filled and reshaped the caldera with new lava flows and secondary cones. That black, mineral volcanic soil is both a threat and a blessing: it destroys when the volcano wakes up, but when it rests it gives a surprisingly fertile land for vines and fruit trees.
The fact that people chose to live inside the crater of an active volcano has a lot to do with a singular 19th-century figure: Armand Montrond, a French aristocrat who, according to tradition, arrived on Fogo around the middle of that century and settled in Chã das Caldeiras. Montrond had many descendants with local women, and much of Chã's present-day population considers itself heir to his lineage; some residents still have features and surnames that point back to that origin.
Legend aside, the settlement of the caldera followed a practical logic: despite the volcanic risk, that ash soil turned out to be excellent for farming. The settlers found that vines thrived in the volcanic soil and the high-altitude climate, and they developed a unique form of winegrowing, as well as growing fruit trees, coffee and vegetables. That is how the villages of Portela and Bangaeira came about: an isolated and very distinctive farming community high up on the volcano.
Over time, Chã das Caldeiras became a small world of its own within Fogo: proud, tenacious people with their own identity, living off vines, livestock and fruit trees in an extreme setting. Chã wine grew famous across the island and beyond, and the caldera earned a reputation as a magical, challenging place where life quite literally flourished on top of fire.
Living in Chã has always meant living alongside danger. The volcano erupted several times throughout history, reminding its inhabitants of the nature of their home. In the 20th century, two eruptions left their mark on the collective memory: the one in 1951 and, above all, the one in 1995.
In April 1995, after decades of calm in the main cone, a new vent opened on the flank of the Pico: Pico Pequeno. For weeks the eruption spewed lava and ash, forced the population to evacuate and covered part of the crops and land in the caldera with new flows. It was a serious warning, but, as would happen again, the community came back, rebuilt and replanted on the lava once it had cooled.
That ability to bounce back comes from the deep bond the people of Chã have with their land. For them, the caldera is not just a dangerous place: it is their families' home, the livelihood of their vineyards and the heart of their identity. Leaving it was not an option, even if the volcano spoke again. That attitude, defiant and at the same time resigned to the force of nature, would be put to a dramatic test a few years later.
On 23 November 2014, Fogo's volcano woke up with force. New vents opened on the flank of the Pico and began pouring out rivers of lava that, over the following weeks, slowly advanced towards the villages in the caldera. The people of Chã, in Portela and Bangaeira, were evacuated in time, and thanks to that nobody died; but the unstoppable lava gradually buried the village.
The flows destroyed around three quarters of the buildings in Portela and Bangaeira: homes, schools, tourist accommodation, the headquarters of the Parque Natural do Fogo, wineries and, above all, much of the vineyards and fields the community lived on. Entire families watched the lava bury the work of generations. The eruption went on until early 2015 and left the community displaced and with almost nothing material.
Faced with clear evidence of the risk, the authorities advised against rebuilding inside the caldera and offered to relocate the population to safe areas. But something astonishing happened: many people from Chã refused to abandon their land. Little by little, against official warnings, they returned to the crater, built new houses on the still-fresh lava and replanted their vines. Once again, they chose to live on top of the fire.
The rebuilding of Chã das Caldeiras after 2014 is one of the great stories of resilience in Cabo Verde. On the black, still-warm lava flows, residents rebuilt their homes, restored paths and planted vines again in the fresh ash. The wine cooperative and the family wineries got back on their feet, and the famous Chã wine (red, white and the distinctive aged 'Chã') was produced once more, now also a symbol of the community's recovery.
Tourism, which was already a source of income before 2014, recovered too. Today Chã das Caldeiras is one of the most impressive destinations in the country: travellers from all over the world come up to the caldera to climb Pico do Fogo, walk across the recent lava flows, taste the lava wine and meet a community that stands up to the volcano. Local guides, organised in an association, lead the climbs and share the history and geology of the place with visitors.
Chã das Caldeiras embodies the Cape Verdean character like nowhere else: the ability to draw life and beauty from a very harsh environment, and to rebuild again and again in the face of adversity. Living inside an active volcano, planting vines on lava and welcoming travellers with a glass of Chã wine is more than a tourist anecdote. It is a lesson in dignity and love for the land that is hard to forget.
