Serra Malagueta Natural Park (Santiago) — Attraction in undefined

The Serra Malagueta Natural Park is highly recommended on the island of Santiago (Cape Verde) for hiking enthusiasts. From the Sucupira Market in Praia, it is easy to find a taxi collectivo, and with some patience until it is full, you can be dropped off at the entrance of the park for 500 escudos each person. In the information centre, you must first buy a ticket of 200 escudos per person, before you can start the walk in the park. It is the first National Park of Santiago in Cape Verde and also the greenest one. For all nature lovers, this is really a must. The entrance fee is used to expand the park and also to protect the fauna and flora. The main walk is really easy and only takes 1h30 until the radio station. There you can choose to take the gomgom walking path to Hortelao. This is a 6 km long descent with an altitude difference of just over 900m, quite tough. Or one can choose to walk back to the information centre along the forestrial trail, and eventually hike back to the starting point along the same trail, about a 1h walk.

NB: our return to Praia was more difficult, as there were no aluguers. The director and the official of the National Park, were very kind to voluntarily drop us off in the centre of Assomada (14km from the National Park), so that we could take an aluguer back to the centre of Praia.

In short: it is a beautiful day trip and the Park has impressive panoramas. I hope this will soon become a regular item for every tourist here on the island of Santiago...

Beautiful views though the guys with knives put a damper on the day. We had read the reviews but since it had been a number of months thought that maybe there had been some measures put in place (we did see some police on patrol). Understandably it is a vast land so it would be very difficult to monitor the whole trail.

My family and I were walking back to the entrance when we heard a man and woman being ROBBED AT KNIFEPOINT with nowhere to go on the side of the mountain, they came towards us but told us not to move but because some of our group was a little behind so we tried to stay close incase they hurt our family at which point they threw rocks at us (which will probably leave a mark) they then ran past our other family. The man and woman lost their money and phones and except for some bruising were ok.

Other than that there were some truly amazing views which is a shame because these people will spoil it for most

On a side note I'm a bit surprised none of the local guides highlight this issue... it's hard to believe that none of them have seen or heard about this...

Since our guide didn't show up (not a guide from the Natural park) the staff at the entrance of the Park was very helpfull. They gave us a map and gave us a route to walk. We explained about robbery stories in the park but they told us it is safe now and the two robbers are already caught by the police. But we didn't want to go by our self (they understood our concerns) so they offered us a local guide who didn't speak English (no problem for us because we just want to make sure we have someone with us who is common in the place) the local guide came 2 minutes after they called him. We did a beautiful hike and the local guide told us about the mountains and nature. We had a great experience and a nice memory of the helpfull people that work at the...