“On this island they grow sugar cane,” says our intrepid Cape Verdean Coast Guard officer, “and the things that they make with sugar cane are grogue, ponche and maybe some honey.”
He pauses as we look out at the fields of sugar cane covering this island.
“Man my head hurts, I think I need to drink some ponche to help this hangover.” And with that he opens the half-empty bottle from last night and takes a slug. It is about ten in the morning.
I should have know that it was going to be one of those days. This Coast Guard First Lieutenant is the other half of the brain who leads our communications fantastic voyage. He’s full of local knowledge and love for his country, but he also subscribes to traditional remedies that ease a pounding head. In case you’re wondering, he’s not driving the car.
The roads we travel look like this, and are made for two-way traffic. See the edge on the right side of the road? One errant turn and you are on your way down.
We’re still on Santo Antão, the westernmost volcanic island of Cape Verde (and really the westernmost point of Africa). It is divided into north and south by a mountain range that has a perilous road snaking through the middle. We’re moving at a good clip, and I’m fluctuating between exhilaration and confirming with myself that should my number come up today, I am at peace with the life I have lived.
We pull over at a cool lookout spot and decide to negotiate the area on foot to enhance the view. If you don’t look down, the climb up the ridge separating the two valleys is not scary. Should I be telling you this?
And the view is so worth it.
This is how life is supposed to be lived.
Grogue (grog) and ponche (punch, obviously) are the main alcoholic beverages consumed here. I am pretty sure that everyone on Santo Antão drinks, with the only exception being the children (and these aspiring drinkers can be seen running around and chawing on cane sticks). A few hours of navigating switchbacks that bring us to what is a dry riverbed (we are here in the dry season), we start to grow hungry for lunch. There’s not much out here so we stop at the first house we came upon. It is at this point in my blog entry that I will transition to what I have scribbled in my notebook after we left the house:
So, the last time I did a blog entry with a good buzz on was while riding a train in France. My surroundings (and the alcohol) have definitely been upgraded, and our planned day of sightseeing probably went too many hours without taking food. We’ve just emerged from the backyard of a middle class house that has a thriving fazenda operating on the property. It’s the kind of fazenda where they must do what they can with the island staple- sugar cane.
Guess what their product happens to be?
I’ll try to describe the grogue making process in photographic detail, and I hope this will compensate for what I guarantee is a terrible and inaccurate verbal description. I blame it on the guy who was running the operation out back; he didn’t speak English but compensated by showing us endless morabeza that took the form of bottomless cups of grogue.
Morabeza, I am told, is a Creole word. It’s kind of like Senegal’s concept of teranga (hospitality)- but the Cape Verdeans claim that Senegal stole this concept from them. I don’t feel qualified to weigh in on this debate, but I will say that Cape Verdeans are indeed very hospitable.
We started off by drinking a hot sample of the finished product. There was no “tour” of the process, we just stood around and watched what everyday operations looked like.
The process begins with the harvesting of sugar cane. This massive stack is fed, piece-by-piece into an extraction machine.
It was fun to watch the flattened cane get pressed out on the other side, with its coveted guts being poured into this cement basin to await transformation into something that you really shouldn’t drink while standing in the sun with no food in your stomach.
Take one down, pass it around. This is the extracted and strained cane juice (sans alcohol). It tastes great, and is not too sweet.
Witch’s brew. The juice sits in barrels for two to fourteen days while the sugar breaks down and become alcohol. This stuff gets strong- I know because our grog guy ensured we tasted a big cupful. “It’s an aphrodisiac!” laughed my Coast Guard lieutenant as we slowly sipped. I wasn’t feeling it. You’re shocked I’m sure.
The alcoholized juice is then placed into a vat inside the oven where it is heated. Evaporation becomes condensation in a process that didn’t really sink into my brain. You’ll have to make your way out to this valley if you want the full explanation.
Down the tube the just-born grogue travels once condensation happens. Nothing at this factory runs on power. It’s high science at its best.
Once the juice is expelled, they burn the cane stalks in order to heat the oven. The ashes are then removed and used as fertilizer for the fields up on the hill. Everything is recycled. And I can’t believe this guy does his work barefoot.
The animals provide another component of the fertilizer. I meant to ask if they get to drink the grogue too.
It’s punishing work, so I should not have been impressed to watch the fossilized employees chug this stuff like it was water and they were dying of thirst. Our Cape Verdean military guy said that the workers at these factories die very young. I probably could have figured that out.
Since the best grogue you can get in Cape Verde is the kind that is not made for mass production, we wanted to by some of the grouge master’s stuff. He said he’d be happy to oblige, but we had to take him into town to access his stash. So we piled into the car and away we went.
Here’s our grogue guy, operating a fairly brisk business once we dropped him off at his little bar and he opened the door.
The town is tiny: there’s a church, and there’s the little bar. We sat between the two and enjoyed the scenery as locals wandered over to sit with us.
If you remember from the beginning, this whole adventure started with us looking for lunch. The grogue familiarization tour isn’t bad, but it resulted in us learning a new word: “bafa”. This means that if you are drinking, you need to be eating too. Before making our duty free purchase, we invited the grogue guy to eat lunch with us at the next town by the ocean.
Spit out on the other side of the island, this little seaside town has a population of 400. Not many people come out here- but we found a restaurant and ordered whatever they had fresh from the ocean. We got lobster. The most kick-ass lobster that I have ever tasted in my life (and I’m from New England). Throw in a bottle of vinho verde and you‘ve got one happy grogue man. And one happy Masshole.
No one talked once the food was served. The hallmark of one damn good meal. Or some really hungry individuals.
Full of food, we made the trip back into the heart of darkness. The backtracking took some time, and we finally bought the grogue and thanked our man for an enjoyable afternoon. I don’t even know what his name was. What I do know is that we next passed someone walking on this barren road who happened to know our first lieutenant. For a country of ten spread out islands, Cape Verde is a small place. We gave this guy a lift up the road to his house- whereupon he hopped out, ran inside and came back out with a two liter bottle of aged grogue.That’s some more morabeza for you.
Returning to the present moment and I am quite lucid for a change. No grogue for me today- I am finishing up this entry while sitting on a pitching ferry that has people throwing up due to the high sea state.
This is one of those “Thank you, General Olmsted” moments. I love cultural immersion.
The best days are the ones where you get up and have no expectation of anything unusual taking place. I’ve seen some cool stuff during this tour, but most of it has required a certain amount of foresight and planning. Today (and this trip, really) has included none of these components, and it is for this reason that I count it as one of the most memorable so far.
I do realize that I am incredibly lucky to be experiencing all of this, and I fully expect to come back in my next life as the poor bastard who is throwing sugarcane into the fire for the duration of his life.