Big Ass Tree

So here are a few shots (maybe only one depending on the ever-shaky internet connection here in Assomada) of the Big Ass Tree that lives here in Cape Verde. It’s the only one of its kind anywhere in the country, although they are apparently ubiquitous on The Continent (that’s what everyone here calls Africa). Nobody is sure what kind it is…locals included. It’s not a Redwood by any stretch of the imagination, but the Cape Verdians are real damn proud of it, and as well they should be. Its located in a spot that gets all of the run off when it rains (which it did for the first time in over nine months last week), and it was a really pretty walk over a brown mountain and down into and through a lush valley. Being a group of Americans, it was of course not long before someone conquered the tree by climbing to the top of it, at which point an old man appeared from nowhere to tell us that the tree is, more or less, a National Landmark. Essentially it was as if we, or rather, the guy standing up in the tree, had pissed into Old Faithful or something. We were mortified and left immediately.