Sal

Sal was named for the salt that formed naturally in its two great ponds, in the flooded crater at Pedra de Lume and near Santa Maria, and for centuries that mineral was the island's only reason to be settled. Reached by the Portuguese in 1460, the island was only sparsely inhabited for three centuries, with a small fishing village near present-day Palmeira by 1720. Commercial salt working began at Pedra de Lume in 1796 under Manuel António Martins, who had a tunnel driven through the crater wall in 1804, and in 1830 he founded Santa Maria on the southern tip so that salt could be shipped from the bay. Up to 30,000 tons a year went out, most of it to Brazil, until Brazil taxed imported salt in 1887 and the trade collapsed. Production revived in the twentieth century — a French company built an aerial tramway at Pedra de Lume in 1921 — and continued at Santa Maria until 1984.

What changed the island was aviation. In 1939 Italy began building an airfield on the flat ground near Espargos as a fuel and provisions stop on routes between Europe and South America. The Second World War ended the Italian project, and the Portuguese colonial government bought the site and had it fully operational by 1949. It grew into the archipelago's main international airport, later named for the independence leader Amílcar Cabral, and for decades it gave Sal a role out of all proportion to its size and population, serving airlines that needed to refuel between Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Tourism began with Cabo Verde's first resort hotel, the Morabeza, opened at Santa Maria in 1967, and after 1986 hotels and resorts spread along the coast either side of the town. The island's population, under 3,000 until 1960, has grown quickly with workers from elsewhere, turning a salt outpost into the country's main holiday destination, with almost half of Cabo Verde's hotel beds by 2017.

Sal's culture is Cabo Verdean Creole culture as it is lived everywhere in the archipelago — Portuguese and West African in origin, Catholic in its calendar, musical by habit — but with an unusually mixed population, since many residents came here for work from other islands. That gives Santa Maria and Espargos a transient, outward-looking feel compared with older communities such as Santo Antão.

Music is everywhere: morna and coladeira in the bars of Santa Maria, funaná and the harder dance styles at weekend parties, and live bands playing to a mixed audience of islanders and visitors. Football is followed closely, with island clubs competing in the island's own league, and beach football and volleyball are played on the sand in the late afternoon.

Manners are courteous and unhurried. Greetings open every exchange, families are large and closely involved, and Sunday Mass and the saints' day festivities still organise the year. The tension that runs through island conversation is the familiar one of a resort economy: tourism pays most of the wages, but much of it happens behind hotel gates, and residents talk frequently about water, housing and how much of the money stays on the island.

Around 40,000 people live on Sal, most of them in Espargos and Santa Maria, and the number has risen sharply in a generation. Espargos is the everyday town — the municipal offices, the schools, the market — while Santa Maria is where the work is, in hotels, restaurants, dive centres and construction. Palmeira handles the shipping, and the rest of the island is empty stone and sand.

Almost nothing is grown here. Fresh food arrives by boat and plane from Santiago, Santo Antão and abroad, and much of the fresh water is desalinated, which makes both expensive and makes supply interruptions a routine part of life. Fishing remains important, both for the pier at Santa Maria and for the boats at Palmeira.

The day starts early, before the heat and the wind get up, and slows in the middle of the afternoon. Workers commute between Espargos and the hotels by aluguer van; children walk to school in uniform; the evening belongs to the street, the church square and the football pitch. Water supply, rising rents and the seasonality of tourism are the issues residents raise most often.

Food on Sal is the Cabo Verdean repertoire with more fish than most places manage. Cachupa, the national dish, is the daily anchor: hominy corn and beans stewed for hours with whatever meat or fish is available, often with blood sausage, and fried the next morning, often with an egg, as cachupa refogada.

The sea provides the rest. Tuna, wahoo, grouper and moray are landed at the Santa Maria pier; they are grilled simply, or cooked in a tomato and onion sauce, and served with rice and beans. Lagosta, the spiny lobster of these waters, and buzio, a large sea snail, are the celebratory dishes. Fried moray eel is another favourite across the islands.

Drinks follow the national pattern. Grogue, the sugarcane spirit distilled chiefly on Santo Antão and Santiago, is drunk neat or sweetened with molasses into a ponche; local beer, imported Portuguese wine and strong coffee fill out the list. Tropical fruit is largely imported, but papaya, mango and banana from the greener islands appear in juices and as papaya jam, eaten with goat's cheese.