Cacheu: Portuguese Fort & Guinea-Bissau's Oldest Town
Cacheu on the river of the same name is Guinea-Bissau's oldest town — the Portuguese fort built in the 17th century was a major Atlantic slave trade entrepôt, and its ruins still command the river
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Fort of Cacheu Ruins
Built in 1588, the Portuguese fort controlled the Cacheu River's Atlantic slave trade — its crumbling walls overlooking the mangrove-fringed river are among the oldest colonial structures in West Africa
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Cacheu Town Colonial Heritage
The town of Cacheu has Portuguese stone buildings in various states of disrepair - more ruined than Bissau but even more evocative of Guinea-Bissau's Portuguese colonial past
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Cacheu River Mangrove Channels
The mouth of the Cacheu River is one of West Africa's most extensive mangrove systems — canoe trips in the canals encounter manatees, saltwater hippos and an extraordinary diversity of birds
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Slave Trade History
Cacheu was one of the earliest Portuguese Atlantic slave trading posts – captives from the Senegambia region were traded here from the 1450s onwards, before Bijagós and other trading posts
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Cacheu Fishing Community
The town's fishing community uses traditional pirogues and nets unchanged for generations — the morning fish landing is a scene of working West African river culture
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Varela Beach Atlantic Coast
If you continue north from Cacheu to Varela when you one of West Africa's most isolated beaches on the Atlantic — 30 km of white sand completely free of development, accessible only by 4WD