Cacheu

Cacheu was the first Portuguese foothold on this coast and for two centuries the main port for shipping enslaved people out of the region, which its small stone fort above the river was built to protect. The fort survives with its cannon still pointing at the water and a museum inside that does not soften what happened here. A statue of a colonial figure stands in the yard, removed from a square in the capital and left here deliberately. Mangrove forest stretches for miles in all directions around the town. Boats go out into the channels.