Yes, I finally made it!! For my regular readers, Cape Verde may seem a surprising choice for this milestone, famed as it is for its beaches rather than for historical sites.

In fact, Cape Verde is as rich in history as it is in natural beauty. In 1461 it became the first Portuguese, and indeed European, colony in sub-Saharan Africa. Mercifully, no blood was spilt as the islands were uninhabited at that time. However, tragically, the Portuguese later made up for that through their trade in human misery: the archipelago’s location between Europe, Africa and the Americas made it an ideal hub for the transatlantic slave trade.

A few decades later, the islands also proved an ideal stopping off point for Columbus and Vasco de Gama on their respective voyages of discovery. The volume and dangers of trade around Cape Verde’s waters are vividly illustrated in Praia’s Ildo Lobo cultural centre, where an eclectic array of items rescued from British, French, Dutch and Portuguese shipwrecks are on display, including unopened bottles of Port wine dating from the 18th century.

You can really feel the history too in the old capital of Ribeira Grande, clambering through the crumbling remains of its churches and monasteries, abandoned after the town was sacked by French pirates in 1712, and gazing from the hilltop fortress out over the bay. Where brightly painted fishing boats now bob on the waves, once billowed the sails on the caravels of Columbus and Vasco de Gama as they sought safe harbour.

However, on this visit, I was content to let nature take centre stage, albeit far from the beaches. Scrambling up an active volcano to be rewarded with sweeping views over hardened lava flows, volcanic vents and ash fields, all encircled by a mighty crater wall, to the deep blue sea beyond was a special way to join this “100 club”. The steep descent through thick ash on the volcano’s slope was thrilling too; it felt a bit like ‘skiing’ as the guide had described it, but without the skis and with some running required to generate the necessary downward momentum.

Despite its classic cone shape, the Pico Grande de Fogo is no ordinary volcano. Not only is it Cape Verde’s highest point at 2829 metres, but it is also kind of a volcano within a volcano, technically called a vent. For, the whole island of Fogo is one enormous volcano topped by an eight-kilometre-wide crater encircled by a wall that towerds to one kilometre at its highest points. The Pico Grande sits within this crater, somehow prominent yet dwarfed, and it has other, much smaller, vents for company too.

These vents were formed by Fogo’s many eruptions throughout geological history. As with other volcanoes, high temperatures in the Earth’s mantle cause rocks to melt and form magma that collects in vast chambers. Since it is lighter than the surrounding rock, this magma makes its way up through weaknesses in the rock until it reaches the Earth’s surface, erupting through a volcanic vent. Fogo’s destructive power is evident everywhere. It even followed me back to my hotel room, where I discovered that ash had infiltrated my garments, shoes, hair, and ears, as well as various other orifices!

Then there’s the volcanic rock formed from the hardening of the lava flows that criss-cross the crater, bearing witness not only to the power and frequency of eruptions but also to their age. Flows stretching down from Pico Grande, which last erupted in 1675, are greyish brown in colour. In contrast, the flows that erupted from nearby Pico Pequeno in 1995 and 2014 are black. For, over time volcanic rock changes colour through sun exposure from black to grey to brown to tan to orange and finally red. Age is not the only story that the volcanic rock has to tell: roofs still protrude from several flows, along with other remains, a vivid reminder of how the local town was destroyed during the 2014 eruption.

Thankfully, the locals had ample time to flee and, undeterred, built a new town between the lava flows, putting all that volcanic rock to good use. So, why did they not simply relocate to safer coastal areas? Aside from the human tendency to cling to roots and traditions, staying put also made economic sense. For, in a predominantly arid nation, the crater has some of the best conditions for agriculture, thanks to the volcanic deposits which, enriched with elements like potassium and magnesium, act as a natural fertiliser, and the favourable micro-climate, which is cooler and more humid than elsewhere.

As a result, while the volcanic landscape appears grey and barren from the top of Pico Grande, on closer inspection apple and guava trees, flowering plants and grapevines provide a sprinkling of green and pink. The moscatel grapes are pressed by a local co-operative to make the delicious Cha brand of wine. Within its distinctive earthy notes, I swear I could actually taste the ash, making it an apt way to toast my ascent of a volcano, as well as to celebrate the 100 countries that I have now visited during a lifetime of travelling and living abroad.