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LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 200km off the west coast of Gabon, in the Gulf of Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe is a tropical archipelago discovered by Portuguese navigators, while they were searching for a route to India in the early 1470s.
Although originally uninhabited, the Portuguese cultivated the islands to become one of the world’s biggest cocoa producers and they only became independent in 1975, after the Carnation revolution in Portugal caused many plantation owners to return home.
Despite the dramatic mix of rugged rocky landscapes, lush plantations, dense rainforests and palm-fringed sandy beaches, São Tomé and Príncipe only opened to tourists in 1987 and many of the islands are still almost totally undiscovered by the tourist trade, providing isolation from the world that is rarely found these days.
There are still only around 10 hotels in the country, plus a chain of comfortable state-run inns.
Stunning São Tomé
The island of São Tomé, with its capital of the same name, represents around 90 per cent of the total surface of the country and is a natural base for many visitors. It is a picturesque town, packed with hauntingly shabby colonial Portuguese architecture and attractive green parks and gardens.
The town centre is small enough to negotiate on foot in a couple of hours. Worth seeing are the 16th century cathedral and the National Museum in the 400-year-old São Sebastião Fort on the peninsula. It has a good range of displays on agriculture, religion, handcrafts and juju, plus a hard-hitting display on the island’s slave trade.
In fact, the slave trade and slave-worked plantations, known as roças, dominate the history of the islands. These plantations, now mostly nationalised, still remain a major feature of the landscape and are well worth visiting. Highlights include Agostinho Neto, the largest plantation in the country, Agua Izé, where visitors can tour the plantation by train, Monté Café and Ribeira Peixe.
Picturesque Príncipe
The small island of Príncipe is located around 94 miles from São Tomé and its main town is Santo António. Like São Tomé, it has retained its distinctive colonial architecture and atmosphere. Two huge cocoa plantations and the Pico de Príncipe, the island’s rocky summit, dominate the island.
Natural wonders
The stunning scenery provides most of the entertainment on the islands. Hiking through rainforest, fascinating and varied bird watching and stunning natural attractions, such as the Boca de Inferno (Hell’s Mouth) seawater waterfall, are popular pastimes.
Other ‘must sees’ include the Ilheu das Rolas (Turtledove Island), a small island which is crossed by the equator and the Pico de São Tomé, the highest mountain in the archipelago at 2,024m. The Porto Alegre, on the southern tip of São Tomé, the ancient fishing town of São João dos Angolares, and the fortress of São Sebastião, are also well worth visiting.
The São Tomé and Príncipe Islands also enjoy some of the clearest waters off the western coast of Africa – ideal for swimming, snorkelling and diving. Unusually, the islands’ beaches have both white and black sand. The rocky beach at Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon), on São Tomé, is especially good for snorkelling and the island’s hotels can arrange diving and deep-sea fishing trips, notably on Bom Bom Island, off Príncipe’s northern coast. This upmarket resort, to the north of the island, has brought improved infrastructure and some very well-off tourists.
Climate
São Tomé and Príncipe has an equatorial climate with heavy rainfall, high temperatures and humidity. The mountainous south of the main island is wetter than the north. The main dry season is from early June to late September, but there is another dry season, the Pequenha Gravana, from the end of December to the start of February.
PDM Verdict:
Be one of the first to discover this great value tropical paradise, where you really can get away from it all.
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