Desert island castaway
I’M NOT used to being treated like a VIP, so I was surprised to see the red carpet laid out on the tarmac as we touched down in Sao Tome. For a split second I wondered if it was for me, one of the few Brits ever to visit this former Portuguese colony right on the Equator. But it turned out that the warm welcome was intended for the island’s president and his entourage, who were also aboard the flight.
No one seems to have heard of Sao Tome and neighbouring Principe – the two islands resemble a couple of ink spots just off the west coast of Africa. Tourism is virtually unknown but the islands are beautiful, with mountains shrouded in rainforest, and secluded beaches fringed with coconut groves.
The best way of getting there is a direct flight from Lisbon. It is a 12-hour journey, but as the islands are due south of the UK, they share the same time zone so jet-lag is not a factor.
Principe, which is the smaller of the two, is about half the size of the Isle of Wight. It’s a 35-minute flight from Sao Tome and I felt like a castaway on my own desert island as I stepped off the plane. There is one small hotel right on the beach – the luxury Bom Bom Island Resort is set between two long ribbons of sand in the midst of the jungle. The 20 or so bamboo villas with verandas are hidden on the hillside or else surrounded by gardens close to the shore. A wooden footbridge leads across the water to Bom Bom Island, a tiny spit of land with an open-sided bar and a restaurant built out over the sea. Ruben, the activity manager, would pass among the tables to tell us about excursions, with Chaplin, an African grey parrot, perched on his shoulder. Local fishermen stopped off with their catch at first light so we were served fresh fish every day, along with home-grown vegetables and herbs from Roca Paciencia, an old plantation nearby.
Colonial-era estates are scattered across the island, some dating back 500 years. They resemble small villages, with workers’ homes, schools and hospitals built around a courtyard, but most are derelict, with trees growing through the rafters.
However, one or two are being converted into hotels with half a dozen rooms. The few roads on Principe are mostly dirt tracks and leading through villages of wooden shacks built on stilts, and a large chunk of the island is a Unesco biosphere reserve and completely inaccessible, so the only way to explore is by boat. One afternoon we sailed down the west coast to Baia das Agulhas. There was nothing to see except mile upon mile of impenetrable jungle, but suddenly, high above us, the clouds dispersed to reveal monolithic peaks of black rock and sugarloaf mountains rising from the forest floor. I went paddle-boarding along the shore in gin-cl lear water. The silence was broken only by the occasional sound of birds shrieking or hooting in the treetops.
BIRDWATCHERS need only take a few paces beyond the resort entrance to be surrounded by golden weavers, cobalt blue kingfishers and tiny sunbirds weaving their fragile nests with what looked like silver thread. A two-hour hike through the rainforest takes you to the ruins of the former capital Ribeira Ize in the next bay. ‘Slowly, slowly,’ advised my guide David, as I scrambled over fallen tree trunks and stumbled on sprawling roots . He split open cocoa pods for me to taste the milky pulp and handed me leaves from trailing vines that purportedly cured infections. A 400-year-old church is pretty much all that remains of this ancient city. Oh my last evening I sat quietly with Ruben on the beach at Praia Grande in the inky darkness. Just a few feet away, a green turtle was flicking sand over my face as she dug a deep hole to lay her eggs. It seemed to take hours, but once she had finished we knelt beside her while rangers tagged and measured her by torchlight.
‘She is a new mother,’ they told me. ‘She will lay another 400 eggs over the coming weeks but only one hatchling will survive to adulthood.’
Eventually she started her slow trek back to the sea, stopping to rest every few minutes, and leaving a trail in the sand before disappearing into the surf. She will now return to the same spot every year.
Maybe I’ll come back some day too – even if next time I don’t get the redcarpet treatment.