São Tomé and Príncipe

Two volcanic islands in the Gulf of Guinea, off Gabon, form São Tomé and Príncipe, and the equator crosses the islet of Rolas at São Tomé’s southern tip. In the rainforest of the wet south, Pico Cão Grande, a needle of volcanic rock, rises sheer above the canopy; the north-east is drier, with grassland and baobabs. Príncipe is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Birds such as the dwarf olive ibis and the giant sunbird live nowhere else.

Portuguese navigators found the islands empty around 1470, and settlers cleared them for sugar cane tended by enslaved Africans. In 1595 an enslaved man named Amador led a revolt that briefly controlled much of the island. Cocoa arrived in the nineteenth century, grown on estates called roças by contract labourers from Angola and Mozambique, whose treatment prompted a British chocolate boycott in 1909. In May 1919 Arthur Eddington photographed an eclipse from Príncipe to test Einstein’s general relativity. Independence followed in July 1975.

Islanders speak creoles such as Forro, Angolar and Lung’ie, and the Angolares, fishing people of the south, trace their origin by tradition to survivors of a shipwreck. Tchiloli, a Portuguese play about the court of Charlemagne, is staged in masks and frock coats. Calulu, fish or chicken stewed with greens and palm oil, is the festive dish. Cocoa, much of it fine and organic, leads exports ahead of coffee, palm oil and fish, and old roças on Príncipe take in guests.