Press Book Príncipe | UK by Diana Relego

PRESS BOOK

What does the press say

ABOUT US

“But Shuttleworth is right, it is the people - colourful, eccentric who make the Islands so seductive“ Michele Jana Chan CONDÉ NAST

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Elle, Grazia, The Guardian, Travel Africa, Sunday Times, Lonely Planet Traveller, Ecapism, The Week, Tatler, Financial Times, Condé Nast Traveller, Independent...

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The Daily Telegraph October 2017

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Mail Online October 2017

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Mail Online October 2017

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Lonely Planet November 2017

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ISSUE 107

S U B S CR I BE R C O V E R Banana Beach is one of the strangely hidden charms of São Tomé and Príncipe – an island nation off West Africa

NOVEMBER 2017

GREAT ESCAPE TO EASTERN ICELAND l QUEENSLAND’S WILD COAST l FRENCH FOOD TOUR l SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE l COSY CABINS

Go further! Adventures off the radar in the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, the scenic east of Iceland and wild Australian coast in Queensland

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Lonely Planet November 2017

BEYOND COMPARE? From castaway beaches to exquisite chocolate, the remote African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe has attractions to rival the world’s best

WORDS JO KEELING

@SlowJoKeeling PHOTOGRAPHS JUSTIN FOULKES

@justinfoulkes

The needle-shaped volcanic plug of Pico Cão Grande rises high above the rainforest in the south of the island of São Tomé

November 2017

SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE

IT HAS BEACHES AS IDYLLIC AS THE SEYCHELLES’ Rainforest cloaks 90 per cent of the island of Príncipe, tumbling down from its volcanic peaks to trespass on the coves that crease its northern coast. Where forest meets sea, palms protrude at opportunistic angles, as if to announce the empty beaches with an unbridled ‘ta-dah!’. The island’s many beaches range from the blissfully remote to lively fishing hubs. On Praia de Santa Rita, snorkellers drift over a small reef, seeking out parrotfish, barracuda and Golden African snapper. To the west, on Praia de Coco, the prints in the sand left by lone wanderers are likely joined only by those of languid dogs. And aside from a pair of jostling tropicbirds, Praia Banana, which once starred in a Bacardi ad, is deserted. Turquoise water laps at basalt boulders and a coconut is tossed about by the waves. It’s all a bit much for one palm, which has crashed out from the sheer bliss of it all. Further east, at Praia dos Burros, teenagers play cards on upturned boats while young boys perform back flips into the shallow water, shrieking with laughter and emerging plastered in sand. In front of the ramshackle

The beach at Bom Bom on Príncipe, with its stilted walkway crossing the water to an island resort of the same name (p87)

November 2017

stilt homes, flying fish are splayed out on rope beds, drying in the sun. ‘Bondja ô!’ calls a fisherman, whose wide smile reveals two premolars at the corners of his mouth. He wanders over to share a few words of the local Forro language. Portuguese is the official language on the islands, but 85 per cent of people speak one of three creoles. ‘Bon-jow-ooh’ he sings, drawing out the vowels of his good morning greeting, and laughs, proving that a warm Santomean welcome is just as appealing as a day in the sun on the beach. l All beaches are public except those of Bom Bom

Island Resort (£17; bombomprincipe.com) and Praia Banana, accessed via Roça Belo Monte (belomontehotel.com).

Writer Jo Keeling at a ruined 15th-century church at the end of one of six new walking trails on Príncipe

IT HAS HIKING TRAILS AS MYSTERIOUS AS PERU’S It’s late afternoon and the saturated hues of Príncipe’s northwest coast are being painted with even more vivid brushstrokes: in this light, the bandy palm trunks appear almost amber and the wavy leaves of tropical almond trees turn an iridescent green. The slow way to soak up these shifting colours is to pick up one of six new hiking trails on the island. I set off on the two-mile path from Praia Bom Bom to Ribeira Izé and find it bouncy with decaying palm leaves and almond husks. It is littered with fallen breadfruit – soft, fibrous and swarming with ants. The trail finally emerges at a ruined church, the remains of the first settlement built by Portuguese seafarers in 1471. Exploring an increasingly mapped ocean, they had stumbled upon the pioneer’s Holy Grail – an uninhabited archipelago. They populated this benign lost world with slaves from Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique, planting with cocoa and sugarcane. Five centuries on, the rainforest is slowly metabolising this first human footprint. Three enormous trees twist out of the church’s nave; epiphytes wrap around the branches; white roots splay over the crumbling, coral-coloured walls.

Further along the coast, low clouds shroud the twin peaks of João Dias Pai and João Dias Filho (the ‘father and son’), leaving a sense that something much larger looms behind. Príncipe’s thickly forested interior is skewered with phonolithic rock towers, ranging from phallic pinnacles to flat table-tops. I join Estrela Matilde, project manager for the island’s Unesco Biosphere Reserve, in a hike to the summit of one of the largest – Pico Papagaio (680m). As the path nears the top after a four-hour scramble, it steepens rapidly; my hands grapple for red ropes knotted between trees and I haul myself up sheer rocks. Finally, we emerge with muddy knees and triumphant smiles. In the time it takes to soak up the surroundings at the summit, views of the ‘father and son’ opposite dissolve into mist. ‘Without upkeep, a trail like this can completely change within weeks,’ Estrela says. As if to demonstrate her point, the heavens open and flood the path with a Biblical downpour. l Local walking guides can be arranged

via the Biosphere Reserve – ask at your hotel for a contact.

‘Father and son’ João Dias Pai and João Dias Filho appear through the mist. Below A waymarker on the path

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Lonely Planet November 2017

SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE

IT CHAMPIONS SLOW FOOD AS WELL AS ITALY DOES

The country’s motto, ‘léve, léve’ (literally, ‘easy, easy’), is revealed in everything Santomeans do – and after a couple of days of disarming conversations and unhurried meals, it’s hard not to follow suit. Then again, in a world of abundance where fish literally leap from the sea and one can almost see the plants grow in the wet, warm climate, why rush? Chef João Carlos Silva believes that this culture of slow, simple pleasures filters into the nation’s cuisine. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, local food is characterised by time-consuming specialities. The national dish, calulu – dried smoked fish cooked in a soup with breadfruit, palm oil, mosquito herb and okra – takes six hours to cook. ‘On São Tomé, happiness transforms everything we do, even the flavour of our food,’ he says, taking inordinate care in preparing banana recheada – fruit stuffed with bacon and knotted in a neat lemongrass parcel. ‘You know how in Bhutan they measure Gross National Happiness? The same is true here. Happiness is our richest income.’ It’s lunchtime at his restaurant, Roça São João, on the east coast of São Tomé, and the lure of João Carlos’s tasting menu has filled every seat. As the chink of cutlery echoes around the vast balcony overlooking Santa Cruz bay, a dozen cooks tend to wood-fired ovens and slice tiny local limes to make red grouper ceviche. At the far end of the balcony, sated guests indulge in a spot of ‘leve, leve’, reclining in hammocks and idling thumbing through a volume from one of the many bookcases.

The tiny island capital of Santo António, founded in the 16th century and now home to 1,200 people

A tractor-based troupe of trumpeters in Santo António. Left and right Portuguese architecture along the streets

l A seven-course local tasting menu

costs £13 (facebook.com/rocasaojoao).

ITS OLD CAPITAL IS AS CHARISMATIC AS CUBA’S It’s Sunday morning in Príncipe’s main town, Santo António, and time has slowed almost to a halt. If ‘léve, léve’ is easygoing, the Príncipian equivalent, ‘móli-móli’, is virtually dormant. A boy rolls a tyre beside the dawdling Papagaio River. Stray dogs pant in the shade and passers-by greet one another with disarming smiles. Placid babies are slung low on backs in colourful wraps. For a while, the only sound is a tinny medley of Angolan kizomba music from

Slow-food chef João Carlos Silva at his restaurant Roça São João. Right Fried fish with aubergine, sweet potato, olives and orange covered in manioc flour

battery-powered speakers, before a tractor rolls by carrying a troupe of trumpet players. This triangle of unpaved, potholed streets is tiny – but what it lacks in scale, Santo António makes up for in pocket-sized grandeur. Dilapidated buildings, put up when the city was both islands’ capital, line the bay in elegant pastels: a powder-blue school, pink government house and yellow post office. Neat Portuguese tiles surround a central square of weathered murals and

November 2017

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SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE

IT PRODUCES CHOCOLATE AS FINE AS SWITZERLAND’S

The spiky green fruit of the sape-sape tree

ITS FRUITS ARE AS EXOTIC AS ANY IN THE CARIBBEAN

Matabala, jaca, cajá-manga, sape-sape, izaquente, fruta-pão, maquêqueê, micócó: Santomean fruit bears little resemblance to anything you might purchase in the exotic fruit section of your local supermarket. Breakfast buffets require an ID guide. Jaca is actually jackfruit, a bulging, dimpled fruit with deliciously sticky flesh. Sape-sape, with its prickly case and white pulpy insides, is elsewhere called soursop or mullatha, literally ‘thorny custard apple’. On the outskirts of São Tomé, women tend to roadside stalls, teasing out the fleshy innards of jackfruit and wrapping wild raspberries in porcelain-rose leaf cones. More familiar fruits pile up beside the exotic: papaya, pineapple, mango and seven varieties of banana, which local restaurants prepare in seemingly endless ways – ripe, raw, fried, boiled, dried and roasted. The history of the ‘cocoa islands’ is written in these quick-growing plants. They were first imported to provide sustenance for slaves, brought in the 16th century to tend to sugarcane, then cash crops of cocoa and coffee. None was more important than spongy fruta-pão, or breadfruit. It originated in the South Pacific and can be fried, boiled, roasted or milled into flour. It’s high in carbs, protein and vitamins, and one ball has enough nutrients to feed a family of five for a day. Today, this sweet or savoury staple is fried as fritters, used to mop up fish sauces and transformed into sticky puddings. 82

empty benches. A traveller’s palm, its paddle-shaped leaves spanning four metres, dwarfs the government’s assembly. On the fringes of the town, mirrors hang above doorways of colourful stilt homes. They’re placed there to reflect bad energy – a sign of a Santomean culture that blends Christianity with a rich seam of local ritual and superstition; where carved votives and herbal concoctions are embraced alongside gospel choirs and beach baptisms.

November 2017

In 1908, São Tomé was the largest producer of cocoa in the world, with 800 plantations. But when the Portuguese left in 1975, the estates fell into decay. Today the remaining 150 ‘roças’ are shadows of their former selves. Some have been reclaimed by the rainforest. Others have been taken over as homes, where children slide down Escherlike bannisters with unruly glee, bats roost above doorways, moss stains the walls and tiny goats frisk on crumbling steps. Claudio Corallo’s immaculate laboratory, on the edge of the capital, is poles apart. Neat rows of cardboard-packaged bars line the shelves, alongside metal scales and jars of candied ginger, orange peel and boozesoaked raisins. Beneath a glass dome, a vat of bubbling chocolate emits a faint fizzing sound. Claudio meticulously weighs out slabs of 75% cocoa, then stirs them into steaming water, pouring out a cup that’s rich and fragrant without a hint of bitterness.

An avuncular Italian, who was clearly born with a moustache, he has a warmhearted laugh and sprightly inventor’s eyes. He has been called the best chocolate-maker on the planet – and yet he doesn’t actually like chocolate. ‘I’m a farmer, not a chocolatier,’ he says. ‘My work is in plantations, not in kitchens.’ A reluctant celebrity, he is now the nation’s only grower, maker and exporter of fine chocolate, sending his prized bars to high-end department stores and discerning chefs across the world. He likens it to the work of a carpenter. ‘The secret isn’t in the type of wood or the tools. It is in the work, experience and attention of the carpenter.’ l Claudio Corallo’s lab is open for tours and

tastings (£3.50; claudiocorallo.com). Omali Lodge’s eight-hour ‘East Coast Experience’ guided tour includes visits to cocoa plantations (£85pp incl lunch; omalilodge.com).

The old sanzalas (living quarters) at Roça Água-Izé plantation

ITS WILDLIFE IS AS UNIQUE AS THE GALÁPAGOS’ After a few days, island wildlife encounters become casual, almost nonchalant. African grey parrots squabble in tree tops, snakes curl from branches, fruit bats fly overhead, languidly returning to roost, weaver birds knit their nests beside the road and tiny kingfishers with improbably long beaks teeter on roots. The archipelago was never attached to mainland Africa, so it’s no wonder it has more than its fair share of endemic species – given its size, it’s comparable with the Galápagos and Hawaii. Some are an enduring mystery – science has no idea how the eight species of frog, with their intolerance of seawater and fast metabolisms, came to be here. The Gulf of Guinea, in which the islands sit, also has a rich marine biodiversity. Humpback whales cavort off the coast and flying fish skim the waves. The deep waters harbour giants: blue marlin, weighing in at over 750kg, and 3m metallic blue Atlantic sailfish, with magnificent navy ‘sails’ running down their

spines. Four species of marine turtle nest on the islands – leatherback, green, hawksbill and olive ridley. Loggerheads have been seen hanging around, but are yet to come in to land. It’s nesting season on São Tomé and I take a night-time walk along Praia Grande to get closer. It proves to be an astounding yet nightmarish experience. Thousands of land crabs scuttle in and out of the red light of head torches. Some, the size of frisbees, lean back and brandish their enormous right-claws on our approach. At the end of a tractor-tread-like trail, a green turtle lies exhausted. In the past hour, she has hauled herself to the high tide line, dug a scrape and laid 120 eggs. ‘They start hard like ping pong balls, then become soft,’ conservationist Vanessa Schmett whispers, measuring the turtle’s shell, then attaching a tag below her flipper. The turtle ignores her, exhales deeply, and begins to fling sand on her clutch. ‘They have a hard start to life, but the hatchlings are resilient,’ she says, leaning in to disentangle a flipper caught up in a palm leaf. Eventually, the turtle heaves herself back into the sea, quite oblivious to the smudgy line of the Milky Way emerging above. l Whales are active from July to October; turtles

nest from November and hatch in December. There is good birdwatching all year round.

Cocoa beans ready for export. Left Processing the beans

Claudio Corallo’s high-quality chocolate

Cups of Claudio’s cocoa. Left A traveller’s palm outside Roça Água-Izé

Known locally as ‘cobra jita’, this forest-dwelling snake is a subspecies of house snake found only on São Tomé. Inset The Príncipe kingfisher is also endemic to that island

November 2017

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Lonely Planet November 2017

SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE

Scenes from the road that runs along the east coast of São Tomé

IT HAS A SKYSCRAPER AS BOLD AS DUBAI’S Driving down São Tomé’s remote east coast leads you past a string of fishing villages and black sand beaches. Women spread sheets out to dry on sun-bleached driftwood. Teenagers show off their surfing skills on battered foam boards, while school kids wave and shout ‘ola!’ and ‘amiga’ at passing pick-ups. Two young women walk down the centre of the road, carrying machetes and balancing cloth bags of fruit on their heads; one grins and asks in English: ‘You are appreciating the nature of São Tomé? Welcome.’ With such warm greetings and easy conversations, it’s impossible not to stop along the way, but light is fading and the goal is in sight – I’m keen to get a little

Pico Cão Grande is an impressive and everpresent reminder of the island’s volcanic origins

When I reach the perfect vantage point on a steep corner of the road, the haze unexpectedly clears and a golden light drenches the Pico, turning the surrounding sea of foliage a dazzling green. A hush descends; other than the odd chirrup of a weaver bird, the only sound is the soft tread of flip-flops, as a man ambles home along the road. ‘Tudo bem?’ he asks – am I well? ‘Léve, léve,’ I reply and he grins.

Jo Keeling is editor and founder of Ernest Journal and co-author of The Odditorium. She is also a freelance writer, editor and festival curator with a penchant for slow travel, long rambles and sea swimming.

November 2017

SÃO TOMÉ

MAKE IT HAPPEN

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE TAP Portugal flies from London to São Tomé via Lisbon. The flight stops briefly at Accra, Ghana (from £780; flytap.com).

GETTING AROUND

Car hire (4WD) on São Tomé costs around £35–£40 per day. When you consider potholes, power cuts and potential language barriers, hiring a car with a driver is often a better option and costs around £18 per day. You can arrange car hire, drivers and guides through your hotel. For car hire with or without a driver, try Hanna & Silva Lda Rent a Car (facebook.com/hannaesilvarentacar; 00 239 222 6282). Most locals get around in shared yellow taxis. A twin-propeller plane makes the 40-minute hop between São Tomé and Principe five times a week (from £160; stpairways.st). If heading to Príncipe, try to get a seat on the left-hand side to see this tiny forested island emerge out of the mist like the Lost World. Delays are not uncommon, so plan an extra day between your departure from Príncipe and your return flight home.

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Africa guide (£22.99) features a chapter on São Tomé and Príncipe; or download the section as a PDF (£2.99) at shop.lonelyplanet. com. As Roças de São Tomé e Príncipe is a beautiful coffee table book exploring the islands’ crumbling plantation buildings; (£28; asrocasdesao tome.com).

November 2017

Behind the scenes

At Roça Água-Izé, two ramshackle hospitals have been taken over as homes. As we pulled up, children ran out, led us up the ornate staircase, braided my hair and slid down the banisters. Their joy was infectious and soon we were all giggling. Jo Keeling

spirits and bras de grouper – a traditional Portuguese dish usually made with cod and potato, here with grouper and grated manioc. Rooms are simple and refined, with exposed brickwork, spacious bathrooms and a balcony or courtyard overlooking the pool (rooms from £135, mains from £8; omalilodge.com).

PRÍNCIPE

MAP KEY Claudio Corallo’s laboratory Pico Cão Grande Pico Papagaio Praia Banana Praia Grande (São Tomé) Roça São João Santo António

Named after a magical tree, Mucumbli has six wooden chalets overlooking the ocean. The dark-sand beach is a 10-minute walk away, or you can join an organised bike tour of the island. The Italian owners serve hearty pasta dishes (rooms from £60; mucumbli. wordpress.com).

PLACES TO EAT

An 11-day trip to São Tomé and Príncipe costs from £2,745pp, on a half-board basis, with Rainbow Tours (rainbowtours.co.uk; 020 3733 6778). The tour includes a three-night stay at Omali Lodge on São Tomé, to explore the island in a 4WD and drop in on old coffee and cocoa plantations. You can also go in search of rare birds, such as the dwarf olive ibis and São Tomé grosbeak. The rest of your time is spent on Príncipe, where you can kayak through mangrove forests, watch whales off the coast and hike through rainforest to swim in hidden coves. The price includes return flights to São Tomé with TAP Portugal via Lisbon.

WHERE TO STAY Bom Bom Island Resort Mucumbli Omali Lodge Pensão Residencial Palhota XXXXXXXXXXXX

GETTING THERE & AWAY

PLACE TO STAY Omali Lodge is a sight for sore eyes after a long flight, with its natural pool and waterfall surrounded by impossibly tall palms and beaming bartenders. In the hotel restaurant expect a Santomean spin on Portuguese dishes with 95 per cent local ingredients: dorado fish burger with a squid ink bun, local sugar cane

TOUR OPERATORS

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ESSENTIALS

closer to the volcanic skyscraper that towers over the island. It is almost always shrouded in mist. Pico Cão Grande (Portuguese for ‘great dog peak’) is a 668m phonolithic rock tower, pushing rudely out of the rainforest in São Tomé’s southern hinterland.This is the island’s ultimate high-rise: the most splendid of the many volcanic plugs that skewer the archipelago, formed when magma solidified inside the vent of a volcano. It appears unexpectedly from many points of Sao Tome: rising monumentally at the end of a straight road, framed within the verdant monotony of a palm oil plantation, or emerging from the dense canopy like something out of Middle Earth.

PLACE TO STAY At Bom Bom Island Resort you can have your pick of 19 red stilt bungalows, perched on the beach or poised above tree roots. The rooms are bright and comfortable, rather than luxurious, complete with four-poster beds hung with muslin, soft leather sofas and woven palm leaf lamp shades. There are two long beaches – Praia Santa Rita on the east side is better for snorkelling. The most memorable part of your stay will be your twice-daily walk to the restaurant across a Swiss Family Robinson-style stilt walkway (left). At night, the journey is even more magical as you’re drawn towards the restaurant’s candlelit tables while the tide washes beneath you (rooms from £315; bombomprincipe.com). Pensao Residencial Palhota is a modest, family-run guesthouse in the centre of Santo António with 10

Sit on the veranda overlooking the rainforest at Casa Museu Almada Negreiros. For £10, you can try a tasting menu of local dishes such as fried swordfish with okra and aubergine, and rice with ‘mosquito herb’ (facebook.com/ casamuseualmada negreiros). Papa Figo is a popular terrace snack bar in the capital dishing up an incredible choice of fish (mains from £3; Avenida Kwame Nkrumah).

simple rooms, a communal lounge and the bamboo Falkiri restaurant (rooms from £65; pensaopalhota@ cstome.net; 00 239 225 1060).

PLACES TO EAT

The owners of Bom Bom have also renovated Roça Sundy, an old plantation house in the north of the island. Dine in a bamboo restaurant on Praia Sundy, tucking into locally sourced produce, or have a barefoot BBQ by the pool. A room at the Roça is £85 (hotelrocasundy.com).

Rosa Pão in Santo António is midway between a restaurant and host Rosita’s front room. Try traditional dishes such as molho no fogo (fish and vegetable stew), peixe limão (lemon fish), pintado de coco (fish cooked in coconut milk) and obobo – a bean and onion dish (mains from £3).

November 2017

The Times online July 2017

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/escape-to-the-island-of-principe-g70qm0ll0

The Mail online January 2017

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-4119962/Desert-island-castaway-Discovering-two-beguiling-isolated-African-gems.html

National Geographic Traveller December 2016

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http://www.natgeotraveller.co.uk/destinations/africa/sao-tome-and-principe/sao-tome-principe-chocolate-islands/

The Guardian January 2014

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Travel Africa Spring 2015

Príncipe

ISLAND SURPRISES Even the most inquisitive traveller will know little about the tiny island of Príncipe, tucked in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Gabon. Which is why wildlife enthusiast Mike Unwin was so determined to visit.

ALL PICTURES UNLESS STATED BY MIKE UNWIN

RUI CAMILO / BOM BOM RESORT

MAIN IMAGE: Príncipe greets visitors arriving by air with an unforgettable Lost World panorama of jungle-covered volcanoes. RIGHT: Príncipe green snake (left); a villager carries firewood back to her home in Praia Abade (right) White-tailed tropicbird (bottom)

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stumble through the darkness, doing my best to keep up as torch beams dance and ricochet off the tree trunks ahead. But the going is tricky: the steep, crumbling slope is an obstacle course of roots and crab burrows. And nightfall has now brought out those crabs in force: an army of outsized crustaceans scuttling across our path. From all around comes the click and rattle of legs and pincers, like a horde of unseen typists. Then suddenly we are stepping down from the forest onto the soft sand and staring out at the dark Atlantic. Each breaker glints under the huge equatorial moon. This is Praia Grande, one of Príncipe’s precious turtle beaches, and we’re here to see the great reptiles come ashore. Unfortunately our timing is out. Although broad caterpillar tracks in the sand remain from last night’s landings, the conservation volunteer who awaits us explains that tonight’s combination of full moon and low tide leaves the turtles feeling too exposed to come ashore yet. They’re waiting somewhere beyond the surf for conditions to change, which may come too late for us. We tramp along the beach to the far end where I flop down in the sand, stare up at the stars and, ever hopeful, wait. This is the last night of my week’s stay on Príncipe, the smaller of the two equatorial islands tucked into the Gulf of Guinea that make up the nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. The islands were uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in 1470, founding a colony based on sugar, cacao then coffee, and on the labour of slaves shipped over from Cape Verde and Angola. It was the slaves’ descendants who in 1975 inherited the islands from the Portuguese and – on Príncipe, at least – little seems to have changed since. Although only 250km from the mainland, this island could be on another planet. It was this untouched appeal that led South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth – known by locals as ‘the man on the moon’ for his space tourism exploits – to establish Bom Bom resort on the Travel Africa | Spring 2015

Spring 2015 | Travel Africa

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PRÍNCIPE TRUST

Príncipe

island’s northern tip. This idyllic retreat was my base for a week. My beachfront chalet peeped out onto white sand and turquoise reef, with fabulous snorkelling just a dozen paces from my verandah. Wooden paths wound through lush grounds and along a raised boardwalk to an offshore islet where, in a stroke of design genius, the restaurant had been built. I thus enjoyed my meals – fish and fruit fresh from the island – looking back across the resort’s pristine beaches and wild forest backdrop to the looming volcanoes beyond. So far, so Caribbean, you might think. But, unlike any Caribbean resort, there was simply nothing else here. No neighbouring resorts around the next headland; no jet skis roaring around the bay; no golf course or wellness spa: just beaches, jungle and a sprinkling of tiny fishing villages squeezed between the two. The best way to appreciate this glorious isolation is on foot, and so I stepped out from the resort with local guide Cao Marx. We headed east around the coast, from one bay to the next. Each forested headland had us scrambling sweatily up the steep slopes, negotiating vines and roots, until we descended to the next crescent of soft sand and lapping surf. The greenery on these headlands seemed improbably fertile, as though new tendrils would snake around my legs if I lingered for a moment. Cao pointed out indigenous trees – such as the towering oka, whose monumental buttress roots reared across the forest floor. He also revealed the various cultivated plants that have spilled out of the plantations into the forest: breadfruit, cacao, pepper and even the odd wild coffee bush. Plucking a bunch of leaves from one shrub, Cao demonstrated – with a splash from his water bottle – how to crush the foliage into a rich, creamy soap. He explained how such natural products sustained locals during the hard times that befell the islands in the early years of independence. Meanwhile a trickle of birdsong kept us scanning the branches. Príncipe may not be a Big Five destination but

The forest spilled over the fallen monuments of colonialism, as though impatient to reclaim the land 122

Spring 2015 | Travel Africa

TOP LEFT: A green turtle hatchling heads for the surf TOP CENTRE: Fresh tracks on Praia Grande reveal where a green turtle came ashore during the night to lay her eggs TOP RIGHT: Praia Banana is one of many pristine beaches on Príncipe OPPOSITE: Blue tailed kingfisher; children clamber over ancient plantation machinery in Roca Sundy

for the naturalist it is a treasure trove of island endemism – described by some as the ‘Galapagos of Africa’. We spied Príncipe golden weavers building their hanging nests, Príncipe glossy starlings calling from the upper branches and Príncipe sunbirds fluttering through the under-storey – just a few of the 26 bird species found nowhere else on earth. A Príncipe green snake that slipped away in a fluid gleam of emerald, forked tongue flickering, was another precious endemic. Our hike ended on Praia Banana, the most pictureperfect crescent of beach any brochure could envisage. As we washed off the exertion of the walk with a swim in the bay, Cao surfaced with an octopus wrapped decorously around one wrist. The indignant vermillion cephalopod shot out a cloud of black ink, bunched its tentacles and jetted off backwards into the depths. To explore further afield we took to the island’s modest network of bumpy red dirt roads. At the picture-perfect village of Praia Abade I met fishermen mending nets, while salted flying fish dried on their racks. And at the Mirador Nova Estrella, I peered across to the volcanic outcrop of Jockey’s Cap, while dazzling white tropicbirds circled the turquoise waters below. But it was among the roças (pronounced ‘hossas’, with a guttural ‘h’) that I found the island’s bizarre cultural heart. These plantation settlements once formed ordered, self-contained little communities. Since the Portuguese left, however, most have fallen into disrepair, crumbling away as the jungle has crept back. Their dilapidated walls now house descendants of the worker communities that once lived outside them. In Roça Sundy I wandered the central terreiro (courtyard), while ragged youngsters scattered chickens and pigs as they hurtled after a football. Portuguese anthropologist Rita Alves led me around, pointing out the old drying kilns for the cacao pods, the stables, the hospital

and the overgrown railway track that once transported produce down to the coast for export. From the tiled verandah of the grand house I gazed out across the Gulf of Guinea and reflected that this ramshackle place perfectly encapsulated the island’s history: the ruined grandeur of the Portuguese past buttressed with the makedo of its African present. The forest spilled over the fallen monuments of colonialism, as though impatient to reclaim the land. Barefoot children clambered over an ancient steam engine, now a makeshift jungle gym. African grey parrots winged shrieking into the forest. HBD, Shuttleworth’s company, is working to help preserve Príncipe’s unique natural and cultural heritage, and Rita is one of a skilled team employed to this end. At nearby Roça Patienza I also met stonemason Manu Gomes, who is reviving traditional construction techniques to restore the historic buildings, and passing his skills to local builders. And in the Capital San Antonio I met environmental scientist Estrela Matilde, who is introducing local recycling projects, teaching schoolchildren about the island’s natural resources and ensuring that Bom Bom itself is sustainable. It is thanks partly to such initiatives that Príncipe received UNESCO biosphere status, the first of its kind in Africa. While Estrela and I chatted by candlelight at Rosita’s Place, a popular hangout in the tiny capital of Santo Antonio (reputedly the world’s smallest), friends appeared with guitars and whipped up an impromptu singsong, of which the only word I understood was ‘Biosphera’. It was a reminder that we had a date with some turtles. And thus, a few hours later, I was tramping back along Praia Grande, with ‘Biosphera’ still jangling through my head, as we turned for home. It seemed we’d missed the turtles. But no matter: I was lost in the magic of the moment. So lost, in fact, that I didn’t immediately register my companions pointing excitedly at the sand. A clutch of green eggs had hatched while we’d been staring at the waves. Had we missed them again? Not quite. Cao emerged grinning into the torchlight, holding up a single flipper-flailing straggler between thumb and forefinger. We admired this exquisite little creature for a minute then returned it to the sand. It scrambled down the runway of our torch beams and was swallowed by the surf.

SAFARI PLANNER n Getting there Mike Unwin travelled

with Rainbow Tours (rainbowtours. co.uk), who offer a nine-night holiday to São Tomé and Príncipe from £2150 per person including return flights from London to São Tomé with TAP Air Portugal. The holiday includes six nights at Bom Bom in a pool-facing Santo Antonio room with all meals and three nights at Omali Lodge in São Tomé. Internal road PRÍNCIPE transfers and light aircraft flights are also included. n Geography An island of just 136 sq km, lying in the Gulf of Guinea north of its bigger sister São Tomé. It is home to approximately 5000 people. The highest point is Pico de Príncipe (948m). n Climate The dry season is from June to September and the wet season from October to May. The tropical climate ensures an average yearly temperature of about 27 degrees C. n Language The official language is Portuguese. n Visa A visa is required for most visitors and should be obtained before travelling. n Health Visitors are required to have been vaccinated against yellow fever, and should take protection against malaria. n More info www.saotome.st ; http://saotomeprincipe.st ; www. bombomprincipe.com

THINGS TO DO n Birdwatching São Tomé and Príncipe are home to exceptional birdlife. Some 135 species have been identified, including 26 endemics. Birding is good year-round, although access to the forests is more difficult in the rainy season. June-August and December-January are drier and therefore easier. n Turtle watching Leatherback, Hawksbill, Loggerhead and Green turtles nest on the beaches between November and March. n Whale watching Between July and September humpback whales visit the waters around both islands as they move from their summer feeding grounds to more tropical mating and calving areas.

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The Sunday Times November 2014

Africa’s secret garden of Eden On a little jungle-covered island you’ve never heard of lies a new resort like no other Jeremy Lazell Published: 23 November 2014

Hands up if you know anything about Sao Tomé and Principe? Gold star if you said “second-smallest country in Africa”; two gold stars if you said “former Portuguese colony, 130 miles off the coast of Equatorial Guinea”. But don’t put down that hand if you actually plan to visit: you are going to need to build up those muscles for all the waving. Because, blimey, the locals are friendly: 10 minutes after landing, I give up lowering my wrist, and just wave from the car like a ginger, jet-lagged Queen. I am here to check out Bom Bom Island Resort, the only beach resort on Principe, and a decent contender for the most remote luxury hotel on the planet. If you’re wondering how far Principe is from Sierra Leone, the answer is about 1,500 miles of open sea. In common with 49 other countries in Africa, the island is healthy, safe and open for business.

With its lush bays Bom Bom Island Resort is worth the epic four-flight journey (Artur Cabral)

Bom Bom was recently acquired by the South African gazillionaire Mark Shuttleworth, who has poured nearly £1m into the hotel, and has plans to turn it into the sort of high-end, low-impact eco-lodge where Sting might do yoga on the beach after a macrobiotic breakfast.

I arrive at the end of a storm, the red-earth track down to Bom Bom slick and steamy with the rich, warm scent of rain. Giant leaves drip, monkeys huddle beneath twisted trunks and everywhere the forest bubbles and trills with the promise of weird, unknowable birds. “Pouca sorte,” says the driver, Senhor Joao, blinking mournfully towards the dripping sky. You are unlucky. He couldn’t be more wrong. My room at Bom Bom is a Crusoe-style, stilted beach villa with requisite tropical-paradise mosquito nets above the bed and a half-mile crescent of unblemished sand beyond the veranda. It’s no Aman Resort — there is no monsoon shower, no in-room spa treatments and, whisper it in boutique-hotel circles, not even a Nespresso machine — but it is simple, elegant and, with a setting like this, you’d have to be a greedy fool to want more. I loll about in the surf, I watch clouds darken against the crimson sky, I sit on the veranda and find my inner bliss — or post selfies on Facebook, as it is also sometimes known.

Palm-shaded beaches (Artur Cabral)

In fact, it’s quite hard to stop yourself going a bit snapsilly at Bom Bom. While the villas, beaches and pool are all on Principe itself, the restaurant and bar are just across a boardwalk on tiny Bom Bom Island: simply getting to breakfast involves a two-minute walk over a mosaic of turquoise shallows just begging to host a Vogue swimwear shoot. Pipefish dart beneath the boards, all pouting to be papped; staff cross to and fro, bundles perched atop their heads. The hotel’s strapline is “Disconnect to Reconnect”, but good luck putting your iPhone away.

So far, so get me there at once, but is it worth the four flights via Lisbon and Sao Tomé it’ll take you to do so? Well, if we’re just talking about the

The Sunday Times November 2014

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resort, it’s a tough one. It’s a spectacular setting, with only a smattering of guests. But then you can get to Barbados in literally half the time, with twice the resort facilities once you’re there. But Bom Bom isn’t just a resort: it’s a gateway to the most extraordinary, affecting island I’ve ever visited. For starters, there’s the look of the place: people have lived here since the Portuguese shipped them in from Africa’s mainland to work the 16th-centurysugar plantations, yet their impact on the island’s ecology is staggeringly minimal. Forest covers nearly everything, tumbling from mountain to sea in waves of parrot-filled green. The island is only 10 milesby four, and still “the South” is talked about as some sort of mythical Back of Beyond. Then there are the people. On my second day at Bom Bom, I am driven to Praia Abade, a fishing village at the end of a bone-jarring track on the island’s east coast. The driver stops, the guide gets out, and before you can say “Are we just here to stare at the locals?”, we are surrounded by kids, a pair of pudgy toddler arms clamped round my leg squeezing the cynicism from my marrow. We sit on the beach with women mending nets; we watch the kids turn cartwheels. Men drag in boats, as muscled as any gym-junkie back home. And then we leave. No “give me sweets”, no “one school pen”, just grins. I don’t care how easy it is to get to Barbados, you won’t find this near Sandy Lane. In truth, the day-trip menu at Bom Bom is not overwhelming. You can visit Paciencia cocoa plantation — part of Shuttleworth’s mission to develop a sustainable economy — and trek through a tangle of lianas and banana trees to a remote, one-mile beach visited only by the odd nesting leatherback. You can picnic by boat, look out for whales, paddleboard and snorkel, and you can dine at Rosita’s, a one-room shack serving spicy home-cooked treats on days when Rosita feels so inclined. Or you can pray for rain: roads flood, day trips die, you finally get to soak up your surroundings. On my last day, that’s exactly what happens. One minute I am readying myself for Sunday church, the next I am sprinting inside, the sky collapsing around my head like slates in a gale. I watch, exhilarated, from my veranda, lightning ripping across the bay, coconuts thudding from the trees, crabs scuttling for cover across the sand. Eventually, it eases and, with church cancelled, I head off on my own through the forest to the top of Bom Bom Island. It is a staggeringly lonely place, the cries Wide-smiling locals make you feel at home from castaways past still whispering in the trees. Suddenly, I am spooked. A fruit bat swoops too close, something scuttles in the undergrowth, I scamper for home. I don’t know what Bom Bom will look like once Shuttleworth’s finished splashing his cash, but I’m guessing we’ll still be in for a thrill.

Jeremy Lazell was a guest of Bom Bom Island Resort (bombomprincipe.com) and TAP Airlines (flytap.com). Scott Dunn has five nights at Bom Bom and one night at Omali Lodge on Sao Tomé, both half-board, from £1,885pp. The price includes flights from Heathrow with TAP Airlines via Lisbon, Accra and Sao Tomé (020 3627 5741, scottdunn.com).

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The Independent May 2014

Sao tome and Principe: Prepare for turtle immersion

This West African island nation might be tiny, but it has acres of natural and cultural appeal, as Mike Unwin discovers during his visit to a unique retreat Mike Unwin, Saturday 10 May 2014

Goooooooaal! It’s another stunning strike from Ronaldo, arrowed into the top corner past the keeper’s despairing dive. Or “Ronaldo” is, at least, what it says on the back of the shirt. But I have my suspicions: I can’t see those signature golden boots – or, in fact, any footwear at all. Besides, this sandy strip of rubble and weeds is hardly the Bernabéu Stadium. I’m standing in the terreiro – the central courtyard – of Roça Sundy, an abandoned 19th-century colonial plantation on the West African island of Príncipe. The teenage goalscorer is one of some 30 or so youngsters scattering chickens and dodging mango trees as they hurtle barefoot after the ball. A woman walks across the pitch, baby on back and firewood on head, while a single pig, in a clearly offside position, roots around near the opposition goalmouth. These roças (pronounced “hossas”, with a guttural “h”) once formed selfcontained little communities that were at the very heart of the former colony of São Tomé and Príncipe. Since 1975, however, when the Portuguese pulled out, many have fallen into disrepair, crumbling away as the jungle has crept back. Their dilapidated walls now house descendants of the worker communities that once lived outside them. Portuguese anthropologist Rita Alves leads me from room to room, accompanied by what is clearly her usual retinue of local children. She points out the old drying kilns for the cacao pods, the stables, the hospital and the overgrown railway track – a feature of every roça – built to transport produce down to the coast for export. Santo Antonio The grand house is still carefully preserved, its tables polished and walls

hung with framed maps, part of a Unesco heritage project that embraces the whole island. As we look out from its verandas across the Gulf of Guinea, Rita explains how the first Portuguese settlers in the 1500s found the islands uninhabited. They proceeded to people them – at first, with slaves from the African mainland, destined for brutal transit across the Atlantic, and then, as the colony grew rich on sugar, coffee and cacao, with labour imported from Angola and Cape Verde. It was the descendants of these immigrant labourers who, in 1975, inherited the islands and proclaimed them an independent state – the second smallest in Africa, after the Seychelles. Today, Roça Sundy seems to encapsulate this extraordinary history, the ruined grandeur of the islands’ Portuguese past, buttressed with the tin-roofed lean-tos of their African present. Greenery from the surrounding forest spills over the fallen monuments of colonialism, as though impatient to reclaim the land. Straying from one cobbled pathway, I find children clambering over an ancient steam engine – now a museum-piece jungle gym. African grey parrots wing rapidly overhead and disappear into the forest, shrieking as they go. The state of São Tomé and Príncipe lies in the Gulf of Guinea, some 300km off the coast of Gabon. Príncipe is the smaller and much the less populous of its two main islands, with around just 5 per cent of the total 188,000 population. It lies 200km north of São Tomé, where I’d flown in from Lisbon. Arrival proved suitably dramatic: a 30-minute flight on a 15-seater, culminating in a Jurassic Park-style first glimpse of jungle-clad volcanoes below, then a final descent that took us directly over Bom Bom Island Resort, my home for the week. From the air, the resort’s beaches, breakers, thatched chalets and wooden boardwalk snaking out to a tiny islet looked more than inviting. Bom Bom belongs to venture capital firm HBD, the brainchild of billionaire South African entrepreneur, Mark Shuttleworth. Known to locals as the “man on the moon” for his space

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tourism exploits (he was the first African in space), Shuttleworth’s aim has been more than simply to create an upmarket tropical retreat. HBD has a philanthropic mission to preserve Príncipe’s unique heritage, both natural and cultural, and has sponsored numerous projects to these ends. Rita is an HBD employee. Over the next week I meet several others. They include stonemason Manu Gomes, who is reviving traditional construction techniques to restore the roças and is passing his skills to local builders; and ecologist Estrela Matilde, who is educating schoolchildren about the island’s natural resources and ensuring that HBD’s own projects are sustainable. While Estrela and I chat by candlelight at Rosita’s Place, a popular hangout in the tiny capital of Santo Antonio (which claims to be the world’s smallest), friends appear with guitars and whip up an impromptu singsong. I’m told it’s a traditional Príncipe ballad but the only word I can understand is “biosphera”. Bom Bom, meanwhile, turns out to be every bit as gorgeous at ground level as my tantalising aerial preview suggested – with the added satisfaction of knowing that it is the only such resort on the entire island. Think Caribbean idyll, but without the health spa, golf course or jet skis; just beach, jungle and the odd tiny fishing village. The Príncipe green snake Some come to Bom Bom for its celebrated big game fishing – now all catch-and-release. I opt for rather gentler activities, donning flippers and snorkel to explore the teeming reef, or strolling the grounds with binoculars to tick off some of the island’s endemic birds – Príncipe golden weavers fashioning their hanging nests; the cobalt flash of a Príncipe kingfisher. At meal times, I tramp the boardwalk across to the island restaurant, where I dine on the likes of grilled silverfish and cajamanga mousse, helping myself to salads from an enormous giant clam shell while looking across to the resort’s looming volcanic backdrop. Short, bumpy vehicle excursions take me along red dirt roads to visit other attractions. At the impossibly

picturesque fishing village of Praia do Abade I meet fishermen perched on their dugout piroques mending nets, while salted flying fish dry on their racks. At the Mirador Nova Estrela, I peer from steep cliffs to the volcanic outcrop of Jockey’s Cap, encircled by dazzling white tropicbirds. And at Praia Grande, a two-kilo-metre sweep of sand, I marvel at the amphibious landing craft tracks of the huge sea turtles that hauled out from the waves the night before to lay their eggs by moonlight. These turtles are big news. Bastien Loloum, an ecotourism consultant for marine conservation charity Marapa, tells me that these beaches are among West Africa’s most important for breeding sea turtles. Whale watching is also excellent here, he explains, with humpbacks visiting inshore waters from May to October. And the island’s proliferation of endemics – not only the birds, of which there are some 26 unique species, but everything from tree frogs to begonias – makes these islands “the Galapagos of Africa”. The best way to appreciate all this natural abundance is, of course, to ditch the vehicle and head out on foot – which is exactly what I do with my guide Carlos (“Cau”) Marx. On my final morning, we leave Bom Bom after breakfast and head east around the coast, scrambling over the headlands from beach to beach. The loose soil of the forest slopes is undermined by the diggings of the enormous land crabs that venture out after dark, the vegetation a curious blend of the genuinely wild and the once cultivated gone wild. Thus, among the buttress roots and lianas of what feels like virgin rainforest, Cau points out the swollen pods of cacao trees, the tendrils of pepper plants and the over-ripe stench of fallen jackfruit, over which ants and butterflies swarm. Carlos was born on Príncipe and knows these forests intimately. He demonstrates – with a splash from his water bottle – how to crush the leaves of one shrub into a frothy soap, and quenches our hunger pangs with various wild fruits. His eagle eyes also spy the powder-blue eggs of a maroon pigeon in their untidy cradle of twigs and the slender emerald coils of a São Tomé green snake slipping away into the vines. Both endemics, of course.

Our hike ends on Praia Banana, the most picture-perfect crescent of beach any brochure could envisage, where we wash off the sweat of the walk with a swim in the bay. Cau surfaces with an octopus wrapped decorously around one wrist. The indignant vermillion cephalopod shoots out a cloud of black ink, bunches its tentacles and jets off backwards into the depths. My final night sees me back on Praia Grande in search of those turtles. But our timing is out. The full moon and low tide are both disincentives to any egg-bound females planning to come ashore. We take a walk anyway, tramping the length of the beach and slumping down to watch an enormous moon rising through the coconut palms. I am still lost in the magic of the moment as we turn for home. So lost, in fact, that I don’t immediately register my companions pointing excitedly at the sand. A fine stippling reveals where a clutch of green turtle eggs has hatched moments earlier. Infuriatingly, it seems we’ve just missed the exodus of hatchlings. But then Cau emerges into the torchlight, holding up a single flipper-flailing straggler between thumb and forefinger. We admire this exquisite little creature for a minute then return it to the sand. It scrambles down the runway of our torch beams and is swallowed by the surf. Getting there Mike Unwin travelled to Bom Bom in Príncipe and Omali Lodge in São Tomé with Rainbow Tours (020 7666 1250; rainbowtours.co.uk), which offers a nine-day holiday to São Tomé and Príncipe from £1,970pp. The price includes return flights from London via Lisbon to São Tomé with TAP Portugal, five nights’ full board at Bom Bom in a pool-facing room and two nights’ half board at Omali Lodge in São Tomé in a classic room, as well as transfers and internal flights.

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Ecapism 2014

Experiences

Photographs by Hemis / Alamy, Quentin Bacon, Sioen Gerard/Alamy, Matthew Hasteley

WILDERNESS IS FAMOUS FOR ITS WHITE SANDY BEACHES, CRASHY WAVES AND WHALES

Remote

s y a w a e d i H

WESTERN CAPE, S AFRICA On the Garden Route between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in South Africa, the seaside town of Wilderness lies almost exactly halfway between those two cities. It’s famous for its long white sandy beaches and crashy waves, making it an ideal place to grab a board and catch a crest. Whales (the big blue ones, not the killer variety) also think it’s a pretty good place to hang out, so keep your eyes peeled for them throughout the autumn months. wildernesstourism.co.za

CHILLOUT

Bom Bom Island, Principe You might not know where Principe is (it’s off the coast of West Africa, FYI), but you’re unlikely to care when you see its secluded beaches and lush rainforest. You could make the most of the natural environment with hiking, bird-watching, and canoeing, or just relax for a few days on Bom Bom Island’s verandas before falling asleep to the sound of the waves. RATES: Double rooms start from £108pppn.

bombomprincipe.com HOW TO GET THERE: Return flights to São Tomé start from around £400 with TAP. tap.com

Poovar Island Resort, Kerala

WILDERNESS

Water is the ultimate relaxer, and you’ll find plenty of it at Kerala’s Poovar Island Resort. Whether you choose to take a backwater cruise, sleep in a floating cottage or spend the day on a beach with views of the Arabian Sea, there’s plenty of it to go around, making you realise why the rest of India calls Kerala ‘God’s Own Country’.

TONGSAI BAY KOH SAMUI, THAILAND Tucked away on Koh Samui’s east coast is the achingly beautiful Tongsai Bay. It might lack the flawless sand on the other side of the island (this is pebble territory here), but makes up for it with the eponymous resort cut into a palm tree-bedecked hillside that curves around the bay. No motorised boats are allowed here, which means you’ll enjoy almost total silence as you stare out over the bay from the infinity pool. It’s a nice life. tongsaibay.co.th

RATES: Doubles start from £44pn.

poovarislandresorts.com HOW TO GET THERE: Return flights from London to Trivandrum start from £476pp with Air India.

airindia.com

Basecamp Spitsbergen, Norway

Photograph by ###

Four locations Kerala, on the southbuilt from recycled west coast, stacks materials and up well in India’s driftwood, some statistics: it has of which are only the highest literary rate, the highest accessible by dog life expectancy and sled and snowmobile is the least corrupt in the winter, provide state in the country. the chance to live like a proper old-school trapper (or just somebody who hunts all their own food). And at the Nordenskiöld Lodge, there’s neither running water nor electricity… RATES: Magnetic North Travel offers a four-night break to Nordenskiöld Lodge, plus one night either side at the Trapper’s Hotel in Longyearbyen, from £2,383pp including return flights. magneticnorthtravel.com

The Week July 2013

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Financial Times October 2013

Príncipe: a haven on earth

Mark Shuttleworth, the tech entrepreneur and space tourist, has ambitious plans to develop resorts on his small African island retreat By Richard Whistler

In the heat of the tropical night, after a dinner of excellent fish and too much wine, I decided to commune with the local heavens. A few feet from my beach hut, the surf was sighing softly while the rainforest brooded. Not a soul was in sight. Selecting a spot on the arc of pristine sand between sea and jungle, I lay down, arms outstretched, and contemplated the star-spangled sky.

covers virtually everything, running right down to the shore, a jumble of palms, oka, and many other species. But then you look south and see sheer volcanic peaks, their summits wreathed in cloud: this is more Lost World, like a scene from South America. Then, beyond the airstrip, the asphalt gives way to dirt tracks of deep red soil where simple wooden houses built on stilts dot the way. This is rural Africa, where women carry water on their heads and children stare out of curiosity before breaking into smiles.

Odd, you might think. Dumb, perhaps, given the nocturnal wildlife scuttling around. But I was on Príncipe, an isolated speck in the equatorial Atlantic where normality vanishes and space-time curves in curious ways.

Príncipe is 20km long and 12km wide. About 6,000 people live there, and last year 500 visitors stayed at its idyllic main hotel, Bom Bom Island Resort, with a few hundred more staying elsewhere. Its capital, Santa António, consists of a handful of streets with a market, a government building where flip-flops are banned, and a bank with the island’s sole cash machine, which works only with a local card, and then sporadically.

North, south, east and west lay restless ocean. Deep beneath me were ancient volcanic plumes. And somewhere about 80 miles above me the South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth had re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in 2002 after becoming the second tourist in space.

There are no tourist shops and nothing much to buy. The main attractions in the market when I visited were brightly-coloured vegetables and half a shark. Though the island’s wildlife is unique, it is of modest scale: the big beasts are out at sea where whales and marlin roam.

That trip cost Shuttleworth $20m and opened his eyes to how far human development blazes across the nighttime world. With a software fortune estimated at $500m, he went in search of a haven, eventually alighting upon Príncipe. His love affair with the island – for which he has bold plans admirable to some, controversial to others – is going to cost a lot more than a ride on a Soyuz rocket.

Instead, what Príncipe has to offer is far harder to buy than any souvenir or safari-park snap. It’s the ability to make you think about life differently.

“Tens of millions,” he tells me. About $95m over 15 years, says one of his aides. More than $135m, says another knowledgeable source.

It is easy, of course, for the visitor to romanticise such places. Príncipe has its problems: girls have children as young as 12, a sociologist tells me, and men may have two, three or four wives. In a small community, that can be a recipe for confusion. Fondness for a local brew called cacharamba is also problematic, as I discovered when a lady with a gap-toothed smile and infant strapped to her back embraced me with more passion than was strictly necessary two minutes after we

It is easy to see why Shuttleworth is enchanted: Príncipe is a planet in miniature. As you approach in an old twin-prop 18-seat Dornier, it emerges from the clouds like a Caribbean Treasure Island, a patch of green in the endless blue with white waves breaking in numerous bays. Forest

There aren’t many machines on the island: some 4x4 vehicles, motorcycles and outboard motors, and some generators. It’s quiet. People walk. They cook on open fires. Canoes are often still driven by paddle power.

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Financial Times October 2013

had first met at 11 one morning. Nevertheless, this is not the desperate poverty of shanty towns and sewer slums. It’s clean; the simple wooden houses have space. The sea provides fish, the forest supplies food and much else. Local lore has it that a few years ago a six-year-old girl got lost in dense forest in the south and was found alive nine months later. People mostly look fit, well and happy. At the northern tip of Príncipe, a dirt road winds through empty forest to Bom Bom Island Resort, a cluster of beach huts set in gardens carved out among palms. Two long sandy beaches curve either side of a rocky promontory from which a wooden bridge leads to an islet where the resort has its small bar and restaurant. The rooms are comfortable rather than luxurious, and the electricity goes off at midnight. But the food is delicious and the setting sublime. To dine by candlelight on fresh fish and local fruit, then stroll back across the bridge, waves splashing below and stars overhead, was dangerously intoxicating. Enough to make you want to pack in everything and stay for ever. Shuttleworth, whom locals call the Man in the Moon, liked Bom Bom so much he bought it. He has also either bought or acquired rights to three other beaches that are such perfect vistas you begin to wonder who’s been Photoshopping reality. They were all deserted on the days I visited. On these sites, Shuttleworth envisages a series of resorts, one with beach huts, one with luxury tents, one as yet undetermined. He is well aware such development – or “areas of intervention” as his company likes to say – poses risks to a small island. But like it or not, change is coming to Príncipe, he says. You could see it in the village of Abade, where I found fishermen making two new boats: dugout canoes, hacked from the trunks of trees as they have been for centuries. Yet just beyond the canoes was a shack with a satellite TV dish on the roof: last year electricity arrived in the village, bringing an endless stream of the outside world with it.

If change is coming, better that someone sensitive handles it. “You can’t will people [to stay in] poverty: that is a dangerous thing westerners try to do,” Shuttleworth says. “You have to try and figure out a way to improve people’s quality of life and their ability to participate in the world, while still protecting what they may not realise is very special about their environment.” In fact, Príncipe knows all about social upheaval. Behind the beaches and under the forest lies a lost civilisation. I glimpsed it first as we drove through Porto Real, a modest collection of homes with a small school. On a hill above the village lies a massive stone staircase, overgrown with vegetation, leading up to the ruined shell of a large building. It is straight out of Indiana Jones. There are more ruins round the corner and, rusting in the undergrowth, a steam engine. These are the remains of a plantation that once exported coffee and cacao on a grand scale. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, plantations created by Portuguese colonialists deploying slave or cheap labour dominated the north of the island, transforming the landscape. The Europeans even built miniature railways to run the coffee and cacao from the hilltops to the beaches. But rival producers in other countries, coupled with the island winning independence in 1975, destroyed the industry. Plantation houses fell derelict; the forest reclaimed the land. And the inhabitants of Príncipe? They reverted to a different way of living. That transformation is encapsulated at Roca Sundy, once the jewel of the plantations. Behind the cavernous house stands a plaque recording the 1919 visit of British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington, who came to “the palace” to witness a solar eclipse. His photographs of stars helped to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s hard to picture that now. Eddington’s plaque stands forlorn on a scrubby patch behind the empty house, and many of Sundy’s ancillary buildings are roofless and weedgrown.

Shuttleworth also has plans for Sundy and a second plantation. There’s talk of restoration, visitor centres, botanical gardens and museums. On the other side of the island, another developer is already converting a ruined plantation, Belo Monte, into a boutique hotel. Shuttleworth’s company HBD (Here Be Dragons) has drafted on to the island experts in design, forestry and agriculture to pursue his visions. It is setting up office right next to the no-flip-flop parliament. HBD is expecting, it says, to hire 700 people. How much will the Man in the Moon bend the space-time of planet Príncipe? It’s hard to tell as yet but bend it he will. A key factor will be access. At the moment it is not easy getting to Príncipe. From Europe, you have to go to Lisbon, catch the one flight a week to the island of São Tomé, stay the night (the Omali Lodge Hotel there is an oasis of soft towels and air conditioning) and then take the 18-seat Dornier to Príncipe, weather permitting. But Príncipe’s little aerodrome, with its windsock full of holes, also faces change: a broad scar of red earth now marks where forest has been cleared to build a new runway. One day, possibly next year, bigger aircraft will come. Shuttleworth appreciates the implications, and HBD says the new runway is being limited so that only aircraft carrying a maximum of 50 passengers will be able to land. “If you are going to get involved somewhere like Príncipe,” Shuttleworth tells me, “one goal is to ensure that if you fly into Príncipe in 20 years’ time, it is as beautiful as it is today ... that it will seem extraordinarily protected.” Let’s hope so. Because, as he puts it: “When you fly in today you feel like you have gone somewhere ethereal.” _____________ Richard Whistler was a guest of Original Travel, which offers an eight-day trip to São Tomé and Príncipe from £2,350, including two nights at Omali Lodge on São Tomé and five nights at Bom Bom Island Resort on a full-board basis, plus international and domestic flights from London

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