São Tomé: A Mountain Paradise Divulges its Colonial Past

10 April 2023. When we discovered that we would be moving to Accra, Ghana, one of the first places we put on our travel wishlist was São Tomé and Principé. The tiny archipelago sits just north of the equator in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Gabon. Because of its location, North Americans don’t commonly visit. However, its unique landscapes and sunny beaches are only an hour and a half from Accra.

I scoured the internet for information on São Tomé, but was disappointed to find little detail in English about visiting. Most sites paint in broad strokes about the diving, whale watching, beaches, landscapes, and climate, whetting any travelers appetite. Planning the trip would have been difficult without friends who had visited before.

Our niece, Kristen, accompanied us on our trip. She has spent summers with us as Isaiah’s nanny and adult supervision for our older sons while she was at university and moved in during COVID to help us navigate Carlton’s training pipeline, my telework, and Isaiah’s virtual learning. Now, she is a young professional with a paid time off, and we are so glad she could visit. Isaiah was happy to have his beach buddy along to maximize his time in the sun and commiserate on the strictness of his parents.

First Impressions

Sāo Tomé captures your imagination from the first sighting in the plane. We approached from the north and could see towering mountains rising just beyond the coast line. The aircraft made a left 270 to line up for the runway which roughly parallels the coast line with its approach end at the water’s edge. Isaiah had fallen asleep on the flight, but the mountains and beaches soon captivated him. 

São Tomé International airport has one runway with no taxiway, so we were able to get a good look at the airport as we back taxied to the apron to deplane – an old hangar with a few light aircraft, a seemingly non-airworthy Tupolev, and a small terminal flanked by a large, tent-like structure lined the runway. Ground crew guided us through the tent and into immigration where the officer checked our passports and asked about our stay. Just as we entered baggage claim, our bags appeared on the fast-moving carousel. We were quickly through customs and in search of our driver.

Into the Dark

Our guesthouse arranged transportation for us, and Carlton easily found our driver, Joël, in the mass of taxi drivers and food vendors. We had packed to have room to buy gifts and souvenirs so the ride was a tight fit with me and a suitcase up front. Joël stopped in the city to help us get the cash needed to pay for tours.

The sun had set by the time we left the airport. High tide and an earlier storm caused the waves to crash over the seawall and the coastal road. The roads were in good condition, but poorly lit and unlit once we left the city. Joël pointed out the Voice of America radio towers in the distance as we drove through the capital and up into the mountains. We arrived on Easter Sunday evening so the city’s businesses were shuttered, but as we drove past villages and private homes, we could hear music and other sounds of family celebrations. 

Roça Saudade Guesthouse

Joël sped around the curves using his horn to alert oncoming traffic, pedestrians, and animals – both domesticated and wild – of our impending passage. We climbed up the mountain road for thirty minutes and then turned left onto a gravel road and into nearly complete darkness. Soon, we arrived in a small village with a restaurant on our left and stone stairs rising on the right into the black night. We had arrived at Roça Saudade Guesthouse and Casa Museu Almada Negreiros.

The restaurant manager asked what time we would like our dinner – at eight, please – and guided us up the stairs to our rooms. We appeared to be the only guests at the guesthouse that evening. There is a small wooden lodge halfway up the stairs and three connected guesthouses further up. We had rented two of the three houses, each with their own front porch.

The night had turned cool and there was a nice breeze. I had been worried about the lack of air conditioning in the rooms, but now I worried that there wouldn’t be enough blankets. As we opened the door and turned on the lights, vibrant art on the walls welcomed us – Isaiah and Kristen thought at least one of their pictures was a bit creepy, but ours were more cheerful. The ensuite room was comfortably simple and the wi-fi was fast. We had time to relax on the porch before dinner and enjoyed the view of the city lights below and the starry skies above – something we don’t see much of in Accra.

Casa Museu Almada Negreiros

We walked down to dinner and found ourselves placed at a table in the corner, one of two occupied tables at the restaurant. The manager was leaving for the night, but he took our drink orders and told us not to worry, but the remaining staff spoke only Portuguese. No menus, but lots of worries since we don’t generally eat seafood, and here we were on a tropical island. 

Seafood dominated the menu – but there was no reason to worry. The first course was a fish consommé which we all enjoyed. Isaiah actually requested the soup for all subsequent meals. Then, the chef served a flavorful fish steak with breadfruit, cold vegetable salad, baked banana plantain and the some of the best greens I have ever had. We had fresh wild raspberry juice to drink and cake for dessert. The fish was perfectly tender with the zing of lemon and an Unami flavor reminiscent of grilled pork. I wish I knew what it was and how it had been prepared. Almada Negreiros had set the bar high for dining in São Tomé.

Paradise Revealed

The next morning, the sunrise revealed the full wonder of the Roça Saudade Guesthouse. We had not needed an extra blanket, but I was grateful that the screened shutters blocked both the mosquitos and the sunlight on our east-facing windows. When I opened the door and went out to the porch, the Guesthouse gardens spilled out, dew shining in the morning sunlight with the Gulf of Guinea sparkling far below. The air was cool, but the sun was already warm and bright.

Roosters had been calling the sun for hours. Dogs barked for their breakfast or to greet passersby. People were already on their way to school or work. The jungle is thick, so I could hear all of these things, but I could never see the people or the animals unless we met them on the road. 

Beautiful Breakfast

We sat at the same table for breakfast, but now we could see what the darkness had obscured. The restaurant is a covered wooden deck perched over the jungle. We watched black kites take flight searching for prey and farmers cutting fruit from the trees. The manager brought hot coffee and tea and fresh raspberry juice to start our morning. Not long after, we were overwhelmed with wild raspberry yogurt, fresh bread with raspberry jam and butter, and a fruit plate featuring São Tomé peaches, star fruit, and passion fruit along with pineapple and watermelon. A rolled omelet laced with greens and fish appeared and then quickly disappeared. Apparently, my family does like seafood.

Jardim Botânico do Bom Sucesso

Our driver and guide, JP, soon arrived for our tour of the central part of the island. JP acted as driver, guide and translator throughout our stay in Saō Tomé. We left the village and turned left on the main road continuing up the mountain. Soon, we turned off onto a smaller gravel track – still heading up the mountain. In earlier times, the surrounding land was part of a coffee plantation. Locals still cultivate coffee here, but now as part of a co-op. We saw people of all ages walking between villages and into the farms, and most over the age of 14 carried machetes. Enterprising children sold jackfruit and wild raspberries at road junctions.

Our first stop was Jardim Botânico do Bom Sucesso where JP translated for Park Ranger Estevao Soares, the guide at the park. The gardens opened in the early 1990s funded as a joint venture between the French Fund for the World Environment l (FFEM) and  the Monte Pico Association (AMP). However the relationship ended a few years ago and, since then, the number of employees at the park has dropped from around 40 to 6. Estevao has been with the botanical garden since the early 1990s and gave an excellent tour about the endemic species of São Tomé and Principe along with those flora and fauna which have been imported to the island. 

São Tomé’s Culture and History Hidden in the Garden

The tour wasn’t just a view into the archipelago’s ecosystem. We caught a glimpse of the history and culture of São Tomé. Here, a tree whose bark lowers blood pressure. There, leaves whose tea will make you sleep for 24 hours. “Don’t tell the men,” said Estavao in Portuguese. For many trees, he gave a specific medicinal uses – lower blood sugar or improve virility or fertility. For others, he was more vague, reluctant to identify the plants whose medicinal use was taboo.

Estavao showed us coffee and cacao, brought from the Americas and sugarcane from Asia. Though sugarcane was the first cash crop cultivated by the Portuguese in the 16th century, coffee and chocolate dominated from the 18th century. Coffee and chocolate remain key exports for the tiny country, but the world’s appetite for palm oil created a new plantation product in the post-colonial era. Palm trees have long been used here for their fronds and their oil. Palm wine is a popular drink here just as in Ghana. Like Ghana, though, palm oil has joined the extraction sector of the economy.

Estavao took great pride in showing us the garden’s orchid collection. There are 129 species of orchid on the archipelago including 35 endemic species. Many of them were just beginning to flower while we were there. São Tomé’s unique ecosystem means that, including to the 35 endemic orchids, there are 95 plant species endemic to São Tomé island and an additional 37 on Principé the archipelago’s smaller island. Perhaps my favorite was the giant begonia – which can grow to 13 feet.

Lagoa Amelia

Estavao told us of various hikes available from the Botanical Gardens. The shortest of these was a track to the crater lake, Lagoa Amelia, which is the source of the rivers on the island of São Tomé.  The lake is a three-hour hike from the garden, and we did not visit. However, Estavao spoke of a lake covered in grass so thick that one can’t see where the shore ends and the lake begins. If the circumstances are right, the guide can take hikers walking to the center of the lake. Take caution, the lake is said to have “quick grass” as JP described it. There are unstable places where walkers could slide beneath the grass – which is why the guides carry long poles to test the thickness and stability of the path.

Who Was Amelia?

According to Estavao, this is how the lake earned it’s name. The young wife of a plantation head wandered into the lake and sank beneath its surface never to be seen again.  My imagination sparked when I heard this. Did young Amelia accidentally wander onto the lake and disappear? Was her life so unhappy that she walked into the water like Virginia Woolf? Was it a ruse – was Amelia trying to escape her life and disappeared into the forest? Perhaps her husband told the world the story of the accident to hide her abandonment. Maybe he killed her and threw her in the lake, covering his tracks with the story of the lake swallowing his bride. Whatever the case, if I want to see this lake and the rainforest surrounding it, I have to schedule a return visit without Isaiah – he was a definite “no” on hiking.

After signing the guestbook and saying our farewells, we continued to Cascata São Nicolau – St. Nicholas’s Waterfall. 

Cascata São Nicolau

Cascata São Nicolau is an Instagram-worthy waterfall. It’s a popular site on São Tomé because of its beauty and accessibility. The fall its just beside one of the main roads of the interior. The water cascades nearly 200 feet down the steep rocky wall and into the river below. From the road you can walk on a path closer to the waterfall. We could see the remnants of a wooden staircase down to the river. Now, it is an adventurous scramble down the rocks to the banks for a swim or a picture in the pool below the waterfall. I am no longer as adventurous as I once was – my risk assessments include questions like, “How will I get back up if I break my leg and where is the nearest hospital?” 

Instead, I took a moment to enjoy sounds of the water crashing into the pool surrounded by the dense green jungle. Isaiah quickly interrupted my revelry – he was hungry and now also hangry.  “I’m huuuuungry. When are we eating!! Can we have chicken?” Luckily, lunch was the next stop on the itinerary. 

Normally, lunch would be at Almada Negreiros, but since we were planning lunch there on the next day, he arranged a reservation in the capital. JP took pity on Isaiah, and the menu included pork, chicken or fish. We arrived just before the lunch rush. By the time we left, the place was packed – mostly with tourists. The food was excellent and the drinks were cold. 

Roça Monte Cafe

We ended our tour at the island’s only remaining coffee plantation, Roça Monte Cafe. Roça Monte Cafe opened as a plantation in the middle of the 19th century. It became the largest coffee-producing plantation on the island. Since independence, the plantation has operated as a cooperative for the farmers in the region. The island grows both Arabica and Robusta coffee, but Arabica thrives at this altitude – just under 2000 feet above sea level.

When we arrived, the power was out – a common occurrence every where I’ve been in Africa. That meant we would not get a coffee tasting, but we did get an excellent tour from one of the English-speaking docents. She walked us through every stage of coffee production, comparing the system of the mid-19th century to today. 

Making Coffee

Using pictures and a working coffee-separating apparatus, our guide described life on the oldest and largest coffee plantation of São Tomé – twelve-hour days with the bell in the courtyard ringing at 0500 and 1700 to call the workers in and release them from work. She showed us how housing systems worked on the Roça in the past and how the buildings are used today. We saw pictures of the small-gauge rail system that moved coffee from the fields, around the plantations, and to the markets and port in the capital. Outside, our guide showed us the remnants of rails still marking the ground in the courtyard and on the road.

It was interesting and informative. We were able to handle beans at various stages of the process. We learned how the workers divided the coffee beans into five classes. The highest level went to the Portuguese owners and operators of the Roça. The company sold the middle three grades for export. The workers received the lowest quality beans from the company store. Though the co-op still exports coffee into the international market, when we visited, there was no coffee for sale in the museum store.

Coffee Isn’t Everything

We were impressed at how the architecture of the museum building allowed enough sunlight and ventilation to cover the lack of electricity on the tour with the exception of coffee tasting and watching the old coffee separator operate. I enjoyed the views from the mountain and the opportunity to learn the process. Isaiah took special note of the cheers from the soccer pitch just outside where locals were in the middle of what appeared to be a heated match. The roça was so much more than a farm. It was a tight-knit village with housing, schools and hospitals. Today, the remains of the old buildings fulfill this same role, though the workers have more autonomy and more time for recreation than in previous centuries.

It was a short ride back to the guesthouse and we bid JP farewell until Wednesday. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on our porch. After watching the sunset, we walked down the steps to another fabulous dinner – this time tuna-steak kebabs with a wonderful Portuguese red wine. We reflected on the day: the natural beauty of São Tomé, its people, deteriorated buildings and roads, and colonial history.