THE TINY WEST AFRICAN ISLAND NATION OF SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE ENSNARES THE VISITOR, BOTH WITH ITS UNSPOILED NATURAL BEAUTY AND WITH THE HEAVY MEMORIES OF ITS COLONIAL PAST. SOPHY ROBERTS GOES WANDERING THROUGH ITS JUNGLES, RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH THE GHOSTS. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBBIE LAWRENCE

Flowers blossoming in a yard on the island of Príncipe, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. Opposite: The popular Banana Beach, on Príncipe.

78 TRAVEL+LEISURE | OCTOBER 2019 TRAVELANDLEISURE.COM 79 From left: The National A prep cook at Museum of São Tomé and Roça São João, a Príncipe; the terrace at restaurant in a Roça Sundy, a hotel in restored colonial two former plantation plantation house houses on Príncipe; the on São Tomé. pool at Sundy Praia, a resort on Príncipe.

THE PLANE tips its wing toward the to Príncipe. (Traveling by water is not advised; during my s airstrip, I can see several volcanic towers visit, one of the local ferries sinks.) A rising out of the forest, like giant standing I wouldn’t dally on São Tomé: the beaches I saw don’t stones. The largest, the Pico de Príncipe, dates from when have anything on Príncipe’s, and while the old Portuguese the island of Príncipe was formed, some 31 million years ago. colonial buildings are beautiful—and the churches a Farther off are flat-topped mountains. The turquoise, jade, spectacle of song and prayer during Sunday Mass—they are and storm-blue water is dotted with a few lonely pirogues, mostly too dilapidated to be worth lingering for. Príncipe is the banana-shaped dugout canoes used by traditional the prize—a sweat to get to, but a place that’s hard to leave. fishermen. Around rocky headlands, the water is white with Gibson, a Príncipean waiter I meet, has no desire ever to spume from the surge and swell of the Atlantic. The scene is step off his island, even to go to São Tomé. Leandro, a basket heart-stoppingly cinematic, like something out of King Kong. weaver, happily rolls his tobacco in the pages of a dictionary. I like airports where the locals hop into the backs of The pace of life is so slow it can feel as if this is the still center friends’ pickups for their ride home. There is no taxi stand of our rapidly turning world. In a way, it is. Príncipe is located to make use of, just informal solutions to the island’s lack just a few hundred miles east of the intersection of the of public transport. The terminal is nothing more than a equator and the prime meridian—the zero lines of latitude little building in the bush—how I imagine the Caribbean and longitude. The island is also emerging as an interesting to have been before the jets showed up. The drive to my new frontier in eco-tourism: off the edge of the African hotel is a bumpy ride along a red-earth road. On all sides, the continent, with that alluring mix of risk (the challenge of forest canopy reaches up toward the Atlantic light. Orchids getting there included), unspoiled nature (so abundant, you tumble out of crevices in the tree trunks. cannot access half the island because there simply aren’t Príncipe, the little sister in the two-island West African any paths), and some good new hotels that offer real nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a lost world. The country, comfort among the wildness. the second smallest in in both area and population, lies It is still so undeveloped, in fact, that even the locals can in the Gulf of , roughly 150 miles off the northwestern get lost. In the back of the island’s fish market, I meet the coast of . The islands are separated by 90 miles of mother of a boy, nicknamed Tarzan, who disappeared into water. Most flights in come from , the well-connected, Príncipe’s old-growth forest. He reappeared a year later, oil-rich capital of . Then, from the town of São Tomé, having survived on a diet of coconuts and crabs while the nation’s capital, you pick up a second, 35-minute flight sleeping on the forest floor. In Príncipe’s main settlement

80 TRAVEL+LEISURE | OCTOBER 2019 Fishermen pulling From left: A terrace at in their nets at Sundy Praia; breaking Mikolo Beach at open a cacao pod; forest Sundy Praia. fruits and garden produce at a market on Príncipe.

of Santo António, there are hardly any shops and just one Though Príncipe is ravishingly beautiful, the island has a dark supermarket, a place called Lusocash, which one local I meet history. With no indigenous population, it became the place calls Lose Your Cash; by the time any provisions get all the where Portuguese colonizers in the early 16th century way out here, they are prohibitively expensive. Twice a year, brought enslaved Africans to work the rich volcanic soil for a cruise ship might drop into São Tomé, but never Príncipe. sugarcane and, later, cacao. To entice farmers in Portugal to The crime rate is so low, there are only 12 policemen, and no run plantations and populate the island, the crown offered prison—only a single holding cell. slave women to anyone who would live here. Príncipe also “Almost everybody knows each other,” says Estrela became the place where slave ships would stop to pick up Matilde, executive director of the Príncipe-based food and water en route from to the New World. environmental nonprofit Fundação Príncipe. “They more Slavery was officially outlawed in 1875, but nearby Cape or less police themselves.” Verde and soon provided São Tomé and Príncipe with Most of the community, which numbers fewer than a new source of labor under exploitative contracts, helping the 9,000 people, are either subsistence farmers or fishermen islands become the largest producer of cacao in the world. who will happily fling open their homes to welcome you Still more Cape Verdeans migrated to find work on Príncipe’s in for a plate of banana fried in coconut oil or a shot of farms in the 1940s and 50s, when their own country was palm wine. Their stilted huts occupy groves of pineapples, experiencing famine. After independence, in 1975, São Tomé soursops, and pepper plants. The smell of ylang-ylang, and Príncipe’s fragile economy fell apart, and the roças, or an essential oil that comes from the cananga tree, is plantations, were abandoned, leaving behind laborers who soporific. Most people walk or bike. today still occupy the old senzalas, or worker houses, on the Had stopped here, Príncipe would estates. These crumbling ruins, a palimpsest of Príncipe’s have told him all he needed to know to develop his theory colonial history, give the island a haunted feeling. of evolution. According to the global conservation nonprofit Fauna & Flora International, the island, a UNESCO-protected I’VE COME TO SEE Príncipe’s tortured past and biosphere reserve, is home to some of the most biodiverse optimistic future for myself, drawn by a number of forests in all of Africa, with more endemic species per conversations I’d had in the course of my reporting on travel square mile than the Galápagos—or anywhere else. Last and conservation in Africa. I’d heard that the President of the year, Matilde tells me, the organization helped to discover Regional Government of Príncipe, António José Cassandra— a new species of owl. Toza for short—has rejected offers from the big palm-oil If Darwin had visited, however, he would also have companies to plant the cash crop that is destroying so many witnessed human beings’ astonishing capacity for cruelty. other equatorial rain forests, from to Borneo. To cut

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BENIN

NIGERIANIGERIA

GHANA The footbridge at CÔTE D’IVOIRE Príncipe’s Bom Bom resort, which connects the Accra beach bungalows to a restaurant on a tiny island. Príncipe EQUATORIALEQUATORIAL GUINEAGUINEA

GULF OF GUINEA VisitingVisiting SãoSão ToméTomé GABON andand PríncipePríncipe São Tomé

GETTING THERE There’s no getting around it; flying from the U.S. to this two-island nation down one of the big trees, you need his permission. Toza takes a while. It requires a day’s travel also won’t allow construction of any hotel in excess of 50 and at least two stops—the second of rooms. Next year, he intends to ban plastic bags. Príncipe, which will likely be Accra, Ghana—to remarkably, is also the only country on the West African reach the of São Tomé. coast with coral monitoring. Spend a day there before the half-hour I’d also heard talk of a mysterious South African flight to Príncipe. philanthropist, Mark Shuttleworth, who has spent more than $100 million to create high-end sustainable tourism HOTELS in the country. Locals refer to Shuttleworth, who in 2002 Mark Shuttleworth’s development became the second-ever space tourist, as the Man of the company, HBD Príncipe, owns four Moon. He is Príncipe’s biggest private employer, paying hotels on the islands. Bed down on São salaries that start at more than double the minimum wage. Tomé at Omali (omalilodge.com; He is not without his critics. A local complains to me that doubles from $280) before continuing Shuttleworth’s hotels have led to property inflation, and to Príncipe. Once there, choose from increased migration resulting from (Continued on page 100) among Bom Bom (bombomprincipe. com; bungalows from $460), a collection of 25 dwellings linked by a wooden walkway to the tiny, forested Bom Bom Island; Roça Sundy (hotel roca sundy.com; doubles from $245), in two historic plantation houses in the jungle interior; and the new Sundy Praia (sundyprincipe.com; villas from $785), São Tomé and Príncipe’s most luxurious property yet. HAD CHARLES DARWIN STOPPED HERE, TOUR OPERATOR Alice Daunt at Daunt Travel (daunt- travel.com) can organize a bespoke PRÍNCIPE WOULD HAVE TOLD itinerary to São Tomé and Príncipe. She Nossa recommends combining a five-night Senhora da HIM ALL HE NEEDED TO KNOW TO stay with a wider West African itinerary, Conceição, a including either Ghana or . church in Santo $5,250 per person for two people on an António, on DEVELOP HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTION. eight-night trip. — S.R. Príncipe.

84 TRAVEL+LEISURE | OCTOBER 2019 a tree branch, the forest rustling with the giant waxed leaves like pewter- these people, talking to them, is parrots. While other beach resorts colored balls. The building both moving and discomfiting. The need umbrellas for shade, Sundy is so entangled with vines that it’s paradise myth—so perfectly rendered Praia has wide-spreading fig trees. almost as if it is trying to disappear. on the rest of the island—is blown Land crabs scuttle determinedly up The roof has fallen in. Roots drip apart by the shoeless children, the featuring and down the sand, leaving trails. over the broken walls. Palms burst purposeless men who aren’t lucky featuring There are rich seabird colonies—sooty like giant shuttlecocks from the enough to have a tourism job. SWIM-UP SUITES terns, brown noddies—and healthy loamy floor. Through a narrow arch, But does this make me like SWIM-UP SUITES | KIDZ CLUB OCEANSIDE FIREPITS whale populations (humpbacks pass I catch a glimpse of a woman in Príncipe any less? At first, it feels TURQUOIZE ADULTS-ONLY (São Tomé and Príncipe, through from July to September). white: she is making her way along somehow wrong to come here on PRIVATE AIRPORT LOUNGE EXPERIENCE continued from page 85) Three species of turtles nest on the the shore, the edge of her world holiday, especially at a moment when BEACHFRONT JERK SHACK island’s empty beaches. Turtles need marked with a thread of surf. I feel we’re grappling with the legacy of MICROBREWERY the work opportunities he has to be guided by moonlight, not bar like I have seen a ghost. slavery more than ever. I can’t quite ALL-AGES RESORT created has put pressure on the lights, if their breeding is to succeed; work out if I should be encouraging ALL-AGES RESORT island’s infrastructure. But he they thrive here because no electric PERHAPS I HAVE. people to visit this island, which is more responsible than anyone illumination muddles their returns The haunted feeling comes and goes tourism is already giving a better for Príncipe’s emergence as a to lay eggs. over the next few days, not only future, or withdrawing quietly, as travel destination. One evening I meet Toza, the because of the evocative power of the if I haven’t seen the ghosts. Then I In 2011, Shuttleworth bought regional president, for a cocktail at forest, but also because of the meet a Cape Verdean schoolteacher Bom Bom, his first hotel in Príncipe, Sundy Praia’s bar. He is aware that, country’s history, which is and guide named Emmanuel a modest resort on an immodestly despite his native island’s beauty, its symbolized by the old plantation Bettencourt, who has lived in beautiful beach. The following year, indirect flights and far-flung location houses. In one, I find the six-room Príncipe, , and Moscow. he acquired a small hotel on São are a hurdle to development. “When Colonial House, part of the 15-room “The smell of slavery has nothing Tomé, Omali, which most visitors use you can go to the Caribbean or Bora- Roça Sundy. A tasteful conversion to do with how the people feel,” to break up the journey. In June 2017, Bora, why come to Príncipe?” he with Portuguese tiled floors and lazy he tells me. “It is how you interpret he opened Roça Sundy, a pair of says. “We need to stay special, to fans whirring overhead, the building the symbolism. Slavery is restored plantation houses in remain pristine, for people to want is a significant historic landmark. It not in the psyche of the people. Príncipe’s interior, where cacao, to make the effort.” was here, on May 29, 1919, that the It is in the psyche of you, the visitor.” coffee, pineapples, and bananas are To see what Toza means, I take a English physicist Arthur Eddington Instead of closing the door on still farmed. Last December, he boat out to explore the fringes of Obô proved Albert Einstein’s theory of Príncipe’s history, Shuttleworth, unveiled his Príncipe flagship: the Natural Park, heading for the Baía das relativity by photographing a total the government, and other investors beachside Sundy Praia, comprising 15 Agulhas, or Bay of Spires. It’s called eclipse of the sun. Flanking the hotel are saying to visitors: Here, this is luxury tents hidden in trees along the that because the coves are punctured are the senzalas. A community still how it is—we are trying to do shoreline, a lively bar, a run of tasteful by more of those raw volcanic spikes lives here: old men talk beneath the something to change it by bringing wooden sun loungers along a two- and arches poking out of the sea. I trees, children play in the alleys, you here and energizing this economy, mile beach, and a forest-fringed pool. walk on beaches not even St. Bart’s multiple generations of women cook even if there are some formidable Given the complexities of remote can outperform. One, a comma of in small, charcoal-stained kitchens, peaks to climb. Day by day, I become hospitality in the Gulf of Guinea, this white sand called Banana Beach, is their fish and vegetables piled in more convinced. Like the Príncipean was no easy feat. “São Tomé is at the seared in my memory from a Bacardi baskets at their feet. waiter, Gibson, I don’t want to leave. end of a logistics chain,” explains Chris ad that ran on British TV in the 90s. The Príncipe regional When I finally do depart, I find myself Taxis, the CEO of Shuttleworth’s I find its paradise vibe a bit unsettling, government and UN-Habitat, the admiring this authentic attempt to development company, HBD Príncipe. not only because I’m encountering United Nations’ agency for socially preserve a little piece of paradise “In Príncipe, we have to make it up.” such a familiar sight in such an and environmentally sustainable without trying to pretend that A hotel with an old soul and a unfamiliar place but also because of human settlements, want these 136 paradise can be without flaw. contemporary polish, Sundy Praia is its history: from the cliff above Banana families to voluntarily resettle in a the perfect place to wash up bone- Beach, plantation owners used to newly built village, which would tired and in need of a refuge, as I am. push slaves to their deaths, or so provide clean water, electricity, a Content in this issue was produced I could stay for days, swimming in a the story goes. functioning sewage system, a school, with assistance from Bom Bom, balmy sea as flat as a mirror, under I walk into a stone building a health center, and a market. They CONTACT YOUR PREFERRED The Broadmoor, Gasthaus Adler, CONTACT YOUR PREFERRED a silver moon; eating farm-picked hidden in the forest—a former call it Promised Land. But not Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, Hotel TRAVEL ADVISOR salads under the vaulted ceiling of storehouse, perhaps, or a church. everyone wants to leave. The Traube Tonbach, Omali, Roça Sundy, TRAVEL ADVISOR 800.720.0051 the enormous dining room; reading The tree canopy is sliced by shafts of senzalas, however decrepit, are the and Sundy Praia. 800.720.0051 RESORTSBYHYATT.COM in a bird’s-nest chair suspended from golden light. Raindrops sit caught in homes they know. Wandering among RESORTSBYHYATT.COM

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