Discover Príncipe Island: A Paradise of Nature and Heritage
Today I am where I want to be, strolling along almond-fringed beaches that, like cuffs of lace, fall from the dark sleeve of the jungle. Steam rises after a recent downpour and morning sunlight glances off cresting waves silver-threaded with the shoals of sardinella that ride their swell. Coconuts drop with a thud around me and begonia blossoms spiral slowly. This is a fecund forest of vastness that’s so alive you can practically hear the sap rising. I have been walking for more than an hour from my tented suite at the Sundy Praia retreat and seen no one. I have padded across sandbanks in the flipper trail of turtles who have come to lay eggs on these northern shores and clambered over rocky headlands. I’ve scaled the heights – and pushed through the insect drill – of the forest, into the shade of the towering oka. These trees have a presence not unlike Tolkien’s ents, those humanoid-like tree creatures. In Príncipe, it is customary to bury a newborn baby’s placenta beneath a trunk, so that everyone has a tree they consider their own. The forest is venerated and it is sacrilege to fell a tree, a belief embedded in law.
The Allure of Príncipe Island
If the idea of heaven were as simple as a deserted beach and the freedom to roam safely, then Príncipe, a remote island in the Gulf of Guinea, is that lost Eden. During the pandemic, I dreamed of returning to this poor but paradisiacal island that I first heard about from my father, who was absentee British ambassador there during the 1980s, after it gained its independence from the Portuguese. The archipelagic islands of São Tomé and Príncipe are mere grace notes on the vast score of the Atlantic, perched near where the equator and the zero longitude meridian cross paths. They are reminiscent of Middle Earth: improbable fingers of phonolitic rock erupting from mists and preternaturally green forest. I came to hike this loop of horseshoe bays, arriving at Ribiera Izé to visit the ruins of the island’s first Catholic church and its abandoned capital.
Unseen Wonders of Wildlife
Being alone in this Jurassic Park wilderness is an exceptional and eerie experience. I think of the story of the island’s “Tarzan boy”. He was seven when he disappeared into the forest. When rescued almost a year later, he was miraculously unscathed, apparently well-fed by the mona monkeys and protected by the benign climate and remarkably sustaining cradle of the jungle. Without predators, wildlife here has not needed to develop venomous powers and toxic deterrents. Untethered from the West African mainland 200 miles away, across deep sea troughs, and 100 miles apart from its twinned island state of São Tomé, this so-called African Galápagos evolved its own unique species.
Unique Flora and Fauna
As I approach the mouth of a river, I spot one such endemic beauty: a sapphire-backed Príncipe kingfisher balancing on a palm frond. And there, in the shallows, the famous mudskipper. I had been told to keep an eye out for this creature. In the morning of the earth’s creation, 385 million years ago, before Príncipe’s fist of rock punched up from the ocean floor, the fish walked out of the sea on its fins. In the untrammelled UNESCO-protected biosphere that makes up this land, that first walking fish has been able to continue to exist.
The Island’s Rich History
Such glorious isolation is inevitably hard to reach. It has taken days to get here with a layover in Lisbon, a touchdown in Accra and a night in São Tomé, but with no time difference from London. The 45-minute flight into Príncipe culminated in an alarming swallow dive down to a new runway that jutted into a jagged shore. The shack of an airport terminal smelled promisingly of sun-warmed mango and jasmine. Príncipe has a population of less than 10,000. It was uninhabited until the 15th century, when it became a place of exile for the desperados of Portuguese society: convicts, heretics, and outcasts. Then it grew into the hub of the Middle Passage slave route and the epicenter of the profitable cocoa trade.
Exploring the Ruins
Was this episode of dark history initially written here in the stronghold and first city of Ribeira Izé, whose ruins, amid a tangle of ferns and palms, I finally stumble upon? The roça (or estate) and its church were built by Maria Correia in the 19th century. Known as the Black Princess, this mestiza (mixed-race woman) was feared as a landowner of various estates and hundreds of slaves. But today, only Maria Miranda wasps inhabit the crumbling apse of her church. For all Correia’s wealth, power and two marriages, when she died and was buried here she left no heir, epitaph or grave. While hers is only one of many roças that existed at the turn of the 20th century, it is the most atmospheric. They were self-contained universes with hospitals, nurseries, lodgings and railway termini attached, and they shaped the island landscape and determined its political outlook. When the Portuguese empire disintegrated in the 1970s, the jungle reclaimed the roças. A haunted and raw beauty hangs over Ribeira Izé, roots wrapping round the walls and strangling the foundations.
Cultural Revival and Empowerment
In recent years a handful of roças have been rescued from obliteration and turned into working cooperatives. Paciencia Organic produces soap and oil from medicinal plants, resuscitating the traditions of natural healing prevalent before centuries of Catholicism and decades of communism stamped them out. The lovely Belo Monte and historical Roça Sundy have become significant cultural landmarks. Staying at the latter, the biggest plantation on the island, sensitively restored, is to get under the skin of life here, sharing the rambling, faded grandeur of the compound with a resident community. About 400 local creoles of Cape Verdan origin still live here in the workers’ quarters, or sanzalas.
Gastronomic Delights
The main mansion at Roça Sundy is an elegant time warp of slow-whirring ceiling fans and hardwood floors, with a veranda perched above the verdant jungle canopy and sea. It’s where Einstein’s Quaker emissary, the astrologer Arthur Eddington, proved the German scientist’s theory of relativity during the historic solar eclipse of 1919. Today, the complex is the headquarters of everything that makes Príncipe special: the natural world.
Conservation Efforts
Roça Sundy is also on a campaign to reverse the negative implications of producing cocoa, a crop long associated with colonial enslavement. In their heyday, the islands produced 35,000 tons a year; that has now been reduced to 3,000. The cocoa and chocolate here are considered some of the best in the world, and are now potentially profitable boutique craft produce, sought after in the realm of slow, fair-trade luxury.
Conclusion
Ultimately, conservation is all about community, and the connection with local culture builds an unforgettable experience. In Príncipe, every visit is an opportunity for cultural exchange and deeper understanding of this hidden gem in the Gulf of Guinea.
