Some 200km off the coast on Africa just on the equator is São Tomé and Príncipe, a set of two main Islands with a Portuguese background. Ahead of my trip, mentioning my destination to colleagues in the office there was only one of some 20 persons who knew the place (and she was Portuguese…), and I guess that is no surprise with a country that only receives some 20-30k international arrivals per year.
There was limited information to be found, although booking flights and hotels was easy and straight forward. For my September trip, I booked return flights from Lisbon with Portuguese carrier TAP priced at just around 600€ about six months in advance. At the time this is the only option to fly from Europe directly (almost… one hour stop in Ghana). A travelogue in a Swedish newspaper had named the country “The Havana of Africa” (Havana of Africa).
Below would be my experiences through photos of arriving to the country’s only international airport and spending a couple of days exploring the capital city and surroundings. This is probably around one of the happiest places I have visited, throughout my stay there I never saw anyone getting agitated or angry, what’s more is the safety is really good, no issues walking around late in the evening. While walking out on the countryside at multiple times people would stop and offer me rides to the next village.
Some practical advice would be to know that there are no real possibilities for using your credit card here, also the ATMs do not work with an international card, so cash is king and the EUR is widely accepted, many of the hotels would also offer the possibility to pay by a bank transfer (for the two places I used this option they had a Portuguese bank account meaning a free SEPA transfer is possible from any other EUR account in Europe).
Price level is relatively low compared to Europe, but also compared to some of the neighbouring countries on the African mainland. In general, local produce such as fish and fruit is really cheap, while mineral water and processed food products are imported from Portugal and sell at around the same price (or sometimes higher).
Final approach, the last part of the flight from Accra
is quite fast and all of a sudden the Island rises in front of us out of the
blue Atlantic.
The international airport of São Tomé, one rather
small building containing customs, arrivals, and departures (with a small Café
and a souvenir shop)
Town Centre in the
capital city, just nearby the Mercado Municipal, here would also be the place
to go to find transport on the island. Taxis and also shared taxis (minibuses) that
are much cheaper although tend to be pretty packed (for the one I used we about
15 people in the minibus)
Mercado Municipal, a fest
of fresh produce both from land and ocean, a whole fresh tuna sold at 6€ (not
sure if that is the local price), and I got five bananas for about 0.20€.
Whole fresh tuna sold
at 6€ (Mercado Municipal – Sao Tome)
Fresh fish for sale
directly at the beach (the friendly lady did happily let me take a picture of
her in action when I asked)
Our Lady of Grace
Cathedral, or simply Cathedral
of São Tomé (Sé Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Graça)
Town Centre – the yellow
minibuses serve as the closest option to public transport, crowded and slow but
a cheap way to travel the island. We were about 15 persons (some kids) in mine
for the two hour ride across the island and with some language confusion we
still managed to share some food, and establish that I was not married, come
from Sweden (or maybe Switzerland) and that the others thought it would be a wise decision to consider to find a local lady, get some kids, and
settle on the island…
Street scene - Cidade de São Tomé
Your local Sao Tomean
liquor store (outside Mercado Municipal)
Mangoes growing at a
very convenient height in the middle of town (near Avenida da Independencia - São
Tomé)
Lighthouse
on top of Forte de São Sebastião, a building that also houses the
national museum of this island nation.
Village
life just nearby the capital city
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