Sao Tome and Principe

The aroma of coffee and cocoa invades the streets of archipelago – state suspended between the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where the Portuguese colonial imprint is still present in the architecture of the cities and the rocas, the generous plantations that open up between a lush primary forest, dotted with volcanic peaks, waterfalls and lakes, idyllic natural pictures framed by magnificent palm-fringed beaches.

The secludes islands of Sao Tome and Principe, like tiny jewels, open up into the crystal clear waters of the coast of Gabon. Precious is the fertile soil, the natural scenery of ancient volcanic earth, busting nature of unique biodiversity, between beaches and hinterland, home to lute turtles, and extraordinary variety of endemic birds and the great humpback whales that dot the magnificent jagged bays.

Its popular traditions are precious, a meeting point between Africa, the America and Portuguese Europe, a hybrid culture between colonial legacies and the peaceful and welcoming population, which has been able to reinvent itself, recreating the new roots and overcoming a sad past of slavery and deportation.

Crossed by the Equator and the Greenwich Meridian, this tiny archipelago – state, originally uninhabited, still has the appearance of an earthly paradise lost in the middle of sea, far from the tourist routes, a wild and generous land, cultivated and transformed only in part, among the historical plantations of cocoa and coffee, bananas and sugar cane.