Like the day before, and despite being in the middle of the so-called dry season, it poured rain again, and the dirt roads turned to slippery mud again! I'm so not used to it, living in California. But even the locals found that it was too much water. As I mentioned earlier, too much water and humidity damages the cacao crops. I still believe it's much better to have too much water than not enough...
Staying in Sundy, that was my starting and finish point again. Half way on the cobblestone road, I turned right at a small settlement called Terra Promedita, the Promised Land. During the visit of the chocolate plantation in Sundy, the guide mentioned a sort of trade of land and houses setup by the plantation owners, for the workers. Not quite the paradise yet!
The road was wide but a mix of mud or puddles, your pick!
I ran for a couple of miles to another small village, turned left on another dirt road which was in much better condition.
Following up on my hint in the previous post, this is where I saw a cobblestone quarry. It was Saturday and the weekend of the Independence Day, so nobody was working unfortunately; I would have loved to see how they break the stone and make these neat cubes.
I continued to another village, Porto Real.
Then on a long and steep downhill to that tiny capital, Santo Antonio.
With the rain, I was drenched and I had hard time unlocking my phone screen to take pictures. But I stil managed to take a few, to complement the series I shared in my previous post.
And I retraced the same route as my earlier year, between Santo Antonio and Sundy, on these 4 miles paved with cobblestone.
All this turned to another Relive.cc flyover of course! (Click on this link, or the image below.)
Since we are highly recommending to visit Principe, let me clarify where we stayed in Sundy. There are 2 resorts: one, on the beach, 5 stars, 17 bungalows, called Sundy Praia. There is another similar resort in Bom Bom, both being quite expensive. We stayed at Roça Sundy which is quite high standing as well but more reasonable, and also more authentic because the rooms are in the older and original plantation buildings. All these resorts can be found on the same website. The breakfast buffet was gorgeous!
Again, wishing you the possibility to visit and see how special this island is, with your own eyes. And on foot! See you again soon, Africa!
PS: speaking of foot, like football, or soccer for others... In the morning, we hopped on an excursion of the east side of the island, which included driving close to the O Que Pipi falls, on the road I had taken the day before. We also visite a village of fishermen and another settlement where we saw a group of young kids playing soccer with a ball which had big holes in it. Our guide was amazing and he accepted to buy 2 new balls, and a few boxes of pens for their schoolwork, on our behalf. That created some happiness!
Dinner time at Roça Sundy!
Back to Santo Antonio (market), on our excursion.
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