After two posts about Gabon (Santa Clara Cap and the Arboretum) and one about São Tomé, here is a first one on Principe. Same country than São Tomé but another island, about 100 miles north. And, no, there is no trail to cross the channel, but a few flights each week, I had to settle for the air!
In the south part of the island, the highest point, Pico de Principe, is about half the height of Pico de São Tomé, shy of 1,000 meters. It shares the remoteness and inaccessibility by road and we didn't even see it as the weather remained cloudy during our 3-day stay. As I mentioned in my previous post, Principe has less than 5% of the overall population of the country, the combined islands, that is less than 10,000 people. An investor invested $100 millions to develop 4 luxury resorts and it's about all there is to run the local tourism economy (there may be a few rooms to book in Santo Antonio). If not in that industry, people live from agriculture in the plantations, or fishing (see next post). And, like on São Tomé, they speak Portuguese, and are working hard to learn some English.
We stayed in the north-east part of the island, in a small village called Sundy, formerly a plantation, now hosting 2 distinct resorts, albeit operated by the same organization. The road from the capital, Santo Antonio, to Sundy is about 4 miles, entirely paved with handmade cobblestone: millions of stone carefully positioned, a really impressive work. I initially thought that this came from the slavery era but, no, it has been built after the independence, and a way to give work to the population. In my next post I'll show you a quarry producing these stones.
But not all the roads are beautifully paved this way, some are dirt roads and my first run turned quite epic because of heavy rain which turned such remote roads into slippery mud if not lakes... From Sundy I ran to and through that smallest capital of the world, Santo Antonio, then further south, toward the picturesque O Qué PiPi falls. It was one of the weekly excursions proposed by the resort but not on the days we were in town.
In addition to the pouring rain and mud, the only signage I could find wasn't so helpful, nor was Maps.me, so I missed a turn and lost too much time.
By the time I finally got closer to the falls, after getting lost on two other trails, I ran into 2 guides at the entrance of the national park and they stated I couldn't enter on my own, I needed to hire them. And they wouldn't run but walk... We had another boat and snorkeling excursion planned for the afternoon so I didn't have enough time for that. Evidently they were quite surprised to see a foreigner and more so a runner, reaching the entrance on his own! So, if you do it, I'll have paved the way, pun intended!
Now knowing the way, it was easier and faster to retrace and I made it just in time to hop on the mini bus which drove us to Praia (beach) BomBom where we got on a small boat.
Needless to say, from a running tip standpoint, with such a small population, you need to carry your own water, there aren't spigots or convenience stores along these roads, and most houses don't even have running water. At least, the traffic is super light, mostly small motorcycles, occasionally. Back to the water, you also need to carry more than usual given the high humidity, hence a higher rate of sweating (sorry, non runners...).
And a few pictures to illustrate and highlight several facets of this wonderful and very welcoming island. Enjoy the virtual visit, and hoping you have the opportunity to visit yourself at some point, highly recommended destination!
Flying out of São Tomé. The size of a private jet but not quite the experience...
