© I. Fornasiero
While the charming capital of São Tomé is home to most of the population, with its harbour and bustling markets, pastel colonial architecture and ancient Portuguese legacies such as the imposing 16th century fort and Christian cathedrals, inland or on the heavenly beaches that open up between the jagged bays, nature takes over.
The human presence here is evidenced by the ruins of a few roças occupied by the Forro, the descendants of the ancient slaves, the ramshackle piles of small fishing villages, a few accommodation facilities and the wooden boats pulled ashore, together with the tangle of craft nets. In Lagoa Azul, Praia Piscina, Praia Jalé and on the Isla das Rolas, the real protagonist is wild and unspoilt nature.
In the driest part of the island, to the north-west, Lagoa Azul opens up like a mirage, a name that is a guarantee, where the crystal-clear water contrasts with the volcanic rocks of the shoreline and the sporadic surrounding savannahs, so mysterious in a tropical context, where the coconut palms give way to baobabs.
Descending to the west towards the south of the island, Praia de Tamarindos, welcomes a small paradise framed by a tamarind forest bordering an expanse of fine sand and turquoise water of a surreal transparency. Nearby, only a small fishing village interrupts the wild aspect of this bay with its beautiful seabed.
At the southern end are Praia Jalé and Praia Piscina, natural jewels on the edge of an explosive tropical forest, where rows of coconut palms face the turquoise waters directly, stretching out from the golden sand towards the sea, almost as a sign of defiance. Paradisiacal scenarios inhabited by turtles, dolphins and whales, small lagoons, habitats of endemic birds, among traditional boats still made from a single trunk, recovered from the monumental fromagers.
Praia Café, in Ilheu das Rolas, is not to be missed. It’s a small island where a monument and a map mark the exact meeting point of the Equator line and the Greenwich Meridian, accompanied by a breathtaking view of the favourite spot of lute turtles, schools of dolphins and humpback whales that come to these shores to frolic.
If the coast is marked by a system of lighthouses, inland nature also has its own ‘lighthouse’, a landmark in a wild landscape, the Pico Cao Grande, which rises imposingly like a tower of magmatic rock, eroded by time and weathering.
The Sao Tomé island is one of the last paradises on earth, an ancient land of beaches and forests, mysterious craters that regurgitate seawater from underground (Boca do Inferno), refreshing waterfalls that creep between basaltic spurs (Cascades of Sao Nicolau), while crystal-clear waters bathe the coal-black lava rocks.
