There are an awful lot of places in the world to explore, and I am sure that these Portuguese islands dropped apparently randomly into the Atlantic Ocean are not high on many travellers’ bucket lists. But they should be; São Tomé e Príncipe and Cabo Verde offer travellers and tourists alike a remarkable experience, and one that would be difficult to duplicate. Portugal in Africa The Portuguese were amazing explorers; talk about itchy feet, they headed out into the ocean in the fifteenth century, and possibly long before, in search of “something”. I still reel at the audacity of a […]

The Mucumbli Lodge, in Sao Tome is simply wonderful. Comfortable, friendly, well situated and totally relaxing. I loved it. “The setting sun extinguished itself in the sparkling ocean …..” One can read this sort of drivel in endless pieces about endless resorts, and completely lose sight of where a particular property lies, or how it can possibly be distinguished from another. In general, I like some resorts and dislike others, and even after forty years of wandering find it difficult to explain where the border line lies. Mucumbli, however, not only lies firmly in the “like” column, I would go […]

Few have heard of Sao Tome, fewer still have thought about the country and very few have visited. Which is a pity because tourists or travellers visiting São Tomé e Príncipe Let me set the scene. The country lives in the Gulf of Guinea some three hundred miles from the coast of Gabon. It lies some 240 miles from the intellectually interesting but practically pointless location of 0°0’0”N and 0°0’0”E. Historically it was discovered by the Portuguese in 1470, and appear to all who have studied the matter to have previously been unoccupied and colonised pretty well consistently until independence […]

I should first admit that airlines are a passion of mine, and their operations in remote and tricky locations of particular interest. I should also point out, in the interest of fairness, that my own international flight (Fortaleza to Praia) with onward connections to Mindelo via Praia worked like a charm; my second attempt at inter-island travel, however, did not, and a one-hour journey became a twelve-hour slog. Sadly, however, for reliability, TACV (Transportes Aereos de Cabo Verde) is, however, in a league of its own. When it comes to scheduling, adherence to these timetables, indifference to their passengers, and […]

“The best laid plans”, it has been said, are not immune to change, and nowhere is the more true than in Cabo Verde – so Plan B was to visit Santiago and Tarrafal Tourists and travellers to this island nation really fit into one of two groups, those who stay put and those who wander. I am of the latter. One curiosity of Cabo Verde is the paucity of inter-island transportation; the national airline, TACV, flies between the islands with an imaginative schedule, an almost complete disregard for punctuality and a flair for the dramatic. Competition is non-existent, and those […]

In the argot of today, and the overuse of superlatives, it is difficult to describe an island as remarkable as this; Santo Antão, the most northwesterly island in the Cabo Verde archipelago, is quite simply stunning. It is beautiful, it is remarkable, it is friendly, it is simple and beyond all, it is quite astonishing that it has remained off travel radars for so long. It is, however, probably a good thing. Cabo Verde is a remarkable country. Santo Antao is a remarkable island in this unique archipelago. São Antão offers visitors some unique opportunities for travel, in particular for […]

Cabo Verde is a very odd place, which is possibly the best reason to travel to these islands. First to Sao Vicente. It is an country that is comprised of ten islands, each of which purports to offer visitors a very different experience, and from an initial and hasty overview, they are correct. Tourists travelling to Cabo Verde, and astonishingly there are many, may be disappointed if they only go to Sal, the primary island; it is from exploring the others that an appreciation for the distinct Cabo Verdean experience will be drawn. It is not quite Europe, and nor […]

French Guyana is not known for much except its Penal Colony and Papillon French Guyana French Guyana is not known for much. Its history is shady, its current politics virtually unknown, but the country does have an icon for tourists, and that is the penal colonies, and in particular the character of Papillon. The story of Papillon, Devil’s Island and the amazing escapes immortalised in the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen has fascinated us for decades, and is a very strong lure to this very interesting, but rather remote country. France used these brutal places both to hide […]