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Sao Tome and Principe

Greetings from off the coast of Angola. We dropped anchor in Sao Tome, Sao Principe November 29, 2022 from Togo with a day at sea in between. São Tomé and Príncipe, two separate islands, which are Portuguese-speaking island country in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa.

São Tomé is the capital and largest city of the Central African island country of São Tomé and Príncipe. Its name is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas". Founded in the 15th century, it is one of Africa's oldest colonial cities.

The two main islands of São Tomé and Sao Príncipe, 93 miles apart and about140 miles off the northwestern coast of Gabon. With a population of 201,800 Sao Príncipe is the second-smallest and second-least populous African sovereign state after Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.

São Tomé is the capital and largest city of the Central African island country of São Tomé and Príncipe. Its name is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas". Founded in the 15th century, it is one of Africa's oldest colonial cities.

The people of São Tomé and Príncipe are predominantly of African and Portuguese with Indian and Ceylon descent, with most practicing Catholicism.

The main town of Sao Tome. The chief exports are cocoa, coffee, copra, and palm products, while there is also a fishing industry.

Once we leave the main town it becomes tropical in the higher elevations. We arrive at the Roca Monte Cafe Plantation at an altitude of 1800 feet.

Children of the plantation. There is a school that accommodates 150 children. These are children of the workers on the plantation.

Kids are kids.. love to show off.

The plantation is a hillside village of plantation houses, it offers a small museum and formal tour of the coffee production process ,the arabica variety grows well at this1800 foot altitude. The tour nicely ties the entire plantation together, including a school with 150 children. Tastings at the small gift shop.

The buildings are very old and in bad condition due to the elements at 1800 feet.

While we were waiting to take the tour of the coffee plantation the rain poured down.

Here you see in the distance it almost looks like a tornado of rain headed our way.

Monte Café Plantation is pleasant to visit. We learned the factors affecting the taste, aroma, and quality of their coffee beans. We learned how the coffee beans are dried, sorted and roated before export.

Here you see some of the original equipment from the coffee plantation. The weather conditions of Monte Café, Coffee Mountain, hamlet were optimal for cultivating Arabica and, to a lesser extent, Robusta coffee varieties. In 1858, the property became the largest and earliest coffee plantation in Sao Tomé, thanks to the enormous development of coffee.

Inside the museum, the photographs depicting the slave trade, the colonial coffee processing machinery, and the ruins of the old complex transported me mentally to the coffee plantation run by the Portuguese in the 1860s.

The locals were dance to music played by a couple of the locals.

We next drove higher into the tropical forests to Sao Nicolau waterfall, an idyllic post card setting.

The students were just leaving schools as we drove back into down for lunch into town.

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