Mekicevica's Crew on the Equator

There is more to life than sailing, although not a lot more. So we try to alternate sailing holidays with travels to exotic places. This time with decided to go to São Tomé, a tiny island off the west coast of Africa, right on the Equator. Since Mekicevica is too tiny to take us there and time not unlimited, we opted to fly.
Once it was the pearl of the Portuguese empire. It was also the producer of the highest quality cocoa, and probably still is, but production is so small is goes unnoticed by all except a few connoisseurs of good chocolate. In 1975, shortly after the fall of the Portuguese fascist regime, São Tomé and the neighbouring island of Principe formed the second smallest nation of Africa.
Economic progress has been slow and the islands are poor, despite the flashy 4-wheel-drives that belong mostly to high-rank politicians and aid-workers.
In spite of this, the natural beauty and the friendliness of the small population make them close to paradise.

Providing you know some Portuguese, it is easy to travel around. If you prefer to just see the beautiful beaches with the occasional guided tour of the jungle, there are also high-end resorts that cater for that type of tourism. But you will miss out a lot of what the islands have to offer...
Here is a link to our slideshow.