Sao Tomé is a green volcanic island on the equator, and for a century and a half it was a cocoa empire. The Portuguese planted vast estates called roças across the land, each one a small town with a manor, a hospital, a church, drying platforms and rows of workers' housing, and by 1900 the islands were one of the largest cocoa producers in the world. The labour was brutal. Workers contracted from Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique worked in conditions little better than slavery, and the scandal broke in Europe in the early twentieth century, prompting boycotts by chocolate makers.
São João dos Angolares lies on the south-east side of the island, and it carries another story. The Angolares are the people who live in the south, said to be descendants of enslaved Africans who survived a shipwreck in the sixteenth century and made a life in the forest and the sea, fishing and farming separately from the plantation world. Their culture, language and cooking are distinct, and the village still has the smell of woodsmoke and fish.
The roça here is one of several, with its buildings in various states of grace, and it belongs to the group of roças listed with Colonia and Diogo Vaz in the ride titles. Many are now half-ruined, some are being restored and a few offer guided visits, so ask locally before you go. The island is small, and the town of São Tomé, with more than fifty thousand people, is the only place with real services, including fuel, so fill up there.
The road along the east coast is one of the island's best rides, though that is a relative term. The asphalt is patched, with potholes and sudden gaps, and the bends follow the coast between palms, beaches of black volcanic sand and villages where children wave. Rain comes hard and often, and the dry season, called gravana, from June to September, is the best time. Try fresh grilled fish, breadfruit and the island's chocolate, which is among the best in Africa, and remember that the equator itself, on the tiny Ilhéu das Rolas, is a short boat ride from the south coast.