The Roças of Sao Tome and Principe: Coloni and Diogo Vaz

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Monte Café

   Sao Tome is a tiny island on the equator, in the Gulf of Guinea, and for over a century it was one of the biggest cocoa and coffee producers in the world. Monte Cafe, in the hills above the capital at about six hundred metres, was one of the great plantations, called rocas, that covered much of the island. The Portuguese began planting coffee here in the nineteenth century, and the estate grew to include a processing yard, drying terraces, a hospital, a church and rows of workers' housing, all in a cool, cloudy valley under thick forest. The roca system, built on forced and poorly paid labour, was harsh, and the buildings remain as a monument to both the island's wealth and its suffering.

   Read the complete Monte Café write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Monte Café comes up about 0 km into the recorded legs. Next is Agua Izé.

2. 2. Agua Izé

   Agua Izé was once the grandest of São Tomé's roças, the great plantation estates that made this tiny island, just north of the equator, one of the world's leading cocoa producers in the early twentieth century. It lies on the southeast coast, about thirteen kilometres from the capital, and the buildings tell the story: a big administrative house, long workers' quarters, a hospital, storehouses and drying platforms, all now peeling and softened by tropical growth. Walls are flaking yellow and ochre, and roofs sag, but the scale is unmistakable.

   Read the complete Agua Izé write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 27 km into the recorded legs you reach Agua Izé. Next is Sao Joao.

3. 3. São João

   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.

   Read the complete Sao Joao write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sao Joao, about halfway. Next is Diogo Vaz.

4. 4. Diogo Vaz

   Diogo Vaz is a roça, one of the old plantation estates that once covered most of São Tomé, the small island in the Gulf of Guinea that straddles the equator. The Portuguese found the island uninhabited in the fifteenth century, settled it with enslaved labour from the mainland and grew sugar, and later, in the nineteenth century, built an economy on cocoa and coffee. By the early twentieth century São Tomé was among the world's leading cocoa producers, and the roças, each with a manor house, a hospital, a drying yard and a village of workers, were small worlds of their own.

   Read the complete Diogo Vaz write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Diogo Vaz sits at 143 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sao Joao.

5. 5. back through Sao Joao

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Sao Joao write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Sao Joao comes up about 209 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Agua Izé.

6. 6. back through Agua Izé

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Agua Izé write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 236 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Agua Izé. Next is back through Monte Café.

7. 7. back through Monte Café

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Monte Café write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Monte Café, late in the day. Next is The Roças of Sao Tome and Principe: Coloni.