After the Coffee Rush by Paul Miles

Where does our world begin? Where is our origin? I don't mean the Garden of Eden, although this place could pass for that too; I mean: where on Earth is the map reference 'nought, nought'?

The answer lies in the sea of the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa. Here the zero lines of longitude and latitude – the Greenwich meridian and the equator - bisect. The closest island nation to this point, slap bang on the equator, is the tiny country of São Tomé & Principe.

It's less than thirty years since the Portuguese colonial powers left this tropical archipelago, and in their absence, it is the plant kingdom which has been busy colonising. Cobbled roads that were being forged across Sao Tome - the larger of the two islands - are now thick with foliage. Nineteenth century plantations, once a major source of the world's coffee and cocoa, are being strangled by the wild. Ferns sprout from mossy lintels and trees reach for the sky from small, now-roofless rooms which were the living quarters of slaves.

In one such living quarters - not much more than stone stables - one end of the building is ruined and reclaimed by the vigorous growth of the rainforest. Yet at the other end of the ten-room block, a couple in their fifties live in a dark, dank room.

Their names are Luis and Beladina and they are plantation workers. Each day they toil in the hot and humid orchards of cocoa and coffee; keeping the jungle at bay or picking cocoa prized by French chocolatiers for "subtle grassy and liquorice notes."

Beladina has never tasted chocolate, let alone French-made 'pure Sao Tome' chocolate. She cooks flying fish and taro on an open fire in their porch, and uses empty tins for saucepans. In their one small room is just a bed and a radio playing upbeat Brazilian rhythms.

Beyond Luis and Beladina's medieval hovel, down the few miles of the cobbled road that is navigable by 4 wheel-drive and which is yet to be completely covered by creeping vines and fallen trees, is an old plantation house where, back in the early twentieth century, colonial landlords lauded it over their workers on another plantation, or 'roca' (roh-sa).

The house is large and rickety: balustrades are broken, plumbing is erratic, electricity non-existent; yet there is faded grandeur and a view to the black-sand bay of the village of Sao Joao dos Angolares. So named, because this is the region of the island inhabited by the 'Angolars', descended from Angolan slaves washed ashore from a shipwreck in the fifteenth century and, possibly already well-established on the island when the Portuguese 'discovered' Sao Tome in the 1470s.

Tourists can stay in the plantation house as long as they are happy with the most basic conditions. Forget indulgent luxuries such as a choice of feather or foam from a 'pillow menu', you'll be lucky if you get a pillow of any description. Meals, cooked and served by the staff of young men, are simple, using local produce: fresh fish, caught by fishermen from their dug-out canoes and breadfruit from nearby trees, all spiced up with a dish of hot, nose-tingling chilli. The house is still being restored, but when I visited, with a group of other British tourists, the cutest bedroom was distinctly Latin, with its ochre walls, plain, colonial bed, a pea-green door and lilac shutters framing a view to the sea.

In the evenings, as we dined by candlelight and the moon rose over the bay to shine through the breadfruit trees, musicians came to play and sing - songs of love and longing; songs borrowed from Cape Verde, from where many plantation workers were recruited. Two of the musicians were also artists and in the plantation house itself, one room has been turned into an art gallery. There was a surprising mix of bright Chagal- and Picasso -like paintings and sculptures. Colourful, magical pictures inspired by youthfulness and freedom. With the coffee and cocoa industries dying, perhaps hospitality, music and art will be the beginning of a new way of life for the present generation?

There'd be many a friendly youth who'd prefer such jobs. One Saturday evening in Sao Tome town, quiet but for the odd hooting of horns from truck-loads of people going to a wedding reception; a group of lads beckoned me to join them on the street corner. A CD-player on a table was belting out Angolan 'cuduro' and Brazilian samba. Some boys were dancing on the wide pavement. They had decided to have an 'official launch' of their 'street youth place' - their weekend street-corner rendezvous. They had collected money among themselves to buy food and offered me a plate-full from a big pot. It smelled delicious. "Shellfish" they said, in Portuguese. "But from the ground, not the sea." I must have misunderstood, because what I saw, when they took the lid off the pot, was a stew of large, brown mushrooms. They were piquant and oily and combined well with breadfruit cooked in the fire, but they weren't mushrooms: they were chewy snails from the forest, called 'busio'. We ate and drank and danced to music from around the world and they told me about their lives. "We don't have any drugs in Sao Tome," said a nineteen year old boy who spoke English. "There's no crime either, never anything like bank robberies or mugging." When I asked about tourism, Adinex was adamant that there was none in Sao Tome. I explained there was a little, and, for instance, I was a tourist. He looked shocked. It was when he said that Sao Tome would never be like Afghanistan that I realised he had misunderstood.

Free from slavery and forced labour they may be, but that leaves the new generation with problems of their own. "It's hard to find jobs when people leave school. I want to go to university and then join the oil companies," said Adinex. Oil is destined to be the next big money-spinner. Exploration is beginning in the Gulf of Guinea in partnership with Nigeria, and in the next ten years or so, President Fradique Menezes reckons, oil platforms will surround the islands. There are those who hope that this won't be the start of just another short-lived boom period in the country's history. "We're trying to convince the government to develop another sector, such as tourism, and not just depend on oil," says Alejandro Diz Rodriguez, a Spaniard working in the United Nations Development Programme. The UNDP has drafted a strategic plan for tourism development. Among other things, it lays down guidelines for dealing with any overseas investors who want to restore abandoned plantation houses, currently wasting away and being chopped up for firewood. But the guidelines may lie gathering dust for a few more years. "The plan will be shelved for a while: the government's focused on oil at the moment," says Rodriguez. "It's a shame because the country's perfect for tourism - it's a mix of Seychelles and Cuba: there are amazing beaches, but lovely old towns and buildings too."

Quiet towns. At night, even the capital city of Sao Tome town's wide roads are more or less deserted. During the day, there is some bustle around the market, where people sell corn, vegetables and herbs from the forest. The streets are full of yellow taxis and bicycles avoiding muddy pot-holes. But just a stroll away from the commerce; goats and pigs amble down the roads, foraging in garbage or tugging at grass sprouting from the pavement. Fallen leaves are swept into heaps, only to be blown away again and large palm fronds and tree branches scatter the tarmac. It wouldn't take long for Sao Tome town to revert to jungle too.

Less than 5,000 visitors from Europe went to Sao Tome & Principe in 2000, and few of those were tourists. It's the kind of place where if you sit with an espresso at the only pavement cafe - on the seafront outside the Hotel Miramar - you find yourself being invited along to the expat parties, so rare are visitors. Perhaps the country doesn't realise how much it has to offer? The selection of postcards - at a dollar each - is as exciting as boring vistas of British A roads: a cocoa tree, the modern office block on the seafront, cars on a road.

But the potential for perfect postcards and tourism is everywhere: beaches, rainforests and rivers and the pastel shades of crumbling colonial elegance.

In the absence of any government-sponsored tourism promotion, adventure tourists are beginning to discover the islands. Over two days, in the company of a group of 13 other tourists travelling with the British company, Explore Worldwide, I had hiked to 'Roca Sao Joao' through the rainforest - a politely discreet term I feel for an ecosystem which drenched us in a biblical deluge for hours on end. Relentless-rain-forest would seem more apt.

Despite steep descents, gushing streams and not all being real outdoorsy types, we survived unscathed save for the odd bruise and ruined hair-do. "It's a good job I've got waterproof mascara," said one, at the end of a day of cataclysmic downpours.

An EU-funded project has cleared paths in Obo National Park. The idea being that small scale ecotourism will help protect some of the country's diverse flora and fauna. We hiked for up to nine hours a day, at times over slippery rocks and twisted roots, crossing rivers with the helping hands of local guides. There are endemic white-flowering begonias which reach several metres tall, trees with buttress roots the size of a small house and countless stands of bamboo towering over the path like crashing tsunami.

We reached the top of a 1500m volcano and spied the peaks of sugarloaf mountains rising through the mist. We saw monkeys swinging through the tree-tops and a long black serpent snaking menacingly over branches. There were giant sunbirds and paradise flycatchers - two of 125 bird species endemic to the country. Our guide, Pedro Nobre, one of the minority of the population who can speak fluent English, pointed out trees used for medicine and magic, but mostly to invigorate the sex lives of flagging men, sometimes with Priappic consequences. "A young friend of mine who didn't really need it, made some very strong tea from the leaves and was in hospital for three days," grinned Pedro.

At the end of the first day's hike, we wound our way down a dirt road to an open clearing where the evening sun shone golden on the fronts of old decaying buildings around a large grassy field. The whole scene, with misty jungle-cloaked mountains behind and children chasing pigs between the rows of crumbling worker's quarters, was timeless. This was 'Roca Bom Baim', another one of the country's plantations where the 'casa grande' is being restored so that tourists can stay. Like Roca Sao Joao, it has a long way to go before it can be described as comfortable - no electricity, poor plumbing, and only the barest essentials in the bedrooms. Our group was too numerous for the facilities on offer and several of us had to sleep on mattresses on the floor or even make do on the back seat of a 4-wheel-drive; and there was always a queue for the two bathrooms. But the setting is magnificent and the food was good and hearty, with welcome cold beers and imported Portuguese wines.

I wandered around the workers' quarters opposite. An old man showed me a snake skin nailed to the wall to dry, and asked if I wanted to buy it for five dollars. Another man, Miguel, then took me into his empty room and produced the head of a snake marinading in an oily liquid in an old plastic bottle. "It's good for rheumatism" he said, miming rubbing it on his body. He was young and muscular and didn't look like he suffered from such aches and pains.

Like Miguel, the country is ailing. Until the oil revenue begins, 70% of the nation's income is from aid. It was not always so. In the sixteenth century, Sao Tome and Principe was the world's largest producer of sugar; now the little that is grown is turned into mind-numbing aguardiente. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coffee and cocoa brought more wealth, but it was a wealth built on slavery, even long after the practice had been officially abolished by the Portuguese. As recently as the 1950s people were still being forced to work on plantations. In 1953, Portuguese troops killed many hundreds who protested against a 'work brigade'.

In the museum, in the 16th century fort on the seafront in Sao Tome town, are photographs of some of the bloated, bloodied bodies as well as the bayonets and chains which were used to kill. Next door to the 'massacre room', in the 'colonial epoch' room is an elaborate silver tray presented to the man who gave the order to kill: Governor Carlos de Sousa Gorgulho. In 1952, a year before the massacre, it was presented to him by the 'Empregados de Comercio'. I think another, more resentful people would have removed that tray from the museum, or, at least explained what he went on to do, blessed by the business-folk.

Perhaps to compensate for their harsh rule, a fair amount of aid now comes from Portugal, especially for culture and art. A famous Portuguese architect, Alvaro Siza Vieira has plans to restore the ruins of the tiny capital of Principe island with the aim of achieving UNESCO World Heritage status.

The smaller island of Principe - just 42 square miles and 5,000 people - is "quieter" than Sao Tome, said Pedro, our rainforest guide. That takes some doing. But it's true. There are only 29 vehicles on the island. Most people walk, cycle or cadge a lift in someone else's 4-wheel-drive. In the ‘town’ of Santo Antonio, the wide roads are empty but for groups of schoolchildren wandering arm in arm. A boy collects discarded cans for recycling and two men spend a good ten minutes admiring a new pair of flip-flops for strength of sole.

There’s only one decent place from which to appreciate Principe. Bom Bom Island resort is owned by a wealthy South African who wanted to find somewhere beautiful and remote to go with his angling chums and fish for whopping marlin and sail fish. He certainly found it, and ten years ago bought his small corner of paradise and built twenty five rondavels and a restaurant and bar on a small islet opposite. Perhaps because it seems to be mainly a rich man's hobby, or perhaps because it's so remote, but the place is more or less empty most of the year. When I was there, the only other guests were a woman writing the first travel guide to the country and a French water engineer working on an aid project.

The topography is something you would doodle on an envelope if asked to draw the perfect resort setting - a rocky knoll on a promontory with long palm-fringed beaches leading away either side; one side for sunrise views, one for sunset; a rainforested islet opposite the promontory, close enough to walk to when the tide's out, all with a back-drop of jungle-clad mountains. Multi-millionaire Mr Hellinger knows his stuff when it comes to resort locations. I'm not so sure about his interior design skills though: in the rondavels there are dark-stained tree trunk coffee tables, frilly lamp-shades and garish fabric. The dubious taste continues in the restaurant and bar on the small islet of Bom Bom, reached by a 230metre wooden walkway. But the food is good: fish that all end in vowels – barracuda, wahoo, bonito and dorado - freshly caught and served with local vegetables. There's South African wine (from Mr Hellinger's estate of course) and strong Sao Tome coffee.

Not far from Bom Bom, along red dirt roads, there are yet more ruined plantation houses, one of which, Sundy, is still habitable and is used by the President as a country retreat. It has wonderful tiled floors and curvaceous cane furniture and gives an idea of quite how grand living used to be.

As if having a landscape of sugarloaf peaks, jungle and old colonial grandeur were not enough, Principe’s beaches are, well, perfect. Banana beach, near Bom Bom, was chosen by Bacardi as the location for an advert. It has large black rocks at one end, steeply shelving sands and, usually, swimming-pool-clarity. There’s no sign of humanity, except the small bobbing boat of the newly-settled European plantation owners who live at the top of the hill in their restored 'casa grande.'

The Portuguese couple are making a go of the plantations again as well as growing chillies and pineapples. They’re even starting to develop small-scale tourism.

It seems as if some people have decided to fight back against the jungle; for our lifetime at least. Who can blame them when they've chosen to begin anew somewhere so beautiful? Somewhere so…original.

First published in Conde Nast Traveller, November 2003.