Time away in Portugal

Two sleeps - as I say to Zachary - until we leave for our holiday away from our Principe home. I'm fast approaching my 'island sanity limit' and can't wait for the time away and some first world lights and action, including...English movies, restaurants, clothes stores, toy shops, cars - not white bakkies, choice, variety... and so the list goes on. Zachary, however, is most excited about the possibility of finding a playground with a slide!

We're meeting up with friends and their two children in Praia das Macas and all staying together in a villa in Cascais, with lovely grounds for the kiddies to play in. Being from South Africa, a novelty for us will be travelling using the public transport system, which we are told by Portuguese colleagues, is efficient and safe. It's been a long time since I've been on a train.

Beautiful Belo Monte

Zachary, Mark and I attended the opening of the Roca Belo Monte Plantation Hotel today. I've blogged before about beautiful Belo Monte, which will give any new readers a bit of background about this plantation estate, but with the estate's renovation, it has new life. Sipping a glass of chilled white wine on the terrace this afternoon, overlooking the spectacular sea view, everything suddenly felt very civilized on our rural little island.

Our family adventure to Principe has its ups and downs, but with the renovation of Belo Monte, I am excited about having somewhere else to go for leisure! It will certainly add to the 'ups'. Weekends at the beach are great, as is Bom Bom Resort, but a little choice when it comes to weekend plans will be excellent. A chocolate milkshake - strangely, an impossibility for us on this island thus far - will be something for Zachary, and his parents to look forward to, one of these weekends to come...

Durban holiday coming up...

On Sunday we begin our journey home, to arrive on Tuesday evening, travel weary I'm sure.With lots of prayer covering us, we'll negotiate five airports over the three days, crossing from off the West coast of Africa, through two islands, down the body of Africa and on to our coastal home. We've done this journey many times now and the thought of doing it again just makes me tired. Although so looking forward to the break from our island existance and to seeing family and friends, the travelling is a mission. At first with our travels was the initial excitement of the unknown, which turned into the anxiety producing known but has now descended into the wearisome state which seasoned travellers through Africa know well. I'm not sure how many more times we'll negotiate this long route, as we have been here 12 months now. I look forward to forgetting Luanda airport...

A photo journal from March 2013 to Feb 2014

Approaching Principe

Sao Tome



Airport



Bom Bom Resort view



Cacao

Airport wood fire bakery

City market inside

City market outside

Local shop

Buying and weighing fish

 

The local currency, Dobra. STD 100 000 = around R50

Festival of St Lawrence



The Papagio river which runs through the city

Santo Antonio is the second smallest city in the world, qualifying as a city because of the Cathedral present and because of the local government, amongst other things.



Portuguese architecture in the city



Here, the trees are taking over...

Most housing is made from wood and on stilts



Our home and the Aurecon offices nextdoor.



Sundy ex- plantation estate house in ruins

 Roca Sundy or Sundy plantation estate, is the largest of its kind on the island. Although in ruins, a community lives on the grounds and have made homes in the shells of the buildings. There are plans ahead to renovate the estate for tourism.

Tucked away is a disused steam engine







Praia Buoy

Belo Monte terrace with Praia Banana below



Praia Macaco







The stinky whale

We've been back on Principe for nearly two weeks now and are getting into our life here and routine again. Zachary's sleeping patterns have returned to normal, after all the changes of the travelling and holidays, making Mark and I very pleased. For the first week he was still on South African time and was waking up for the day between 3.30am and 5am, which we didnt enjoy!

Answered prayers meant that on the way home from South Africa we encountered no undue hitches, including visa difficulties and Zachary took the flight between the islands on the noisy Dornier, very calmly. So all in all, since my last blog entry, things have been good.


Earlier on this week, we went on an adventure to see a whale which had washed up dead on Praia Grande, one of the beaches on the West of the island. Most of the local people seem unfamiliar with this beach and there is some sort of legend attached to it about a ship's captain going missing near the beach, so the unused 'road' to get there was the bumpiest, most bouldery, yet. However we all congratulated ourselves on enduring the ride and it was worth it to see the massive body of the deceased whale. As long as the wind direction blew away from us, we could go up to it, but when it changed the smell was nauseating. Zachary objected greatly to the smell of the "stinky whale" and after a few photos, we headed back.

Christmas holidays

It's been a while since my last post as our internet has been very unpredictable, causing me to loose a few draft posts and frustrating my blogging motivation. At the moment I have network, although its very on and off this morning. I know because I have a jazz radio station playing through my tablet and it has taken a few rests while I've been busy.

This week, we're counting down until our Christmas holiday break. We've only got three full days until we leave on our flight to Sao Tome, the larger island, where we'll spend a night. From there, if our visas are waiting, we'll catch our connecting flight to Luanda. In Luanda's airport we will wait for around 5 hours for our flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, and again we will spend a night there and then on to Durban the next day. We break the last SA leg up to avoid toddler insanity. It's a lot of travelling for an adult to handle, let alone a little person and last time Zachary came out in childhood Excema after our flights.

Once in back home in Durban, we've several wonderful weeks of holiday to enjoy with our family and friends. We're so looking forward to the lights, action and restaurants. Its been a long 5 month haul on our tiny, quiet island.

Merry Christmas and I pray that you will be celebrating this special time of the birth of Christ with us and Christians all over the world.

Until next year...

The Sao Tome Spinetail

Living near the airport now, we've developed the habit of going for late afternoon walks along the dirt roads near the airstrip. The sun sets consistently early on Principe it seems, around 5.30pm, so 5pm is a great time to watch the birds which feed in flight, swooping through the air and speeding along just above ground. Keeping to themselves the Grey Parrots fly up high, on their way home to Bom Bom Island.

An unusual thing about Principe is that the Little Swift and the Sao Tome Spinetail, sometimes called the Sao Tome Spine-tailed Swift, fly together in mixed groups while feeding. Both birds are black-brown with a white rump and for a novice birder the mixed groups had me stumped for while. Though with this information I'm starting to see the subtle differences between them, the smaller size of the Little Swift for one. The Sao Tome Spinetail itself only measures around 10cm, small for the boomerang winged species. As an aside, the name  Spinetail originates from the spine tipped ends of their wings.To confuse my identification skills a bit more, the Little Swift looks superficially similar to the Barn Swallow, which also occur here and their flying style is fluttery and similar.So the Sao Tome Spinetail has my interest at the moment, as I learn to distinguish it from other similar species in the air but one thing is for sure though, they are too swift for my camera.