São Tomé, São Tomé and Príncipe

Journey to where São Tomé points the Equator


Pantufo bay
Tropical and fishing inlet in the town of Pantufo.
Freshly caught
Young family of fishermen displays freshly caught fish.
Pantufo fishing boats
Native of Pantufo passes among the fishing boats fleet of the village.
brown lady
Resident of Roça São João Angolares.
João Carlos Silva in Roça São João
Cook João Carlos Silva and helpers prepare snacks in Roça São João Angolares.
Brown Lady II
Resident of Roça São João Angolares.
Boca do Inferno
The slab and formation of volcanic origin off São João dos Angolares.
Angolares Kindergarten
Children play in a tropical nursery in São João dos Angolares.
Washers from Ribeira Afonso
Women from the surroundings of the Afonso river in an intense fluvial washing of clothes.
Angolares curve
Motorcycle completes a meander of the road, at the imminence of the São João de Angolares roça.
Porto Alegre residents
Inhabitants of buildings bequeathed by the Porto Alegre countryside.
Maternal washing
Woman washes clothes with a baby strapped to her back.
Fut Beach in Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre boys play ball on the low tide.
The Ducks of the Country
Flock of ducks at the entrance to the São João de Angolares farm.
spoils of war
Abandoned battle tank in Roça de Porto Alegre.
Porto Alegre
Brand image of the Porto Alegre farm, its boulevard of palm trees.
farmhouse
Building of colonial origin on the São João de Angolares farm.
Roça Sao Joao dos Angolares
Lawn and building in Roça São João Angolares.
Young Residents of Agua Izé
Young residents of the Água-Izé farm.
Roça Água Izé Building
Semi-abandoned building on the Água-Izé farm.
We go along the road that connects the homonymous capital to the sharp end of the island. When we arrived in Roça Porto Alegre, with the islet of Rolas and Ecuador in front of us, we had lost ourselves time and time again in the historical and tropical drama of São Tomé.

As for itself, the journey towards the extreme south of São Tomé had everything to drag on.

The fact that we were faced with an obligatory first stop in Pantufo did little to help.

Pantufo was a mere 3km away from the island's big city. With almost two thousand inhabitants, this outskirts on the capital's seafront planted together with abundant houses blessed by the church of São Pedro, in the vicinity of the lawn of FC Aliança Nacional, the club that concentrates the sporting passions of the land.

And yet, what catches our attention is the frenzy in which we found the sand below the Estada de Pantufo, at a time when its fishermen were returning from their work.

Groups of them join forces to pull the boats out of reach of the high tide. Others, already in the company of families, examine the caught fish.

Not sure how to deal with our unexpected interest, they choose the most voluminous and impressive specimens of fish, for example, a beautiful fish that still has a lot of the blue of the Atlantic.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, Pescador de Pantufo and BonitoAnd three or four, less exuberant, that a young family member gathers and shows us in a bunch, then slips between the artisanal boats in a dry dock and disappears behind the hedge of trees that separates the bay from the village.

The route remains close to the sea. At the doors of the yellow and pointed Church of Santana, the two directions separate.

South-North transit is almost over the ocean. On the opposite side below, we head towards Água Izé, a village and site of another unavoidable garden in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Roça Água-Izé. A Slave Project of a Black Made Baron

An unusual historical fact, it sets it apart from the rest. The Roça Água Izé was the work of João Maria de Sousa Almeida (1816-1869), a prince of black origin. Son of a landed colonel, member of a surprisingly wealthy and influential black family for the time.

According to his resources, the Baron of Água Izé, as D. Luís proclaimed in 1868, traveled the world. He has accumulated a curriculum and life experience that, in and of themselves, is a story.

He was a military commander, governor of Benguela and a trader in Angola.

He lived in Lisbon, from where he left for a European tour. Later, he crossed the Atlantic to discover South American Portugal.

In Brazil, Portuguese settlers maintained one of the largest plantations in the world, at the expense of the labor of millions of slaves kidnapped in Africa.

Also in this chapter of the Portuguese colonial era, João Maria de Sousa Almeida proved to be a case apart. Or not so much.

The Agricultural and Slavery Investments of João Maria de Sousa Almeida

Despite his black origins, the Baron got rich from the slave trade.

Returning from Brazil to São Tomé and Príncipe in 1853, he took with him a series of novelties that would prove the basis of the archipelago's colonial agricultural success: coffee, tobacco, palm oil and cocoa, which he claimed to be the tree of the poor.

Two years later, in Praia-Rei, now known as Água Izé, he planted the first cacao trees and inaugurated what would later be revealed to prolific cocoa production of the Principe Island Company.

And after half a decade, he already had such a command of the secrets of cocoa that he published a complete study on its planting and processing.

The obedience of her slave workers, this one, won her over by cruelty. Indifferent to his origins, João Maria de Sousa Almeida resorted, over and over again, to violence and heartless punishment.

When we descend to Boca do Inferno, a volcanic slab that generates exuberant marine geysers, such blows from the Atlantic are almost null.

Accordingly, the guide who takes us there places the emphasis of the visit on the myth forever associated with the place: “they know that Baron João Maria de Sousa Almeida so impressed the São Toméans that they began to see him as supernatural.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, Boca do InfernoIt was said that he had the power to ride into this Boca do Inferno and go straight out into Cascais.”

With regard to the Baron of Água-Izé, between mythical and real but surreal stories, it would make for a novel on its own.

The Free but Very Humble Life of Roça Água Izé Post-Independence

Returning to the houses surrounded by coconut trees, banana trees and other tropical flora of Água Izé, we find the old farm in full activity.

In a warehouse, a team of natives choose the cocoa, bag it and stack sacks, a job that is not enough for the more than 1200 inhabitants of Água Izé.

As we walk around, we cross your non-cacao day-to-day life.

Children who, in the street, wash dishes, pick freshly picked bananas or take school TPCs by light outside their home. Mothers who breastfeed newborns, others who grill fish.

Still others who rest seated against the walls of the old sanzalas, engaged in good-natured conversations.

Ribeira Afonso and his Unconformist Washers

Having completed another 6km to the south, a new expression of Santomean life proves too exuberant for us to ignore.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, washerwomen Ribeira AfonsoThe narrow way. Fits into a bridge. To both sides, the Ribeira Afonso, which we crossed, was full of washerwomen and already washed clothes, stretched out in the sun on the rocky banks.

In good African fashion, some women had babies strapped to their backs. They rocked the shoots with the rubbing and back and forth of their vigorous bodies.

Unsurprisingly, that profusion of washerwomen attracted the attention of foreigners who passed by. The women were more than fed up with being photographed, so our efforts met with near-immediate disapproval.

"Stop it! It's the same thing every day, do you think this is the zoo or what?”

From Ribeira Afonso down, the road gives way to a series of intricate meanders. It conquers the jagged coves of Micondo and returns to the interior.

A new sharp curve leaves us at the entrance to Roça São João dos Angolares.

Travel São Tomé, Ecuador, São Tomé and Principe, Angolares curve

In Roça with the Tachos in São João dos Angolares

It was about lunchtime. And it was the São Toméan dishes and snacks from the TV show “In the countryside with the pots” that made Roça São João and the cook João Carlos Silva famous.

We are greeted by an assorted flock of ducks too busy with their feather arrangement to make way for us.

Travel São Tomé, Ecuador, São Tomé and Principe, ducks from Roça São João de AngolaresWe went up to the house. We admired the simple, elegant decor that blended in perfectly with the colonial features of the doors and windows.

We pass to the terrace. We found it shared by groups of guests, friends and family, who enjoyed appetizers.

João Carlos Silva is also there, it couldn't be otherwise. The host starts his gastronomic show of the day.

Supported by some helpers, he creates a sequence of traditional snacks, made with banana, passion fruit, peanuts, chocolate, seafood and many flavors from São Tomé.

Travel São Tomé, Ecuador, São Tomé and Principe, João Carlos Silva, Roça São João AngolaresJoão Carlos Silva serves them on towels with African patterns that we could find in capulanas and handkerchiefs.

And with a privileged view over the surrounding property and the bay of Angolares in front. Such a meal and the setting in which it was served deserved the rest of the afternoon in contemplative rest.

Accustomed to photographic nomadism, we force ourselves to take up the itinerary again.

The Tropical and Eccentric Pico Cão Grande Mirage

As we had prepared it, we knew that the way to the southern tip passed through one of the strange and emblematic elevations of São Tomé.

We expected to catch a glimpse of him at any moment. The vision did not take long, lacking the vegetal purity it deserved.

After the village of Dª Augusta and Praia de Pesqueira, São Tomé, lined with its natural and endemic vegetation, gives way to an endless planting of palm oil palm trees, the same ones that Barão de Água Izé introduced to the island and which , increasingly, throughout this world, profane the tropics.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, Pico Cão GrandeWe saw the sharp mountain of Pico Cão Grande, towering above an endless number of palm trees and, from time to time, half sunk in a low cloud cover that drowned the dense and mysterious rainforest of the Ôbo Natural Park, a jungle, instead, protected .

We proceeded south. We left behind Monte Mário and Henrique. We arrive at Ponta da Baleia, which serves as an anchorage for boat connections to Ilhéu das Rolas.

We cross Vila Malaza.

Porto Alegre, its own Roça and the Funds of the island of São Tomé

On the other side of the bay that welcomed it, we arrived at Roça Porto Alegre, and returned to the historical sphere of the Sousa Almeida family.

Jacinto Carneiro, son of the Baron of Água-Izé, was founded.

Although remote and accessible almost only by boat, Jacinto Carneiro managed to expand it and turn it into a serious case of agricultural multi-production, to the point where, in a self-sufficiency regime, it became the second largest property in the south of São Tomé , with a vast territory that included the Ilhéu das Rolas and six dependencies.

Roça de Porto Alegre maintains a configuration that is unique, with an alley of palm trees leading to its main house, next to the employees' homes and the long swathes.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, Roça Porto AlegreOnce again, we find the garden given over to the kind of historic backwater that São Tomé found itself in after independence. Goats and chickens dot the pasture at the entrance, the palm lane and the dilapidated courtyards.

A single element clashed with the expected scenario of a Santomean farm. By some war contingency, rusted and taken over by vegetation, an old battle tank had found the last landing there.

Travel Sao Tome, Ecuador, Sao Tome and Principe, Roça Porto Alegre tankA few kilometers to the south, Inhame beach proved to be the last of the bathing spots on the island of São Tomé. A kind of geological finger inaccessible by road showed us the imminent Ilhéu das Rolas.

And, crossing it, the equator line that marks the tropical environment of the Planet.

Príncipe, São Tomé and Principe

Journey to the Noble Retreat of Príncipe Island

150 km of solitude north of the matriarch São Tomé, the island of Príncipe rises from the deep Atlantic against an abrupt and volcanic mountain-covered jungle setting. Long enclosed in its sweeping tropical nature and a contained but moving Luso-colonial past, this small African island still houses more stories to tell than visitors to listen to.
São Tomé and Principe

Cocoa Roças, Corallo and the Chocolate Factory

At the beginning of the century. In the XNUMXth century, São Tomé and Príncipe generated more cocoa than any other territory. Thanks to the dedication of some entrepreneurs, production survives and the two islands taste like the best chocolate.
Chã das Caldeiras, Fogo Island Cape Verde

A "French" Clan at the Mercy of Fire

In 1870, a Count born in Grenoble on his way to Brazilian exile, made a stopover in Cape Verde where native beauties tied him to the island of Fogo. Two of his children settled in the middle of the volcano's crater and continued to raise offspring there. Not even the destruction caused by the recent eruptions deters the prolific Montrond from the “county” they founded in Chã das Caldeiras.    
island of salt, Cape Verde

The Salt of the Island of Sal

At the approach of the XNUMXth century, Sal remained lacking in drinking water and practically uninhabited. Until the extraction and export of the abundant salt there encouraged a progressive population. Today, salt and salt pans add another flavor to the most visited island in Cape Verde.
Boa Vista Island, Cape Verde

Boa Vista Island: Atlantic waves, Dunas do Sara

Boa Vista is not only the Cape Verdean island closest to the African coast and its vast desert. After a few hours of discovery, it convinces us that it is a piece of the Sahara adrift in the North Atlantic.
Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde

Santa Maria and the Atlantic Blessing of Sal

Santa Maria was founded in the first half of the XNUMXth century, as a salt export warehouse. Today, thanks to the providence of Santa Maria, Sal Ilha is worth much more than the raw material.
Santo Antão, Cape Verde

Up and Down the Estrada da Corda

Santo Antão is the westernmost of the Cape Verde Islands. There lies an Atlantic and rugged threshold of Africa, a majestic insular domain that we begin by unraveling from one end to the other of its dazzling Estrada da Corda.
Fogo Island, Cape Verde

Around the Fogo Island

Time and the laws of geomorphology dictated that the volcano-island of Fogo rounded off like no other in Cape Verde. Discovering this exuberant Macaronesian archipelago, we circled around it against the clock. We are dazzled in the same direction.
São Nicolau, Cape Verde

São Nicolau: Pilgrimage to Terra di Sodade

Forced matches like those that inspired the famous morna “soda” made the pain of having to leave the islands of Cape Verde very strong. Discovering saninclau, between enchantment and wonder, we pursue the genesis of song and melancholy.
Chã das Caldeiras a Mosteiros, Fogo Island, Cape Verde

Chã das Caldeiras to Mosteiros: descent through the Ends of Fogo

With the Cape Verde summit conquered, we sleep and recover in Chã das Caldeiras, in communion with some of the lives at the mercy of the volcano. The next morning, we started the return to the capital São Filipe, 11 km down the road to Mosteiros.
São Nicolau, Cape Verde

Photography of Nha Terra São Nicolau

The voice of the late Cesária Verde crystallized the feeling of Cape Verdeans who were forced to leave their island. who visits São Nicolau or, wherever it may be, admires images that illustrate it well, understands why its people proudly and forever call it their land.
Ilha de Mozambique, Mozambique  

The Island of Ali Musa Bin Bique. Pardon... of Mozambique

With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in the extreme south-east of Africa, the Portuguese took over an island that had previously been ruled by an Arab emir, who ended up misrepresenting the name. The emir lost his territory and office. Mozambique - the molded name - remains on the resplendent island where it all began and also baptized the nation that Portuguese colonization ended up forming.
Rolas Islet, São Tomé and Principe

Rolas Islet: São Tomé and Principe at Latitude Zero

The southernmost point of São Tomé and Príncipe, Ilhéu das Rolas is lush and volcanic. The big news and point of interest of this island extension of the second smallest African nation is the coincidence of crossing the Equator.
São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe

Through the Tropical Top of São Tomé

With the homonymous capital behind us, we set out to discover the reality of the Agostinho Neto farm. From there, we take the island's coastal road. When the asphalt finally yields to the jungle, São Tomé had confirmed itself at the top of the most dazzling African islands.
Sao Tome (city), São Tomé and Principe

The Capital of the Santomean Tropics

Founded by the Portuguese, in 1485, São Tomé prospered for centuries, like the city because of the goods in and out of the homonymous island. The archipelago's independence confirmed it as the busy capital that we trod, always sweating.
Saudade, São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe

Almada Negreiros: From Saudade to Eternity

Almada Negreiros was born in April 1893, on a farm in the interior of São Tomé. Upon discovering his origins, we believe that the luxuriant exuberance in which he began to grow oxygenated his fruitful creativity.
Center São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe

From Roça to Roça, Towards the Tropical Heart of São Tomé

On the way between Trindade and Santa Clara, we come across the terrifying colonial past of Batepá. Passing through the Bombaim and Monte Café roças, the island's history seems to have been diluted in time and in the chlorophyll atmosphere of the Santomean jungle.
Roca Sundy, Príncipe Island, São Tomé and Principe

The Certainty of Relativity

In 1919, Arthur Eddington, a British astrophysicist, chose the Roça Sundy to prove Albert Einstein's famous theory. More than a century later, the island of Príncipe that welcomed him is still among the most stunning places in the Universe.
Rhinoceros, PN Kaziranga, Assam, India
Safari
PN Kaziranga, India

The Indian Monoceros Stronghold

Situated in the state of Assam, south of the great Brahmaputra river, PN Kaziranga occupies a vast area of ​​alluvial swamp. Two-thirds of the rhinocerus unicornis around the world, there are around 100 tigers, 1200 elephants and many other animals. Pressured by human proximity and the inevitable poaching, this precious park has not been able to protect itself from the hyperbolic floods of the monsoons and from some controversies.
Mount Lamjung Kailas Himal, Nepal, altitude sickness, mountain prevent treat, travel
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 2th - Chame a Upper BananaNepal

(I) Eminent Annapurnas

We woke up in Chame, still below 3000m. There we saw, for the first time, the snowy and highest peaks of the Himalayas. From there, we set off for another walk along the Annapurna Circuit through the foothills and slopes of the great mountain range. towards Upper Banana.
Bay Watch cabin, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,
Architecture & Design
Miami beach, USA

The Beach of All Vanities

Few coasts concentrate, at the same time, so much heat and displays of fame, wealth and glory. Located in the extreme southeast of the USA, Miami Beach is accessible via six bridges that connect it to the rest of Florida. It is meager for the number of souls who desire it.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Adventure
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
Kente Festival Agotime, Ghana, gold
Ceremonies and Festivities
Kumasi to Kpetoe, Ghana

A Celebration-Trip of the Ghanian Fashion

After some time in the great Ghanaian capital ashanti we crossed the country to the border with Togo. The reasons for this long journey were the kente, a fabric so revered in Ghana that several tribal chiefs dedicate a sumptuous festival to it every year.
Rostov Veliky Kremlin, Russia
Cities
Rostov Veliky, Russia

Under the Domes of the Russian Soul

It is one of the oldest and most important medieval cities, founded during the still pagan origins of the nation of the tsars. At the end of the XNUMXth century, incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it became an imposing center of orthodox religiosity. Today, only the splendor of kremlin Muscovite trumps the citadel of tranquil and picturesque Rostov Veliky.
Beverage Machines, Japan
Meal
Japan

The Beverage Machines Empire

There are more than 5 million ultra-tech light boxes spread across the country and many more exuberant cans and bottles of appealing drinks. The Japanese have long since stopped resisting them.
intersection
Culture
Hungduan, Philippines

Country Style Philippines

The GI's left with the end of World War II, but the music from the interior of the USA that they heard still enlivens the Cordillera de Luzon. It's by tricycle and at your own pace that we visit the Hungduan rice terraces.
Reindeer Racing, Kings Cup, Inari, Finland
Sport
Inari, Finland

The Wackiest Race on the Top of the World

Finland's Lapps have been competing in the tow of their reindeer for centuries. In the final of the Kings Cup - Porokuninkuusajot - , they face each other at great speed, well above the Arctic Circle and well below zero.
Jeep crosses Damaraland, Namibia
Traveling
Damaraland, Namíbia

Namibia On the Rocks

Hundreds of kilometers north of Swakopmund, many more of Swakopmund's iconic dunes Sossuvlei, Damaraland is home to deserts interspersed with hills of reddish rock, the highest mountain and ancient rock art of the young nation. the settlers South Africans they named this region after the Damara, one of the Namibian ethnic groups. Only these and other inhabitants prove that it remains on Earth.
Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Heartthrob's Eye
Ethnic
Ooty, India

In Bollywood's Nearly Ideal Setting

The conflict with Pakistan and the threat of terrorism made filming in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh a drama. In Ooty, we see how this former British colonial station took the lead.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

Christiansted, Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands, Steeple Building
History
Christiansted, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands

The Capital of the Afro-Danish-American Antilles

In 1733, Denmark bought the island of Saint Croix from France, annexed it to its West Indies where, based at Christiansted, it profited from the labor of slaves brought from the Gold Coast. The abolition of slavery made colonies unviable. And a historic-tropical bargain that the United States preserves.
Buffaloes, Marajo Island, Brazil, Soure police buffaloes
Islands
Marajó Island, Brazil

The Buffalo Island

A vessel that transported buffaloes from the India it will have sunk at the mouth of the Amazon River. Today, the island of Marajó that hosted them has one of the largest herds in the world and Brazil is no longer without these bovine animals.
ala juumajarvi lake, oulanka national park, finland
Winter White
Kuusamo ao PN Oulanka, Finland

Under the Arctic's Icy Spell

We are at 66º North and at the gates of Lapland. In these parts, the white landscape belongs to everyone and to no one like the snow-covered trees, the atrocious cold and the endless night.
On the Crime and Punishment trail, St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimirskaya
Literature
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the Trail of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Jingkieng Wahsurah, Nongblai Village Roots Bridge, Meghalaya, India
Nature
Meghalaya, India

The Bridges of the Peoples that Create Roots

The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
El Cofete beach from the top of El Islote, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain
Natural Parks
Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain (España)

Fuerteventura's Atlantic Ventura

The Romans knew the Canaries as the lucky islands. Fuerteventura, preserves many of the attributes of that time. Its perfect beaches for the windsurf and the kite-surfing or just for bathing, they justify successive “invasions” by the sun-hungry northern peoples. In the volcanic and rugged interior, the bastion of the island's indigenous and colonial cultures remains. We started to unravel it along its long south.
Ulugh Beg, Astronomer, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, A Space Marriage
UNESCO World Heritage
Samarkand, Uzbekistan

The Astronomer Sultan

The grandson of one of the great conquerors of Central Asia, Ulugh Beg, preferred the sciences. In 1428, he built a space observatory in Samarkand. His studies of the stars led him to name a crater on the Moon.
Characters
Look-alikes, Actors and Extras

Make-believe stars

They are the protagonists of events or are street entrepreneurs. They embody unavoidable characters, represent social classes or epochs. Even miles from Hollywood, without them, the world would be more dull.
Daytona Beach Portico, most famous beach of the year, Florida
Beaches
Daytona Beach, Florida, United States

The so-called World's Most Famous Beach

If its notoriety comes mainly from NASCAR races, in Daytona Beach, we find a peculiar seaside resort and a vast and compact beach that, in times past, was used for car speed tests.
Miyajima Island, Shinto and Buddhism, Japan, Gateway to a Holy Island
Religion
Miyajima, Japan

Shintoism and Buddhism with the Tide

Visitors to the Tori of Itsukushima admire one of the three most revered scenery in Japan. On the island of Miyajima, Japanese religiosity blends with Nature and is renewed with the flow of the Seto Inland Sea.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
On Rails
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Parade and Pomp
Society
Saint Petersburg, Russia

When the Russian Navy Stations in Saint Petersburg

Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Saksun, Faroe Islands, Streymoy, warning
Daily life
Saksun, streymoyFaroe Islands

The Faroese Village That Doesn't Want to be Disneyland

Saksun is one of several stunning small villages in the Faroe Islands that more and more outsiders visit. It is distinguished by the aversion to tourists of its main rural owner, author of repeated antipathies and attacks against the invaders of his land.
Howler Monkey, PN Tortuguero, Costa Rica
Wildlife
Tortuguero NP, Costa Rica

Tortuguero: From the Flooded Jungle to the Caribbean Sea

After two days of impasse due to torrential rain, we set out to discover the Tortuguero National Park. Channel after channel, we marvel at the natural richness and exuberance of this Costa Rican fluvial marine ecosystem.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.