Guided Walks
We love walking and recommend our carefully chosen guided walks – many of which we’ve done ourselves – as one of the best ways to explore the beautiful islands of Sao Tome and Principe.
Our guided walks vary from a couple of kilometres to full days of trekking and can be incorporated into any of our tailor-made holidays. The low-level guided walks take you through mature secondary rainforest, planted with coffee and cocoa, to see hidden waterfalls and charming old plantation houses that are slowly being taken over by the forest. You’ll pass through fields planted with fruit and vegetables such as avocado, beans and yam, and spot many endemic birds along the way. Incredibly, the islands have the highest density of endemic birds anywhere in the world!
At a higher altitude, the islands are covered by primary rainforest, called ‘obo’ in Portuguese. The Obo National Park protects an area of 300 square kilometres across both islands. The environment here is pristine and you’ll discover an amazing diversity of trees, flowers, ferns, orchids and mushrooms. It’s fascinating to learn how plants are used everyday in cooking and as medicine.
Best time to go
The tropical Islands of Sao Tome and Principe can be enjoyed during any month of the year. The most optimum months to visit are perhaps during the short dry season, between December and February, because this is a good time to see the turtles coming to shore to nest. The long dry season, between June and September, is the most settled. During the dry seasons the weather is usually warm and predominantly dry, but you can get some short downpours, and high humidity does mean that the skies are often overcast.
If you enjoy the intensity of short tropical downpours followed by clear blue skies, and an abundance of tropical foliage, then visit during the wetter months: October and November, and March to May.
Turtle nesting season runs from mid-November through to early February, with hatching generally occurring during March. October through to March are the optimum months for bird watching enthusiasts and there are a range of bird watching walks and excursions on offer. Humpback whale watching season is between late July and October, most of which falls in the long dry season, with the exception of October which is the wettest month on Sao Tome and Principe.
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