São Tomé, The Hemisphere Crossing - Leading up to The Prologue

As many of you will know, in November I took part in the Global Limits race The Ancient Khmer Path in Cambodia. You may also have noticed I never wrote a blog about it. Why not? Did I not enjoy it? Was it so dull I couldn't think of anything to write? Or had I just bowed to public pressure and stopped writing very long and boring blogs? The answer is 'none of the above'. I had a fantastic time in great company, the race went through enough varied countryside and temples to be anything but dull (apart from possibly 20km on a red dirt road on the long day) and as you can see I'm still in the long boring blog business. No the answer was simply that I didn't really have time. Why not? Well prior to the race in Cambodia we had been invited to take part in a very special one-off Global Limits race only open to those that had done at least two previous GL races. The race would finish on the Equator and was on an island I had never heard of. It was also in February which was far too close to Cambodia and Christmas so we had not really considered we would enter. However...

Several of the runners in Cambodia had already signed up for the race in São Tomé and when I looked at the entry list we knew roughly 30% of the entrants already. I'd also taken annual travel insurance for Cambodia as it was hardly more expensive than we would have had to pay for two weeks and all the equipment would be about the same as Cambodia so it seemed it was meant to be. The only slight issue was that by the time we decided we wanted to do it (during the presentation meal at the end of Cambodia race) there was only one space left. We asked Stefan if there was any sort of waiting list to which he shrugged and said 'Sixty or sixty-one, I can cope' and we were in! Hence with Christmas and preparing for São Tomé I just ran out of time to write a blog on Cambodia!

Anyway after a last minute hiccup due to Brexit which meant we were sent a visa the day before we left (EU countries don't need a visa but the UK is no longer part of the EU and the 'transitional arrangements' don't apply to non EU countries) we flew to Lisbon on Wednesday and boarded the flight to São Tomé with about 56 other participants and volunteers - there aren't many flights to São Tomé! I should point out there were normal people on the flight too but we made up fair proportion of that day's flight.

My first view of São Tomé

São Tomé was chaotic but we appeared to have some kind of 'fast track' which involved someone taking our passports and promising that we would get them back later... No one wanted to see our visas. We were then all packed into assorted mini buses and taken to our hotel.

Dinner was booked for us at a (the) local restaurant where we got to try our first São Tomé beer - labels on the bottles appeared optional.

Anonymous

Rare labelled bottle

Food was good if a little mysterious at first - what was under the batter?

Friday was race check-in day but that wasn't until the afternoon so we decided to go for a walk - and immediately made a 'friend'. Our new 'friend' pointed us in the direction of the São Tomé National Museum and we assumed he would get bored while we looked round.

Some of São Tomé's Founding Fathers

The São Tomé Deceleration of Independence - I thought they would make more fuss about it

A servant's (slave's) bed

The Master had more luxury

A view of the shoreline

Sharon half way up the lighthouse

No bottled water in those days

A servant would sit by the door 24-7 in case any errands were to be run

São Tomé is largely Catholic...

...and Voodoo

No, our 'friend' hadn't got bored and guided us to our next location, a renovated railway building. São Tomé had a narrow gauge railway from 1913 to 1926, it was 18km long and never made a profit. Like many of the Colonial era buildings on the island, most of the railway buildings had fallen into disrepair but the main shed had been extensively renovated and was becoming a museum and art gallery. As it was still a work in progress the museum mainly consisted of a series of panels detailing the history of the island. I found these fascinating and mentally removed the inverted commas around 'friend' as I would never have visited that place without his guidance - he was now friend.

New timbers in the railway shed

The fact the museum had a small cafe and wi-fi made it even better as we stopped for an unlabelled beer and to post some pictures to annoy our friends.

I'm absolutely certain I wouldn't have wandered into the market buildings without a guide but again it was fascinating to see.

São Tomé fruit and vegetable market

Clothing market

View from above

You can even buy a bed. This is the roof of the market so quite how you get it down I have no idea...

After the market we visited a chocolate shop for ice-cream and told our friend we needed to get back to our hotel. He took us via a supermarket to buy water at a fraction of the price of that in the hotel and then started shouting at  tuk-tuk. It turned out the tuk-tuk was owned by his brother who gave us all a free ride to the hotel!

Our guide

Sadly I can't remember our guide's name but I gave him a few euros and he seemed genuinely grateful and waved us goodbye.

We packed up our kit for check-in and passed our checks and got our race bibs.

Check in (Photo Credit: Global Limits)

'I know I look old and past it but honestly my doctor said it was OK' (Photo Credit: Global Limits)

Checked in and ready to go! (Photo Credit: Global Limits)

That night we had the welcome dinner with the Minister or Sport and Tourism in attendance - the race was big news on the island! He didn't speak English but fortunately one of the volunteers, Mafalda lives on the island is fluent in both English and Portuguese. We heard Stefan say 'Mafalda translate' so often during the week I became fairly convinced her name was 'Mafalda Translate'.

'Mafalda Translate' with the Minister of Sport and Tourism (Photo Credit: Global Limits)

Tomorrow we would get to do some running - a 4.5km untimed prologue run round São Tomé Town with some of the locals...