Today few have heard of Sao Tome, a tiny island country off the West African Coast but a hundred years ago rich Europeans would have associated it with just one thing - chocolate. This is where all the big manufacturers of the time, including Cadburys, Rowntree and Nestle, bought their beans. Sao Tome feels part African and part Caribbean, there is even Bob Marley playing in the bars. Every beer is served with banana crisps, every restaurant serves fresh fish accompanied by fried plantain, sweet potato and ‘long beans’. There are beaches on all sides. Sao Tome town has yellow sand but on the west side of the island, facing the Atlantic, the beaches are rocky and the sand is fine black basalt. Out at sea ridiculously flimsy one-man boats, some with sack cloth sails and
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