Category: Travel
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Bioko: Fernando Poo
¡Hola! from the island of Bioko, formerly Fernando Poo, formerly Fernando Pó. Readers of the Illuminatus Trilogy may remember the tagline “Where the hell is Fernando Poo?” Yes, it really exists! It’s a former Spanish colony, now part of Equatorial Guinea. Under Portuguese colonial rule, Bioko was known as Fernando Pó, after a Portuguese explorer.…
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Benin: Porto Novo Mask Festival
Today I had a very entertaining visit to the Porto Novo Mask festival. It’s a modern vehicle for preserving genuine local traditions. The masked figures represent various spirits. My favorites were the the Zangbeto or “night watchmen” . These are guardian spirits, who may patrol villages, acting as an unofficial police force. They enjoy whirling…
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Benin: A Giant Amazon
I’m in Cotonou, Benin, which boasts a 30 meter (96 ft) tall tribute to the Dahomey Amazons. This was an elite all-woman royal guard regiment, which existed from the 17th to 19th c. in the Dahomey Kingdom. The statue is seriously impressive.
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Manaus: Meeting of the Waters
I’m in Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro. The Rio Negro is “only” 3km wide at Manaus. But that’s before it meets its big brother, the main Amazon. I took a river trip today to see the Meeting of Waters, where the dark black water of the Rio Negro meets the clay-brown water of the…
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Manaus: Teatro Amazonas
I’m in Manaus, Brazil. Today I visited the Teatro Amazonas, the very grand, very over-the-top “Opera House in the Jungle”. It was built in the 1890s, at the height of the Brazilian rubber boom. The wealthy Rubber Barons wanted an Opera House to impress the world. And they got it! I took a tour in…
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São Tomé
Olá from the island nation of São Tomé e Príncipe! Despite being only about 150 miles from the African mainland, São Tomé was uninhabited when it was discovered by the Portuguese around 1470. So it was one of the rare colonial settlements that was genuinely on “vacant land”. It retains many traces of its Portuguese…