Home › Destinations › Roça Sundy
Roça Sundy, São Tomé and Príncipe - Things to Do in Roça Sundy

Things to Do in Roça Sundy

Roça Sundy, São Tomé and Príncipe - Complete Travel Guide

Roça Sundy sits in the forested interior of Príncipe island, the smaller and wilder half of São Tomé and Príncipe. Arriving here feels less like checking into a hotel than stepping through a crease in time. The old plantation, founded in 1822 as the archipelago's first cocoa estate, sprawls across 1,657 hectares of land. The canopy closes overhead in a thick green vault. The air hangs warm and sweet with the scent of fermenting cacao pods. You hear the property before you see it properly. Cockerels at dawn. The liquid fluting of Príncipe Glossy Starlings shifting between branches. Grey parrots overhead. Somewhere deeper in the understory, the sharp territorial call of a Dohrn's Thrush-Babbler. The estate's cavalricas still stand with their crenellated walls and horseshoe-shaped windows. The old plantation chapel and hospital with its flanking towers watch over grounds that were, until relatively recently, being slowly swallowed back by the jungle. What makes Roça Sundy more than a beautifully restored colonial plantation is a single day in 1919. On May 29 of that year, the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington and clockmaker Edwin Turner Cottingham photographed a total solar eclipse from among the cocoa trees here. They confirmed Einstein's prediction that gravity bends starlight. Their equipment had been carried more than a kilometer through dense forest from a narrow-gauge railway terminus. The astrograph was assembled inside a small addition to the plantation house, with a stone pier built to support the coelostat. It rained until noon. Eddington got two usable plates out of sixteen. That was enough. The results, announced at a joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society on November 6, 1919, turned Einstein into a household name. This remote cocoa estate became one of the most consequential patches of ground in the history of science. Today the property operates as a small hotel under HBD Príncipe, the conservation-minded venture founded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. His company received its concession from Príncipe's Regional Government on February 9, 2011. The restoration kept two principal buildings. The Eclipse House, the former colonial residence, now houses the restaurant, bar, and guest rooms in a decidedly antique atmosphere with Victorian bathtubs and period wooden desks. The Cacao House, a converted plantation building, has a more contemporary feel. Rooms contain original furniture from the last century alongside recycled materials. Views from the restaurant look out to the ruins of an old fortification and across unbroken jungle to the sea. Over ninety percent of the staff were recruited locally and trained through the Azores School of Tourism. The plantation remains a working organic, fair-trade cocoa estate with an artisanal chocolate factory. The feeling that follows you around Roça Sundy is that of living inside a previous century. Good sheets and cold drinks included.

Top Things to Do in Roça Sundy

The Eddington Eclipse Trail and Espaço Ciência Sundy

The science museum inaugurated in May 2019 for the centenary of the eclipse observation is housed in a former cocoa and coffee dryer from the mid-twentieth century. Inside, an interferometer model and the "Light Deviated by the Sun" exhibition walk you through general relativity. The humidity makes the air feel thick enough to lean on. The surrounding forest presses green against every window. A commemorative plaque beside the main house marks the spot where Eddington's team assembled their instruments among the cocoa trees. Founding partners include Príncipe's Regional Government, NUCLIO, the International Astronomical Union, and the University of Coimbra's Observatory. Allow a full morning. Walk the trail early. It tends to be quieter before day-trip visitors arrive from the other hotels.

Booking Tip: Allow a full morning. Walk the trail early. It tends to be quieter before day-trip visitors arrive from the other hotels.

The Cocoa Trail to Sundy Praia

A roughly two-kilometer walk from the plantation house descends through working agroforestry plots and dense rainforest down to Sundy Praia's shell-strewn beach. The sand crunches underfoot. The water runs clear over dark volcanic rock. The trail passes through cocoa groves where the pods hang directly from the trunks in shades of deep maroon and yellow. The air smells sharply of turned earth and overripe fruit. At the beach, the surf is typically gentle enough for swimming. Arrange this walk for the morning. The light slants low through the canopy then. The forest is loudest with birdsong. Afternoons can bring brief heavy rain that turns the trail muddy.

Booking Tip: Arrange this walk for the morning. The light slants low through the canopy then. The forest is loudest with birdsong. Afternoons can bring brief heavy rain that turns the trail muddy.

Príncipe Endemic Birding

Príncipe is classified as an Endemic Bird Area with urgent global priority status, carrying between eight and eleven single-island endemic species. From the grounds of Roça Sundy itself you can spot the iridescent Príncipe Glossy Starling. Its plumage shifts between blues, greens, and purples depending on the angle of light. The Príncipe Kingfisher allows remarkably close approach near streams and garden plantings. The Príncipe Sunbird is common around flowering trees. For the rare species, the Príncipe Thrush is critically endangered. Fewer than 250 adults remain in remote primary forest in the southern Obo Natural Park. The Príncipe Scops-Owl, formally described only in 2022, produces diagnostic duetting calls after sunset. Serious birders should plan at minimum four to five days on the island. Start southern excursions at five or six in the morning. The terrain is challenging. A local guide is essential for navigating the park.

Booking Tip: Serious birders need four to five days minimum on the island. Start southern excursions at five or six in the morning. The terrain is challenging. A local guide is essential for navigating the park.

The Artisanal Chocolate Factory

The plantation's chocolate factory processes the estate's own organic cacao from tree to finished bar. Visiting it is a full sensory immersion. You smell the sharp, slightly acidic fermenting beans in wooden boxes. You catch the warm toasted aroma of roasting. You taste the smooth bitterness of dark chocolate straight from the mold. The house chocolate spread appears at breakfast alongside home-baked pastel de nata and fresh tropical fruit. It comes from this operation. Tours typically run in the late morning when the roasting cycle is underway and the factory building radiates heat. Book ahead through the hotel. Do not show up unannounced. Production schedules shift with the harvest cycle.

Booking Tip: Book ahead through the hotel rather than showing up unannounced, as production schedules shift with the harvest cycle.

Banana Beach by Boat

Praia Banana is Príncipe's most photographed stretch of sand. It curves in a banana-shaped arc sheltered by leaning coconut palms. The water looks translucent, almost backlit. The beach sits on the grounds of Roça Belo Monte. You can reach it by a fifteen-minute walk from Belo Monte's front gate. Arriving by boat along Príncipe's rugged southern coast is the more dramatic approach. You pass sea stacks and volcanic rock formations. Seabirds wheel overhead. The salt spray catches the light. The beach itself is rarely crowded. Sometimes it is empty. If you go by boat, conditions are calmest during the gravana dry season from June through September. Swells pick up significantly during the rains. Some operators will not run the route.

Booking Tip: If you go by boat, conditions are calmest during the gravana dry season from June through September. Swells pick up significantly during the rains and some operators will not run the route.

Getting There

Reaching Roça Sundy requires two legs. First, an international flight to São Tomé. Then a short hop to Príncipe. São Tomé International Airport receives direct flights from Lisbon. Connections through Accra and Libreville serve travelers coming from elsewhere in West Africa. From São Tomé, STP Airways and Africa's Connection STP operate roughly eighteen flights per week to Príncipe Airport. The crossing takes thirty to forty minutes over open water. Flights tend to depart between eight in the morning and three in the afternoon. They fill quickly in peak season. Booking well ahead is advisable. Weather delays are common during the rainy months from October through May. Cancellations do happen. Build a buffer day into your schedule on either side of the Príncipe leg. It saves a lot of anxiety. A ferry service connects the islands as well. The crossing takes between six and twelve hours depending on conditions. The seas can be rough. The experience is uncomfortable enough that it is primarily used by residents rather than visitors. For most travelers the flight is the only practical option. Once on Príncipe, the hotel includes shared airport transfers in the room rate. You will be met on arrival. The drive from the airport to Roça Sundy crosses the island's interior on roads that require a four-wheel-drive vehicle. You pass through Santo António, the island's tiny capital. You climb into progressively thicker forest before arriving at the plantation gates.

Getting Around

Príncipe is small enough that its entire road network can be driven in a day. "Road" is a generous term for much of it. Outside Santo António and the main north-south route, you are on unpaved tracks. A four-wheel-drive vehicle is the only option, during or after rain when the laterite mud becomes slick and deep. Roça Sundy's guided excursions handle most of the logistics. The hotel arranges transport for activities like beach visits, birding expeditions into the Obo Natural Park, and day trips to other roças. If you want to move independently, renting a vehicle with a driver through one of the island's small operators is far more practical than self-driving. The roads are unsigned. They are frequently washed out. A stuck vehicle in the southern interior means a long wait. Moto-taxis operate in and around Santo António for short hops. Walking is the primary mode of transport within the Roça Sundy estate itself. You walk to the chocolate factory. You walk to the science museum. You walk down the two-kilometer cocoa trail to the beach. The pace of life here matches the local Creole expression leve-leve. It roughly translates to taking it easy. It applies to how fast anything moves on four wheels as much as to how long lunch takes.

Where to Stay

Roça Sundy Estate is where history, forest, and comfort converge. The Eclipse House rooms carry an antique atmosphere with four-poster beds and original plantation-era furniture. The Cacao House suites lean more contemporary. You sleep surrounded by working cocoa groves. You wake to birdsong and cockerels. This is the choice for travelers who want immersion in the plantation's story. You get direct access to the science museum, chocolate factory, and forest trails.

Sundy Praia sits roughly two kilometers downhill from the main estate. It is right on the coast where the cocoa trail meets the ocean. The setting is beachfront. The feel is lighter, more salt-air oriented. The OKA Sundy restaurant here is the fine-dining option in the HBD collection. The shell-strewn beach is steps from the rooms.

Santo António is the island capital. It is the closest thing Príncipe has to a town. It is tiny. The population is roughly 2,600. It faces a calm bay. The Government Palace, the colonial-era Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and the central Praça Marcelo da Veiga give it a quiet dignity. A handful of local guesthouses and small restaurants operate here. It is the most practical base for travelers on a tighter budget.

Bom Bom sits about a forty-minute drive from Roça Sundy on the island's northwest coast, occupying a dramatic setting connected to a small offshore islet by a wooden walkway. It caters to travelers looking for a resort-style beach experience. It is a popular base for snorkeling, kayaking, and boat excursions.

Roça Belo Monte sits in the northeast of the island and has been restored as a boutique hotel. It houses the Forever Príncipe Museum, which focuses on the island's biodiversity. It is the way into Banana Beach, reached by a fifteen-minute walk from the front gate. The setting is elevated with panoramic views across the forest canopy to the coast.

Roça Paciência operates as a sustainable agroforestry center rather than a conventional hotel, producing award-winning tree-to-bar chocolate, vanilla, and forest pepper. A handicraft cooperative here sells woven palm-frond baskets made by local artisans. For travelers interested in community-based agriculture and who want something grittier than a luxury restoration, Paciência delivers an entirely different texture.

View Full Accommodation Guide →

Food & Dining

Dining on Príncipe is intimate and seasonal, shaped by whatever the land and sea produce on a given day. At Roça Sundy, the restaurant in the Eclipse House serves a menu built around ingredients harvested fresh each morning from the estate's organic gardens, supplemented by what is negotiated fairly from local producers. Dishes arrive adorned with edible flowers picked from the plantation grounds. The cooking draws on African, Portuguese, and Creole traditions. Breakfast brings fresh tropical fruit, local cheese, home-baked pastel de nata, and that chocolate spread from the on-site factory, thick and dark and slightly bitter. Dinner is included in the room rate and uses a set-menu format that shifts nightly. The restaurant also has a lighter Leve-Leve Menu. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free meals are available with advance notice. Down at Sundy Praia, the OKA Sundy restaurant is the more polished dining experience in the area, leaning toward fine-dining presentations of local seafood and produce. Non-guests can eat here with advance booking. In Santo António, the scene is unpretentious and often improvised. Restaurante Bar Passo faces the bay and typically offers only two dish choices on any given day, whatever the kitchen has sourced that morning. You eat what is available. It is usually good. Rosa Pão operates as a cultural association rather than a conventional restaurant. You need to place your food order a day ahead, and what arrives is authentic home-style Príncipense cooking, the kind of meal that takes hours to prepare and tastes like someone's grandmother made it. The island's signature dishes reward patience. Azagoa, widely considered the star of local gastronomy, requires an elaborate preparation of beans, local leaves, matabala, and smoked meat, and the result is rich, earthy, and savory. Calulu is a slow-cooked stew of smoked fish with okra, spinach, and African eggplant that fills the kitchen with a thick, smoky fragrance long before it reaches the table. Molho no Fogo pairs smoked dried fish with palm oil and local greens, and the heat from pau-pimenta, the local pepper, builds slowly at the back of the throat. Fresh fish appears everywhere, often simply grilled and served with coconut rice, the char on the skin still crackling. Expect to eat well at Roça Sundy and in Santo António at moderate cost. The high-end hotel restaurants are a splurge by local standards, while the town eateries and local cookhouses are remarkably affordable.

When to Visit

The gravana, Príncipe's primary dry season running from June through September, is the clearest window for visiting Roça Sundy. Rainfall drops sharply. The humidity backs off just enough to make forest walks comfortable rather than drenching. The trails to Sundy Praia and through the Obo Natural Park stay firm underfoot. The ocean calms down for boat trips along the coast to Banana Beach and the Tinhosas islets. This is also whale and dolphin season in the surrounding waters, running roughly June through September, and sea turtle nesting begins on Príncipe's beaches in August and September. The shorter dry spell called the gravanita, from December through February, has a second window with lower rainfall, though it is less reliable than the main gravana and the humidity tends to sit higher. The long rains from March through May bring the heaviest downpours, and October and November see a secondary wet period. During these months, the forest turns an almost aggressive green, waterfalls run at full force, and the cocoa harvest begins in earnest. Birdwatching for the critically endangered Príncipe Thrush is best during its breeding season from March through July, which awkwardly overlaps with the wettest months, so birders chasing the rarest species will need to accept soggy boots and trail detours. Flights between São Tomé and Príncipe are more prone to weather delays during the rains, and some boat excursions shut down entirely when swells build. The honest trade-off is this: the dry season is more comfortable and more practical for most activities. But the wet season is when the landscape is at its most dramatic and the cocoa estate is in full productive swing. Roça Sundy itself operates year-round, and the hotel's guided experiences run in all seasons, adjusting routes and timing as conditions require.

Insider Tips

The banco da ma lingua, the communal bench where residents of the Roça Sundy community gather to talk, is worth knowing about. The name translates loosely to "the griping bench." It is the social center of the estate. Sitting there for a while, greeting local farmers and families, gives you a feel for daily life on the plantation that no guided tour replicates. The atmosphere is unhurried and welcoming. A few words of Portuguese or Forro go a long way.
Príncipe's Scops-Owl, described to science only in 2022 and one of the most range-restricted owls on Earth, calls after sunset with a rapid repeated "tuu" note and a stranger, cat-like vocalization. You can hear it from the grounds of Roça Sundy itself on quiet evenings. Stand still near the forest edge after dark, wait for your eyes to adjust, and listen. A local birding guide can pinpoint the likely calling trees. Even without one the duetting pairs are audible if you know what to listen for. Know what to listen for.
The Museu do Ferro Velho on the estate grounds displays industrial machinery and a locomotive from the plantation's original narrow-gauge railway, the same rail system that Eddington's team used to transport their eclipse equipment in 1919. It tends to be overlooked by visitors focused on the science museum or the chocolate factory. It tells the other half of Roça Sundy's story, the agricultural and industrial engine that made this estate Príncipe's largest and most productive, employing 584 workers by 1912. The iron relics sit weathering slowly in the equatorial air. The locomotive in particular is a striking thing, rusting and magnificent in equal measure. Worth seeking out.

Explore Activities in Roça Sundy

Didn't see anything interesting yet?

Browse Viator's full catalog of tours, day trips, food experiences, and private guides in Roça Sundy.

See All Roça Sundy Tours on Viator

Continue Planning Your Trip

Itineraries

Sample trip routes and plans for Roça Sundy

Getting Around

Transport options and tips for Roça Sundy

Where to Stay

Accommodation guide for Roça Sundy

Budget Guide

Trip costs and money tips for Roça Sundy