After a brief, but successful visit to Principé, we returned to São Tomé. It was Deja-vu as we landed and essentially repeated exactly what we had done the first time we arrived on this island — we hiked straight up into the mountains of Monte Carmo. (In case you missed it, I wrote all about that experience here.)
Mitu, our guide and local resident of the palm plantation at the base of Monte Carmo, informed us it had rained heavily and almost nonstop since we left 3 days ago. We hoped the weather had worked itself out and that we might get a few days without rain. It was blue skies and sun as we climbed back up to the remote camp at the top of the mountain. We really only had one major target left to see here, arguably the hardest endemic, São Tomé Grosbeak, and yet we found a showy bird almost immediately during our hike up! I considered attempting to convince Ross to turn around now to avoid another night camping in the rain should another all-out downpour ensue, but decided against it and continued upward anyways. Ross hoped to find a nest burrow of an undescribed storm-petrel species currently lumped with Band-rumped Storm-Petrel and wanted to be out all night long in search of the nests. There’s no way I could have talked him out of that! We didn’t succeed in finding how these sea birds nest (and suspect it is within the realm of possibility, although far-fetched, that they actually burrow into large mossy clusters at the tops of the trees as we never saw them going down into the valley. Although views were sporadic, we did see them quite well as we scanned the skies. We found a hole in the canopy and watched as these “Band-rumped” Storm-Petrels circled overhead. The next day we birded around and saw plenty of birds, including Sao Tome Grosbeak! With Sao Tome Grosbeak in the bag a second time, we officially saw all of the endemics between the islands!
Sao Tome Grosbeak 
Food was cooked in small tuna tins over a fire 
Our trusty rental car 
We scanned through this hole in the canopy 
“Band-rumped” Storm Petrel
On small islands such as these, it is quite possible to see every single resident land bird. We were doing so well we figured, why not do just that? Jason found Sao Tome’s first record of House Sparrow and were off to a good start! Our last few days were a mixture of picking up silly introduced birds like Red-necked Francolin and Red-headed Quelea, scanning the ocean for seabirds like Brown Noddy and a surprise Artic Tern, walking on the beach collecting beach glass, and indulging in chocolate, the latter being a major highlight as both cocoa and coffee are grown on the island. Back in 1913 Africa’s second smallest country was the world’s largest producer of cocoa and thus was nicknamed the ‘Chocolate Islands’. Ross and I sampled some absolutely amazing desserts at Diogo Vaz Chocolates and then had a cocoa bean tasting tour at Claudio Cavello Chocolates from Claudio himself, an Italian ex-pat known as the ‘King of West African Chocolate’. He’s one of just a few bean-to-bar chocolatiers working in Africa, a chocolate and coffee connoisseur, and the developer of a non-bitter cocoa bean, even when eaten raw. For an entire hour Ross and I had a private tasting session with a man as passionate about fine chocolate as Ross is passionate about seeing all of the world’s birds.
I didn’t think we would have this much free time and left the bulk of my non-birding clothes back in Gabon! I didn’t even have a swimsuit and thus only waded ankle deep into the crystal clear ocean waters. Not swimming still has me a bit sad but I made up for not swimming in time spent walking on the beach! Most tours come for 11 days which is why Ross planned to do the same. He didn’t think we could possibly see all of the target birds (and then some!) in just eight days and thus we had some unexpected but well-deserved downtime! I walked the seashore and collected beach glass for a few crafting projects back home and I couldn’t believe we actually had time to “relax!”
Diogo Vaz Chocolates 
Literally THE BEST dessert I’ve ever eaten 
Private tasting session with Claudio 
So many chocolates! 
We even splurged at dinner!
Ross budgeted 11 days* on São Tomé to be sure we would be able to find all of the endemic species and subspecies. He also invited along his long-time birding friend, Jason Horn, to split costs and thus make our trip a little bit cheaper. Rich Lindie, another birding friend, was also planning to join and make our group an even four, but after not being able to find a “child minder” (a term that, as an American, I find hilarious) and thus waiting to buy a ticket for a flight, Rich could no longer join because there simply were not enough seats on our internal flight to Principé. (We literally snagged the last 3 seats for Ross, Jason, and myself, or else this entire trip wouldn’t have been possible!) Too bad for Rich because our trip to ST&P was a resounding success with 71 total species seen including all endemics. Oh, and we managed to do it in true BudgetBirders fashion for a total cost of $600 per person (including all internal flights) for 11 days! Not bad!
The birding/relaxing in this post occurred on August 21-26, 2021.
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