Tropical beach, Banana Beach

Relatively paradise

Lying in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa is the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, made up of two main islands and a scattering of roughly a dozen other smaller islands. Our aerial image centers on Banana Beach, a popular destination on Príncipe, the smaller of the two main islands. Príncipe isn't just scenic, it's important in science history: During the total solar eclipse in 1919, astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington observed the event from the island, verifying Albert Einstein's theory of relativity by photographing the gravitational deflection of starlight.