I am in a fairy-tale scene. The jungle has wreathed its way into the abandoned buildings as if they were Mayan temples. A giant banana tree is growing in the hall of the casa do patrao (the master house) and lianas are clambering across its peeling ceilings. Is Sleeping Beauty lying upstairs? A shutter flaps in the wind. I climb a dusty marble staircase. From a balustraded balcony comes the sparkle of turquoise waters and the view of a palm-fringed beach.
Time seems to have stopped on the tiny isle of Principe. This plantation, Roca Sundi, was once the island's biggest cocoa estate and owned by the Portuguese royal family. A rusting steam locomotive sits on corroded tracks in the grounds - until 40 or so years ago, it would have carried fresh cocoa beans through the jungle to the coast for export to Lisbon. A gaggle of giggling kids come running at me, followed by a scraggy dog, then a fat black sow with four pink piglets. What next, a white rabbit?
It is little wonder that the remote islands of Sao Tome and Principe retain a sense of magic realism. Positioned off the west coast of Africa, even older geologically than the Galapagos, these two dots in the Atlantic are so isolated that many plant and bird species are endemic. Humped black mountains rise out of the jungle accentuating their otherworldly quality - Sao Tome's Cao Grande (Big Dog) is the most famous and always shrouded in cloud mist. Waterfalls tumble down its steep sides.
I am on the smaller of the pair, Principe (19 miles long and four miles wide), and base myself at Bom Bom Island Resort on its north coast. Pagoda-style bungalows sit on a shoreline overhung by coconut palms. Each evening, I cross a wave-washed wooden pier to a forested islet and the resort's restaurant where we dine at tables decorated with tropical flowers.
It would be easy to sit for days on my veranda watching fallen coconuts wash in and out. But after a swim from one of the resort's two secluded beaches and a breakfast of papaya and pineapple, I go scuba-diving. The volcanic ocean floor and mix of equatorial currents make for a fantastic underwater show of fan corals, turtles, barracuda and rays.
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It's just one of the island's many draws. With cocoa and coffee production restarting, and many of the old plantation houses being restored into rural hotels, adventurous travellers arrive keen to trek the rainforests, lounge on the deserted beaches and explore crumbling colonial splendour. Along the coast, the prettiest beaches, dotted by fishermen's shacks, are being earmarked for holiday developments. Of the 9,000 tourists who visited in 2007, most were from Portugal.
I set off by quad bike the next day to explore more of Principe. It feels a bit boorish to be roaring along potholed roads on these noisy beasts, but they are a practical way of accessing the red mud tracks into the forest. Ignoring a tropical downpour, I rumble past clapboard houses painted bright turquoise, pink or yellow, enclosed by hibiscus and bougainvillea hedges. Their residents wave and call "Bom dia!". "There is a lot of poverty in Sao Tome and Principe, but not a lot of misery," says Carlito, my guide. Judging by the smiles, the 160,000 islanders who live here do seem happy. That said, most still survive at subsistence level.
Soaked by the warm rain, we reach Roca Belo Monte, another example of tumbledown grandeur high on a hill, said to be earmarked for a boutique hotel by a Portuguese developer. The sun has come out. Below is Praia Banana, a curve of white sand with gin-clear water that was once the setting for a Bacardi commercial. There's not a single other footstep in the sand.
It is a 40-minute hop in a 14-seater plane across the stretch of ocean that divides Principe from its neighbour Sao Tome (31 miles long and 20 miles wide). Grass grows between the cracks on the runway of its "international" airport and goats and hens roam around. I wander the streets of the tiny capital - also called Sao Tome - admiring colourful buildings with ornate wooden balconies that would not look out of place in Havana.
Swarming the main square are saffron-yellow taxis, and there is a raucous market where women sit with pyramids of limes, tomatoes and chillies, and piles of spiny breadfruit and pockmarked jackfruit. Others have enamel bowls confidently balanced on their heads, from which poke the jagged tails of peixe-voador (flying fish).
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Three hundred and sixty degrees of ocean means that fish is always on the menu and during my stay I eat plenty, from sharing a simple meal of grilled fish and breadfruit with fishermen over a beach fire to an elaborate tasting menu of traditional Santomean cuisine at Roca Sao Joao. This restored plantation house and eco-tourism venture is run by local chef Joao Carlos Silva, whose television programmes have been hugely popular across Africa. The guesthouse has six simple bedrooms with views over the forest. Silva uses spices that draw on a heritage stretching from Mozambique to Cape Verde. I savour rice fish balls flavoured with saffron and coriander; grilled tuna with vanilla seeds; a micoco omelette (a thyme-like herb), and calulu, a rich stew made from smoked chicken and fresh herbs. I finish with locally grown coffee.
Of course, you can't come to "the chocolate isles" without tasting the chocolate, and the best company to do this in is that of Claudio Corallo, a master chocolatier. Corallo, from Florence, was drawn by the islands' perfect cocoa-growing terroir and is one of those reviving the industry. His single-estate chocolate - considered a "grand cru" by experts - is for sale in Fortnum & Mason. From his small factory in Sao Tome, he holds tasting sessions of an earthy 100% cocoa variety; a fiery dark blend with crystallised ginger; and, finally, an intoxicating variety with raisins soaked in a liqueur distilled from cocoa-pod pulp.
In recent years, Sao Tome and Principe have also become an artistic mecca; a kind of tropical St Ives. "Life is so real here, and the colours are so unreal," enthuses local painter Kwame Sousa, whose works sell for high prices in Lisbon. He invites me to a street party where we find a kizomba band playing a sensual African rhythm.
This is a dazzling country. Much of it is rough and ready, but it offers a very warm welcome. Go now - and give the Portuguese a run for their money.
Africa's Eden (00 31 26 370 5567, africas-eden.com) is offering eight days split between Sao Tome and Principe from £1,570, with full-board at Bom Bom Island Resort on Principe and half-board at the Omali Lodge on Sao Tome, and including flights between the two islands. You can fly from Heathrow to Sao Tome with TAP Portugal (flytap.com) via Lisbon; or go via Paris with Gabon Airlines (gabonairlines.com) or Air France (airfrance.co.uk) ; or via Frankfurt with Lufthansa (lufthansa.com)