Equatorial Guinea is a land of stark, stark extremes; literacy rates dip, human rights abuses are part and parcel of daily life, certain figures bask in wealth, while the wilds of West Africa hum with species of primates unknown. And while that hardly makes it unique in Africa, consider this: this tiny cut-out of the Río Muni commanding just a smidgen of the Atlantic coast, is the single richest nation per capita on the entire continent! Oil brought the wealth after American multinationals smelled it out beneath EQ’s jungles and tropical swathes in the 1990s. Unfortunately, little of the money trickled down and today Malabo is still a place of breezeblock slums and barrios that overwhelm its pockets colonial architecture, peppered now and then with an oil-money skyscraper looking into the clouds.

Yet despite the corruption and undeveloped state of the tourism industry here, most people who travel here come to explore the backcountry of Bioko Island. This is where Equatorial Guinea tour guides showcase white beaches dotted with sea turtles, wild palm forests, baboons and galagos – uber-rare and fascinating!