The Bijagós

The Bijagós are eighty-eight islands of sand, palm and mangrove scattered off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, twenty of them inhabited and all of them ruled by the tide, which comes and goes over kilometres of flats twice a day and decides when boats move. The Bijagó people who live on them have kept a way of life that Europe never quite reached: age-grade societies, initiation rites of years called fanado, sacred islands where no one sleeps, bull masks that dance the cattle they cannot keep, and, on Orango, villages where the women choose their husbands and a queen once ruled. Orango is also a national park of saltwater hippos that wade into the surf; João Vieira and Poilão, at the southern edge, are a marine park where green turtles come ashore by the thousand from August; Bubaque is the small capital with the ferry, the market and the beds; Rubane, opposite it, the one resort; and Bolama, close to the mainland, the ruined Portuguese capital of another century. UNESCO made the whole archipelago a biosphere reserve in 1996.

The traveller comes from Bissau by the ferry — four hours when it runs, once or twice a week — or by a chartered speedboat in two, and sleeps in Bubaque, where the pensions are simple and the fish is grilled at dusk; hires a boat and a Bijagó guide for the days that follow, because the archipelago is done by water: Rubane's beach across the channel, Orango and the walk to the hippos' lagoon and the queen's village of Eticoga, an island of pirogue fishermen, a night on João Vieira for the turtles in season; watches the tide, always, because a boat that misses it waits six hours on the sand; and gives the last day to Bubaque again — the market, a bicycle to the beach of Bruce, and the ferry back with the goats.

The Guide's honesty: the Bijagós are a world apart and reaching them takes patience — the ferry's timetable is a rumour, the speedboats are expensive and shared, and the rains from June to October make everything slower; the country around them is fragile and its politics can turn in a week, so read the advisories and travel with a Bissau agency that knows the islands; the sacred islands are sacred — go only with a guide, ask before photographing anyone, and accept the answer; the hippos are wild and the tide is the only clock; there is no bank on the islands and little network — cash and a torch; malaria is serious — the net, the pills; and the traveller who arrives with a week and no plan will be given one by the water, which is how the Bijagó have always lived.