THE VOLCANIC ROCKS pricked my feet and my legs shook as we clambered up the near-vertical shore of the Ilhéu de Santana, a tiny islet in the archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe, floating in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. In my mind’s eye, I pictured my husband losing his grip, tumbling into the blue depth of the Atlantic, where, apart from our guide’s small motor boat, all I could see was a sole fisherman in a wooden dugout.
When we told friends and colleagues of our plan to escape South Africa’s winter for a one-week break...