2000 Pesos Nuno Tristao

Guinea-Bissau issued this coin during a period of acute economic strain — the country had defaulted on its external debt in the mid-1980s and was operating under a structural adjustment program imposed by the IMF. Nuno Tristão was a 15th-century Portuguese navigator who reached the coast of present-day Guinea-Bissau around 1446, making him one of the earliest Europeans to explore the region — and was killed there by poisoned arrows on a subsequent expedition.