Why go to Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest countries in Africa? Only freed from Portuguese control about 50 years ago, the country was then riven by civil wars and dictatorial rule. Signs of economic weakness…
The Gambia is a sliver of a country, essentially several hundred kilometers of the Gambian River, a ragged slice out of the middle of Senegal. Why, we wondered. We discovered that the British in the…
It’s a startling change to shift, within one day and one country, through a transition zone between the Sahel, the desert of northern Africa, and the sub-Saharan woodlands of central Africa. We moved from the…
We were fortunate to visit many tribal villages across Senegal, especially in the desert and dry savannah areas of the country before the rains. In them, we met with chieftains, elders male and female, as…
We didn’t realize how much we missed the safari experience after a few years away from it. So we thoroughly enjoyed being back in the jeep “saddle” at two reserves in Senegal: Bandia, near the…
Senegal had been under the control of the French since the early 19th century. For centuries earlier, they, the Portuguese, and others enslaved and exploited the region’s African tribes, themselves founders of several enduring empires…
We just finished our extended stay on the island of Santo Antão, the most northwestern of the 10 islands of Cabo Verde. To us, this is the most magnificent of the islands. The towns are…
Surprises, surprises…or why we love to travel. We planned to visit Cape Verde as an adjunct to our visiting the three countries on the bulge of the western African mainland - Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau…
In a month, we gained some feel for the culture of Algeria. Here are some of the observations we took away from our experience. It’s a largely middle-class population, relatively well-off and seemingly content. Algerians…
The cultural monuments and museums of Algiers were impressive, but we will remember most all the people who treated us as honored guests. During our first week in Algeria, we walked and rode extensively around…