Day 24, West Africa Cruise – Banjul, The Gambia

Latitude: 13° 18.1922’ N Longitude: 16° 36.9651’ W The Gambia is the smallest non-island country in Africa. It is also one the rare countries which borders only one other country: Senegal. In fact, on a map, The Gambia looks like a finger being stuck down the throat of Senegal (if you don’t believe me, go …

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Day 22, West Africa Cruise – Freetown, Sierra Leone

Latitude: 8° 14.4182’ N Longitude: 13° 09.7768’ W For the first time on the trip, we woke up in the same place we were the day before: Freetown, Sierra Leone. We were supposed to be in Guinea-Bissau today, but for reasons only known to them, they would not let us land. So, to compensate for …

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Day 21, West Africa Cruise – Freetown, Sierra Leone

Latitude: 8° 25.1932’ N Longitude: 13° 12.38.52’ W I had no idea what to expect when I visited Sierra Leone. The only thing you hear about Sierra Leone was its civil war which took place in the 1990’s and the horrific crimes which were committed. Children being used as soldiers, amputation as a form of …

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Day 18, West Africa Cruise – Takoradi, Ghana

Latitude: Longitude: We had a very short trip between Accra and Takoradi, Ghana. Probably the shortest sailing we had since the trip began. It was also one of our shorter excursions on the trip, because we had to set sail early in order to get to Freetown in Sierra Leone in time. Our objective for …

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Day 17, West Africa Cruise – Accra, Ghana

Latitude: 5° 38.1051’ N Longitude: 0° 00.0001’ W Accra completed changed everything I thought about West Africa. Since we left Swakopmund, we’ve visited a series of very poor, developing countries. The levels of development differed, but there was a certain commonality they all shared in terms of infrastructure and sanitation. Accra is at a different …

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Day 15, West Africa Cruise – Lome, Togo

Latitude: 6° 08.5126’ N Longitude: 1° 17.0908’ E In the last two updates I said that our next stop was going to be Cotonou, Benin. Togo is clearly not Benin. What happened was a classic case of West African bureaucracy and being able to adapt. Day 15 was actually Easter Sunday. Despite the fact that …

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Visions of Namibia

I visited Namibia for the first time in November 2013. What I experienced was far beyond my expectations. I found it to be a land of contradictions. It is a place where you can experience daily fog in the desert. Where you may have to wear a coat in the tropics. It has some of …

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Behind the Lens – Jellyfish Lake in Palau

One of the most incredible things I’ve ever done is gone swimming with jellyfish in Palau. Palau is a small island country of approximately 20,000 people in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and north of Indonesia. It is also home to, what I believe, is the greatest diving in the world. The most …

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The Fearful Traveler

Over the course of the last six years I’ve met many travelers and and communicated with many more who have expressed fears and concerns about traveling. If the fears were just concerns which kept people on their toes while on the road it wouldn’t be so bad. However, most people let their fears prevent them …

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