Exploring the desert mountains of Gansu and meeting Yugur nomads while van camping a few days at a waterhole used by their flocks of sheep. In this wilderness, I celebrated my 54th birthday.
MEET THE LOCALS
CULTURE ENCOUNTERS - traveling for markets, villages, festivals, art, music + ceremonies
Looking at the women of Minab Market reveals the ancient trading routes that once connected southern Iran with the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, and beyond.
To escape slave-grabbing raids by the neighboring Benin kingdom in the 17th century, the people of Tamberma Valley built these fortified houses.
Traveling to the open-pit diamond mines of northern Sierra Leone, once land of civil war, brutal warlords, and "Blood Diamonds".
One of the best places to explore "The Grand Canyon of Guinea" is from the village of Doucki, with guide, Hassan Bah.
Travels in Eritrea - 1995. Wandering around the barren surrounds of Matara, meeting astonished and friendly locals and checking out ancient Axumite ruins.
Meet Daouda Diabate - a Baye Fall singer/songwriter from Senegal, who lives in an old military bunker on Goree Island offshore of Dakar.
Standing on a crag, the 11th century stone-tower-houses of Al Hajjarah and the surrounding mountains, evoke the Arabian Nights.
Visiting the Kurdish village of Palangan, its houses stacked on top of each each other while stepping up the mountainside.
MEET THE LOCALS
CULTURE ENCOUNTERS - traveling for markets, villages, festivals, art, music + ceremonies
Exploring the desert mountains of Gansu and meeting Yugur nomads while van camping a few days at a waterhole used by their flocks of sheep. In this wilderness, I celebrated my 54th birthday.
Looking at the women of Minab Market reveals the ancient trading routes that once connected southern Iran with the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, and beyond.
To escape slave-grabbing raids by the neighboring Benin kingdom in the 17th century, the people of Tamberma Valley built these fortified houses.
Traveling to the open-pit diamond mines of northern Sierra Leone, once land of civil war, brutal warlords, and "Blood Diamonds".
One of the best places to explore "The Grand Canyon of Guinea" is from the village of Doucki, with guide, Hassan Bah.
Travels in Eritrea - 1995. Wandering around the barren surrounds of Matara, meeting astonished and friendly locals and checking out ancient Axumite ruins.
Meet Daouda Diabate - a Baye Fall singer/songwriter from Senegal, who lives in an old military bunker on Goree Island offshore of Dakar.
Standing on a crag, the 11th century stone-tower-houses of Al Hajjarah and the surrounding mountains, evoke the Arabian Nights.
Visiting the Kurdish village of Palangan, its houses stacked on top of each each other while stepping up the mountainside.