Well, after a week in Bosnia, Abraham and I arrived in Istanbul yesterday afternoon. It really is an amazing city. We met our friend Manish, who flew in from Dubai at about the same time, at the airport, and checked into our hotel. It’s clean and modern and has a fantastic rooftop terrace/restaurant with a glorious view of the Bosphorus.
(more…)

It’s Monday morning in Steffen and Anna’s peaceful apartment in Sarajevo. This is our first “down” time after a fantastic weekend.

After Abraham and I explored Sarajevo — a very lively, beautiful, walkable city — with Anna during the day on Friday, Steffan joined us after work and drove us down to Buna, near Mostar, where we stayed at a small hotel in the countryside along a small river. We had dinner and breakfast on the riverbank, and then drove down to Trebinje at the southern tip of the country.
(more…)

After several days in the Volta region, we passed through Accra again and headed west along the coast. Four hours from Accra we reached Cape Coast, a lively city with the feel of an overgrown village that was the original capital of Britain’s “Gold Coast,” Ghana’s colonial name.

Cape Coast was a very easy city to walk around — although it was hilly — and we spent a lot of time walking along curving roads and passing by smiling people going about their routines. Although it’s fairly large, everyone seemed to know each other. It reminded me a lot of La Ceiba, Honduras, where I lived for three years in the Peace Corps.
(more…)