Colombia

Garbage Museum
Picking coffee beans

The moment you arrive in Bogota you will smile as it’s a city with tremendous energy and vibe. I was escorted around Bogota and its surroundings in 2016 by Nadja Grote who runs the company AlternativeColumbia.com.

Bogota is absolutely choked by traffic which can challenge any visitor’s patience. Before visiting, its best to decompress and just enjoy, paying no attention to the world’s worst city-wide traffic jam.

I started off my time in Columbia with a bike tour through the central city. Weaving through the city’s streets was both energizing and incredibly informative. We visited many different parts of the city, new and old, learning its history along the way. The following two days I visited a coffee plantation, located about 2 hour outside of Bogota (strongly recommended). I helped some migrant farm workers pick carrots, cut bacon at a carniceria and hauled potatoes at the city market.

One of Bogota’s coolest hidden treasures was the Garbage Museum. Overall, a wonderful place and I am eager to return to see Medellin and the mountain coast.

Spain

At Las Ramblas in Barcelona I think I've been to Spain more than any other country in the world (excluding Mexico, Jamaica and the Bahamas, Costa Rica, where I used to work.) I spent two summer studying Spanish in the coastal city of Malaga, and have traveled through...

Burkina Faso

Country Information: The capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougou. About 18 million people live here and the official language is French. Burkina Faso is religiously diverse and exercises freedom of religion; that being said, Islam is the most popular religion followed...

Ghana

Jim in one of Ghana's slums Country Information:  The capital of Ghana is Accra. There are approximately 32 million people living here. The official language of the country is English, but Asante, Ewe, and Fante are spoken by the majority of the country. The majority...