Oh, my. We were blown away by the poverty in Ghana earlier this week, but it turns out that Ghana was the warm-up act for Togo. I think many people came in from the tours yesterday afternoon shell-shocked. It has taken a little time to process what we saw. I am going to write about…

  It has been estimated that a billion people eat chocolate each day, so a post about chocolate should be the sweetest story ever told, but this week we heard a lecture that made it all so very bittersweet. The journey from cacao bean to chocolate bar leaves a wide swath of destruction in its…

  Quick show of hands: who has ever heard of Cape Verde? I don’t see any hands, so I will move ahead with enlightening one and all. In the grand scheme of nations, Cape Verde is a new kid in town, only having gone out on its own in the seventies. Before then, Portugal was…

  The Canarians are crazy for their Pinus canariensis and the love is well deserved. I am quite sure I have never written a post about a tree but, as they say, there is a first time for everything. This is an amazing conifer with powers that are nothing short of miraculous. If you give…

If Fred Flintstone went looking for a new cave after Pebbles was born, Wilma would have gone ape over the Benagil Cave and insisted that they make the move. She would have loved “The Eye,” a large natural skylight. The wide sandy beach would appeal to her, too. Pebbles could play there for hours every day.…