Pictured: Morning chat with the Mondari tribe located an hour outside of Juba.

Pictured: At the beach in Mogadishu shortly after our $5 boat ride

Pictured: At the camel market just outside of Hargeisa

Pictured: Inside a local hut in near Dikhil learning about how locals get by

Pictured: In Lalibella about to enter St George’s Church

Pictured: Taking a local boat out to the “Green Island” in Massawa

What to say about Eritrea? Uniquely positioned on the Red Sea coast, there is a lot of potential for the country - meanwhile it seems that they are perfectly content without credit cards, any kind of digital banking (they keep their bank account registry on a piece of paper), AOL dial-up speed “wi-fi”. Plainly put, technology is their last concern - and the well behaved children and respectful adults are a product of it.

Pictured: Taking a picture with a Mothers Day basket of flowers in the middle of the Bab El Bhar square in Tunis

Tunisia was such an interesting mix of northern African culture; one we were not expecting. The Four Seasons Hotel was absolutely beautiful and the beach just out in front was reminiscent of a Grecian island (not surprisingly, as they’re just across the Adriatic). The country is young, lively, and a mini highlight was seeing camels loose on the beach just outside the hotel - minding their own business.

Pictured: Hiking up 1000 steps in a hillside village in Santo Antao to learn about the Grogue making process from a local farmer.

Pictured: Walking back to the cruise ship after having taken a 7 mile walk through Roxa Island in the Bijagos archipelago. The kids thought Max was a footballer (soccer).

Pictured: Local kids watching us tour their beach city in Tokeh, Sierra Leone

Pictured: During a 5 mile walk through the Banco National Forest, we stopped to snap a pic with a beautiful and massive tree before heading back to the port in Abidjan.

Pictured: Standing at the top of Elmina Castle overlooking Elmina Bay as the locals take their boats out to fish, we toured around the castle to learn what role it played in the history of slavery.

Pictured: Participants of a voodoo ceremony taking a break in Anecho, Togo

Our main excursion in Togo was called “All About Voodoo” - therefore we spent a 10 hour day driving to different villages seeing how each and everyone of them practices their traditional African beliefs differently. The 4 different villages we visited all had very different styles and rituals for their practice.

Pictured: Taking a speedboat down the Kouilou River to see the local, but wild, chimpanzees.

Our time in Congo was short, but we did the most exotic thing one can do while in this lesser-traveled West African country. After getting to the port, we took a few hour bus ride to the river, where we then proceeded to take a small zodiak style boat 2 hours deeper into the bush to spend time with chimpanzees!

Pictured: At the Miradouro da Lua overlooking the “Viewpoint of the Moon”

The coast of Angola is so naturally beautiful and reminded us of what an untouched California could look like. Re-learning parts of the history of slave trade was sobering, eye-opening, painful, yet left a mark of relief of it’s resolution and the forgiveness that has been learned as a path forward.

Pictured: Walking down the dune mountains in Walvis Bay, Namibia

Namibia, although seemingly covered in sand dunes, had surprisingly so much diversity to offer! The salt flats, the flamingos, Walvis Bay, the diamonds near Luderitz, the beautiful ocean, thousands of seals, shipwrecks on the beach, and historic old towns - and that’s only the west coast!

Pictured: Walking along the beach after a reef dive off Benguerra Island.

We had a magical time in Mozambique, with the highlights being: diving at numerous locations just off the reef including sightings of: giant sea turtles, a crocodile fish for the first time, a large beautiful honeycomb eel, different types of rays, an octopus shying around, and the most massive sized grouper fish you can imagine. To top it all off, the shooting stars at night made for a magical experience, and the late night ocean swim that brought about the electric blue colors of the bioluminescence - what could be better?

Pictured: Standing just in front of Devil’s Pool on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls.

Hanging over the side of Victoria Falls was easily one of the more dangerous things we’ve done while traveling. Follow that with a sighting of the white rhinos near Toka Leya - Zambia gave us a wide range of dramatic travel experiences that we will remember forever!

Pictured: Walking through the town of Kirundu outside of Kisoro, we met up with school kids who were curious.

We spent almost 10 days in Uganda traveling around to 4 different parts of the country, doing things from gorilla trekking, rafting rapids on the Nile River, tracking chimpanzees, and taking a boat out to the swamps outside of Entebbe to see the elusive Shoebill.

Pictured: Setting out for our first dive of the day at Barracuda Point just off the east coast of Mauritius.

Our stay at the Constance Prince was a relaxing one filled with days sipping on french white wine at the pool, and afternoons diving to see Mauritius’s finest underwater marvels.