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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Travel & Places
Julia Cosgrove is the award-winning Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at AFAR Media, based in San Francisco, which publishes the influential travel magazine AFAR and website. Born in New York and raised in Berkeley, she now lives in Oakland, California – where she's been sheltering in place since the pandemic.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Middle East
Ever since moving to Saudi Arabia, I've wanted to visit the enigmatic flower men living in the southern provinces of the country and extending into Yemen. They're the descendants of ancient Tihama and Asir tribes dating back two millennia who are known for wearing colourful and distinctive flower garlands on their heads. They also sport an ornate traditional curved dagger, called the jambiya, over a colourful and multi-patterned wrap-around male skirt known as a futa.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: South America
One of the things I most looked forward to when visiting Brazil's northern city of Manaus, known as the Gateway to the Amazon Rainforest, was the opportunity to visit some of the aboriginal people living in the Amazon. The opportunity came when we sailed along the Rio Negro river towards a riverside village inhabited by the Tuyuca (Tuyaka) people. They also call themselves Dojkapuara or Utapinõmakãphõná. Their population is concentrated in Brazil and Colombia. Tuyuca is spoken by 500 to 1,000 people in these two South American countries.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Travel & Places
It’s hard to believe that I’ve already crossed the eight-year mark on my third overseas work experience here in Saudi Arabia. Life as an expat offers many fantastic opportunities on various fronts, but it also comes with some challenges.
I recently spoke to a fellow Canadian expat and colleague, Michelle Ponto, for a podcast episode covering a wide range of topics from how to embark on an overseas work adventure, adjusting to life in a new country, and overcoming the stigma of travelling alone.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: South America
Experiencing the Rio De Janeiro Carnaval has been a big item on my bucket list for a long time. I had the opportunity to make this dream a reality in 2020. The world-famous extravaganza is considered the biggest carnival in the world — bringing around 2 million people per day on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
Carnaval begins on the Friday preceding Lent and ends on Ash Wednesday. But the Winner's Parade takes place on the Saturday after the carnival ends.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Southern Africa
Cape Town, colloquially known as South Africa's Mother City, is the country's legislative capital and the main city of the Western Cape province. I first visited Cape Town in 2010, just after the FIFA World Cup. I still have the emblematic vuvuzela plastic monotone horn, which became part of the world's lexicon during the World Cup that year.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Southern Africa
I had planned a two-night stop-over in Johannesburg, South Africa, before Amaria and I headed on to our self-drive adventure in Namibia. It was our second time in Johannesburg. We had already experienced driving to Soweto, sampled the vibrant life there, as well as visited Pretoria the last time; so the idea this time was to explore more of Johannesburg itself.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Southern Africa
The Republic of Namibia is situated in the south-western part of the African continent. Positioned along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, it’s bordered by the Republic of South Africa to the south, by both Angola and Zambia to the north, and Botswana to the east.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: Middle East
Nearly five years into my experience as an expatriate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I can still point to the historical district of Old Jeddah, known as Al-Balad (translates as “The Town” in Arabic) as one of my all-time favourite travel destinations. Only a few places on earth provides visitors with a genuine feeling of travelling back in time to an authentic by-gone era, unspoiled by modern-day mass tourism. Al-Balad is literally an open-air, living, museum.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: South America
As part of my first trip to Brazil this summer, the city of Salvador de Bahia was high on my list . Known as the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture, I was eager to see for my self the beautiful colonial buildings, taste the cuisine, and experience sights and sounds of live capoeira dancers in the streets.
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- Written by: Meres J. Weche
- Category: East Asia
Travel enthusiasts like myself all have a bucket list; and somewhere in between world wonders like the Great Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu and Victoria Falls are also some famous streets and avenues. Ones that immediately come to mind are the Champs-Elysées in Paris, Broadway in New York, La Rambla in Barcelona, or Hollywood Boulevard. But how many of those legendary streets boast a continuous history of nearly seven hundred years?
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Meres J. Weche
Expat and digital maven with a passion for telling stories in words & images. Lived & worked in four continents.
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