Llegué a Ghana una mañana lluviosa. Mi estancia no iba a ser muy larga. Tomé un taxi que me llevaría al hotel dónde dejaría mis cosas para poder ir a recorrer Accra, la capital del país.  Camino al hotel me dediqué a platicar con el taxista. Hablamos, sobre todo, de la familia. El conductor era un hombre casado con dos hijos. Según él su familia es la fuente de su felicidad y es la que hace que, día a día, salga a la calle a trabajar largas jornadas en su taxi. Al poco tiempo nos dijimos adiós y me dejó en el hotel. Contacté a un guía turístico para que me llevara a algún lugar dónde pudiera encontrar tradiciones únicas en la ciudad. Mi guía, Michael, me llevó al puerto dónde se congregan los pescadores. Allí, gracias a su labor cómo intérprete pude conocer de las tradiciones de los pescadores y de su modo de vida. Uno de ellos me dijo que una de las cosas que más felices los hace es cuándo regresan de pescar con bastantes pescados. Una buena pesca implica cosas buenas para ellos y para sus familias. Michael me llevó a distintos  lugares en mi corta estancia pero una de las cosas que compartió conmigo fue la siguiente: la gente en Ghana le tiende la mano hasta a los extraños e, inclusive, ayudan al extranjero si éste necesita ayuda. Ghana es un país pacífico, dónde la gente está orgullosa de poder llevar una vida así y procuran tratar de la mejor manera tanto a conocidos cómo a extraños.

We're in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. We headed up this hill that offers a view of the whole city. It's a very peaceful place. You can hear the laughter of children playing in the hills as the sun sets behind the mountains.

While we were in Tajikistan we had a really cool experience. Being a Central Asian country sometimes it’s kind of hard for you to find someone you can speak in English with. This is not a complain whatsoever but we don’t how to speak Russian (and I can tell you: we would love to learn Russian to have the chance to communicate in such a cool and interesting language). So after going to a couple of places and enjoying the magnificent landscapes the country has to offer we were starving so we looked for a place where we could sit down, watch the sunset and eat something. We managed to find a cozy outdoors restaurant that was on a hill. The place had the overview of the city of Dushanbe. By this point we were really hungry. After a couple of minutes our waitress came and she didn’t speak English.

The menu was on Cyrillic so we were basically lost in translation. However Tony started making sounds and gestures asking for some food. Our waitress was laughing and we were as well. Finally, after a couple of attempts, the three of us made the sound and gestures of a cow. Our waitress laughed and nodded. Beef was one of the things on the menu. A couple of minutes later we were eating some skewers and a salad (yeah, we even managed to get a salad, how cool is that?). Part of the happiness of travelling is managing to communicate with others (regardless the language barrier) and having a big smile on your face.   

When we arrived in Nepal I got the feeling that we just traveled to a different time. As we were driving from the airport to the hotel, Tony was taking pictures, Kelly was looking through the window and I was watching the reality that was unfolding in front of us. Sure you’re going to find lots of modern things in Nepal but, somehow, you can feel how the traditions prevail there. Nepalese people are really proud of their traditions but not only that, they’re really eager to share their traditions and their culture with you. However, they’re at the same time really eager to know about you: “Where do you come from? How is your home country? What do you like? Are you sure you’re not Nepalese? Because you look Nepalese! [haha]”: may be some of the questions or comments you might get while traveling through Nepal. That’s a really cool experience: to be welcomed and greeted with such enthusiasm and curiosity while your interlocutors have a big genuine smile on their faces.