Backpacking in Africa Jonny Blair
“Omam-Biyik? Oh and he scored” – Football Commentator (1990). I finally lived out a childhood dream in March 2024 when I arrived in Cameroon! Ever since Omam-Biyik’s header in 1990 for Cameroon against Argentina, I have followed Cameroon’s football results. I have a soft spot for them, despite my clear bias of Northern Ireland. Back…
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Backpacking In São Tomé: Casa De Ferias Is The Only Place To Stay In The Capital!! “Everything in its right place” – Radiohead. You don’t study international tourism and hospitality management for nothing, and you’re not the coolest hotel owner by chance. Some things are meant to be. Fate, fame, life and love intertwined, I…
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Guinea was the hardest visa to get for me, out of the hat-trick on my 2023 Christmas List – Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. They all border each other but to save time, I was flying in and out of the hat-trick on a fast trip which would also see me back in Senegal and…
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Backpacking in Guinea🇬🇳: Touring Conakry The Week Of The Explosion“It’s just a dropped stitch; in life’s tapestry” – Joanie Trotter. Monday morning 18th December 2023, two things happened that would influence and impact my entire next week, changing the title of this very blog post. It was supposed to be “Backpacking in Guinea 🇬🇳 :…
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Thirsty Thursdays: 11 Bars And Cafés I Visited in Sierra Leone 🇸🇱 “The self unseeing” – Thomas Hardy. On my West Africa tour of 2023, the last of a hat-trick of new countries on my jigsaw was Sierra Leone (which followed my repeat into Senegal, and the Guinea brace – Guinea and Guinea-Bissau!). The plan…
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How To Get A Guinea-Bissau Visa On Arrival at Bissau International Airport Guinea-Bissau was the second new country I visited in December 2023 on my West African journey, after Guinea. Guinea-Bissau was also classed as country 222 on my journey, so a magic lucky one, and my flight in was a fast one! It was…
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“All that I know is there’s nothing here to run from” – Coldplay. After getting an online evisa for Guinea in December 2023, it was time to fly in. My visa was confirmed on Monday 18th December 2023. On that same ill-fated day, there was a fatal oil explosion in Conakry, Guinea. Ouch. As…
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In February 2020 just before COVID lockdown, I crossed a lot of borders in southern Africa and never wrote about them. Here is a guide on World Borders: How To Get From Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Kasane, Botswana (At Kazungula). We left the Shoestrings Backpackers hostel in Victoria Falls City, Zimbabwe by shared car (Malina,…
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“Slip inside the eye of your mind” – Noel Gallagher. Sierra Leone was the last new country I visited in December 2023 on my West African journey, and my flight in was a late one, on Christmas night 2023. I had spied quite a few coastal and seaside hotels online before the trip. In the…
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“Reality reflection. It’s a long long way from here to there” – Paul Van Dyk. Well, it has been a long and winding road on this blog and I always like referring to it as a backpacking blog, for backpackers like me. However, until December 2023, there were TWO countries that I had been to,…
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