Pack light. That’s the modern traveler’s mantra. I bought into the ‘pack light’ hype after lugging 200 pounds of luggage around Europe in 2008. So, packing for Ghana, I decided my laptop would be superfluous with my thinner, lighter, capable iPad.

Boy was I wrong. In Ghana, this is basically all the iPad is good for:

All that to say, I’ve been offline for most of the trip. But as responsibilities wind down at work, and before the new stateside responsibilities begin, I wanted to share some of my few experiences. Mostly so I don’t forget.

These are some pictures from our first weekend away at a place called Coconut Grove, just outside of Cape Coast in Ghana’s Central Region. Arriving in such a luxurious place after witnessing such intense impoverishment the week prior, I arrived, and left, feeling surreal. Even now, toward the end of the trip, beginning to feel comfortable in such a foreign place, ‘surreal’ still suffices. These pictures are from Coconut Grove and they help explain how I’ve felt in Africa.  They are unmanipulated long exposures.