Alicia Ortego
Content writer and author of the blog “Los Viajes de Ali”. A social anthropologist by training and passionate about Africa and deserts.
Latest posts from Alicia Ortego
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Planet Sahel, a borderline territory
The Sahel is a land of transition between the desert and the savannah that precedes the jungles of the south. It is a horizontal strip of land spread across more…
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Salt caravans in the Sahara, resistance or death
It’s still possible to find salt for sale in the markets of the Sahel and in Saharan cities such as Gao, Timbuktu, Agadez, and Kalait. And on our winter expeditions…
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Ennedi Rock Art: Paintings and Engravings of the Chadian Sahara
The rock art of Ennedi is one of the great cultural treasures of the Sahara. Thousands of paintings and engravings are scattered throughout caves, rock shelters, and sandstone cliffs in…
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Bori Hausa ceremony: animist practices in Niger
Niger is a diamond in the rough. With an enormous cultural heritage and very friendly people. We fell in love with it without a doubt. Among its cultural riches, we…
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A curious maternity leave in Congo (DRC)
On the 2023 Jungle Kongo Expedition trip, Austerio Alonso and the other travellers had the good fortune to witness a ceremony to mark the end of the Ekonda pygmies’ “maternity…
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Pende Tribe, the people of the great initiations (DRC)
We travel to the southwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo in search of the Pende tribe. This is one of the ethnic groups that attracts us the most because…
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The Kuba Kingdom of Congo and its fantastic past
We like to include a strong cultural component in our trips. For example, the Kuba kingdom of the Congo, an ancient and powerful civilisation whose descendants still preserve some of…
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Makoko, community and resistance in gigantic Lagos (Nigeria)
Makoko is like an island in the chaos of the big city. It is a floating neighbourhood and we are in the largest city in Africa. Its name, by the…
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Dancing to the sound of Afrobeat in Lagos, Nigeria
To be recognised as the father of a musical style is no small matter. In Lagos, the economic centre of Nigeria, they can boast about it. For this reason, and…
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Benin City and Edo culture, pure Nigerian history
In the Africa Overland expedition we did in Kumakonda between March and April 2023, we knew that Nigeria was not going to make it easy for us, but we also…
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The Wodaabe of Chad: origins, symbols and relationships in Gerewol
On our Kumakonda trips, we’ve had many encounters with the Wodaabe of Chad, and we even travel to their Gerewol festival every year. For us, this nomadic people—part of the…
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Discovering the Dozo hunters, an esoteric and powerful brotherhood of the Malinké Country
Among the enormous variety of worldviews that exist in West Africa today, we can find brotherhoods or confraternities. These are more or less secret societies with a strong esoteric, spiritual…