2019 West Africa Journey

No trip like our journey through Benin, Togo and Ghana can simultaneously offer a spiritual experience, travels to the tormented history of slavery and total immersion into the life and culture of diverse ethnic groups.

Every day of the trip opened new cultural, spiritual and everyday life treasures to us and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Normally pythons do not engender thoughts of love in us humans. However, these pythons did: they slithered after fugitive slaves erasing their footprints so they could not be caught.

“This takes my breath away” said Louis at the Gelede ceremony, where the masks transmit important lessons from the ancestral spirits to the living.

It is always great fun to interact with the sellers at open air markets, and find out about their lives and the products they display.

Maria Rosa Costanzo, MD, FACC, FAHA

Dr. Costanzo is a cardiologist, philanthropist, mother, adventurer, photographer, and reveler in life. When she is not writing or presenting on heart health, wellness and all other things ‘cardiology’, she can be found shooting images or compiling these into books for her family and friends.