When was the last time you saw your favorite artist or band perform at a live music event in a crowd of hundreds of people? With the Corona pandemic, music festivals and live music events across the world were cancelled. In Africa, Lake of Stars, Capetown Jazz Fest and more of our favorite festivals were cancelled or moved virtually.

In the last episode of season 2 of Mwende Bwino, I took a trip down memory lane to remember the music festivals my friends and I attended from 2013-2017 as part of The Fest Gurus, a group of four friends  (Gwi, Lo, Zash and me ) who ventured across Southern, East and West Africa interviewing artists and vlogging our experiences. 

My guests are Gwinyayi Mabika (Gwi) and Ngonizashe Chinara (Zash) who are from Harare, Zimbabwe and made up The Fest Guru camera and video crew.  Gwi and Zash run the Production company Crafted Media.

In the last episode of season 2 of Mwende Bwino, I took a trip down memory lane to remember the music festivals my friends and I attended from 2013-2018 as part of The Fest Gurus, a group of four friends  who ventured across Southern, East and West Africa interviewing artists and vlogging our experiences. 

Follow Zash on Instagram @Zashcraft

Follow Gwi on Instagram @MrGwi

Follow Crafted Media @CraftedMediaGuys

Follow Mwende Bwino on Instagram and Twitter  and please subscribe, download , rate and share this podcast and any other episode you enjoyed. See you next year for Season 3! 

Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo is known for its sapeurs and it's amazing music. It is also the city that Paris born Congolese stylist Laëtitia Kandolo uses as inspiration for her womenswear line UCHAWI. Laëtitia has worked with some of the biggest celebrities in the world including The Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Madonna, Rihanna and more. In this episode, she shares her favorite things to do in Congo, how to pack for a trip and more. Laëtitia also served as Editor in Cheif  for issue no 28 of Hamaji magazine, Africa's first bilingual travel magazine.

Follow Laëtitia on Instagram| @TitiaKandolo 

Follow Laetitia on Twitter @TitiaKandolo

Follow UCHAWI on Instagram| @Uchawiworld

Read Hamaji Issue 28 that Laëtitia edited

https://www.hamajimagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Hamaji-28.pdf

Have you ever wanted to go on a camping trip in Zambia but haven't known where to go or how to plan your trip? To answer those questions, we brought on Petra Chikasa. Petra is an outdoor enthusiast, adventure travel writer and destination development officer. She shares her favorite places to camp in Lusaka, Central, Northern, Luapula, Muchinga and Copperbelt provinces. She also shares her tips on planning your first camping trip in Zambia.

Read Petra's article on women friendly  spots in Zambia

https://girlcanwander.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/7-of-the-best-camping-spots-for-women-in-zambia/

Follow Petra on Twitter @GirlCanWander

Follow Petra on Instagram @GirlCanWander

When it comes to traveling for wine, the most known travel destination is South Africa which boasts five regions. However, the East African country of Kenya should be on your radar. In this episode, we spoke to Mukami Mwaraina, a viticulturist and wine maker who has her own winery called Saikeri Estate. Mukami is also a wine expert at Karen Country Club. We spoke to her about starting her own winery and the future of Kenyan wine.

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vinepluswine

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Love wine? So do we. One of the best ways of traveling without traveling is through the wine of a particular country. Our guest this episode is Ayele Solomon, a conservationist turned wine maker. Ayele is the founder of  Honey Wine Co which produces the Bee D’Vine brand,inspired by his home country Ethiopia. Bee D'Vine is a super premium barrel-aged honey wine crafted in Sonoma exclusively from select raw California honey and springwater. It is available dry & semi sweet.

Ayele shares memories of his travels across Africa, what it's like running a black owned winery in Sonoma, California and how to support black winemakers.

Listeners of this episode get a special discount when purchasing wine from Bee D'Vine. To claim this discount, reach out to Ayele via the Bee D'Vine social media pages

www.beedvine.com

ww.instagram.com/beedvine

twitter.com/beeDvine

In honor of World Tourism Day 2020, Mwende Bwino collaborated with Discover Zambia to host a webinar under the theme 'Tourism and Rural Development'.  

Guests were Brian Ross from Prospero Zambia, Dorothy Walker Partner at Discover Zambia and Travel content creator, Luwi Nguluka from Women for Conservation and the Wildlife Crime Prevention Progam, Gemma D'Souza Editor and Founder of Nyayo Magazine,  James Milanzi Country Director at African Parks and Gilmour Dickson Safari Manager at Kaingu Lodge.

The webinar was moderated by Mwende Bwino host Mazuba Kapambwe.  

Livingstone is the tourist capital of Zambia, and home to the Mosi-o-Tunya (Victoria Falls).  In this episode, our guests content creator Chisumbu (@alwayschisumbu) and Mimi from Adventures With Mimi share their tips for visiting Livingstone; from the best activities to do, where to stay, where to eat, how to get there and more.

Photo Credit: © flowcomm / Flickr

Follow Chisumbu on Instagram

instagram.com/alwayschisumbu

Follow Mimi on Instagram

instagram.com/adventureswithmimi

Follow Mimi on twitter

@adventures_mimi

Read my article The Best Things to do at Victoria Falls

https://theculturetrip.com/africa/zambia/articles/the-best-things-to-see-and-do-at-victoria-falls/

Is skiing on your bucket list? Meet Tobi, Wenona, Simi, Blessing and Adeola, the founders of Mount Noire a luxury ski company.  The lovely ladies of Mount Noire help plan your first or next ski trip, share what it's like to be black skiers, how the ski industry needs to change and where they're excited to hit the slopes when corona is over.

Check out Mount Noire's website  mountnoire.squarespace.com

Follow Mount Noire on twitter MountNoireldn

Follow Mount Noire on Instagram instagram.com/mountnoire/

Check out Mount Noire's feature in Powder Magazine

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instagram.com/mwendebwinopodcast/

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https://twitter.com/MwendeBwino

Traveling by train is one of the best ways of seeing a country. In this episode, meet Lululama, a travel writer and blogger from South Africa who took the Shosholoza train from Johannesburg to Capetown on a solo adventure. She shares how the trip helped her come out of her shell.

Wongani Ngulube from Zambia is an outdoor instructor and travel vlogger/blogger who took a group trip with her work mates on the Tazara train on a return trip from Zambia to Tanzania. She shares her tips for what to pack, how to survive delays and the secret item on the menu.

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Lulu on Instagram|

Lulu's blog post about her train trip

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Wongani on instagram|

Watch Wongani's vlog from her Tazara trip

Tazara Website

Mazuba's article about Tazara

Photo Credit: Tazara| © Richard Stupart / Flickr

In honor of #WorldElephantDay (August 12), we're releasing a bonus episode which was recorded in Lusaka at the Game Rangers International offices. My guests are Rachel Murton and Sport Beattie who have dedicated their lives to helping orphaned elephants in Zambia through the Elephant Orphanage Project. According to their site,  "Game Rangers International is a holistic wildlife conservation organisation, specialising in resource protection, community outreach and wildlife rescue". 

To support Game Rangers International, adopt an elephant via their website

 https://www.gamerangersinternational.org/

Game Rangers International on Instagram

instagram.com/game_rangers_international/

Game Rangers International Twitter

https://twitter.com/GameRangersInt

Photo Credit: Unikue Moda

https://www.instagram.com/unikue_moda/