I didn’t grow up by the sea. In fact, I had never lived by the sea before I moved to the Costa Tropical, in the South of Spain. It’s here in Andalusia that I discovered the shout of the seagulls from my bedroom window, the view on the blue horizon over breakfast, and the walks with my dog in the sand (as we’ve all seen in cheesy movies).

When I stroll on the beach, I instinctively look for nice polished rocks and seashells. That’s a habit I picked up during my backpacking travels in Brazil. Do you do that too? The ones I pick up, I used to just keep somewhere where they gathered dust. But I wanted to actually make something nice out of them.

The magical internet gave me the idea of combining the seashells with plants, particularly with cacti and succulents. They need little soil and almost no water, so they’re just perfect. I buy those plants from the shop, but I also plant my own; they grow amazingly well here! From the beach, I get the seashells and little rocks for adornment.

I’m happy with those creations: they keep me creative and make for great, cheap presents. My friends love them!

Anthony with GreenMochila.com

Found treasures in Maine

Herbs and Scents in your travels

It happens all the time: I go on a hike, I smell something (good) in the air, and then I have to follow my scent analyzer until I find the source. Depending on the power of the wind and the terrain, it can be an easy hunt or a very tricky one. Sometimes it’s a fragrant and aesthetic find, such as the frangipani flowers on the trees in Thailand or sparse lavender bushes on the slopes of Monte Verde (Cabo Verde). At other times, it’s a real edible treasure, such as roadside mint in Montenegro and basil in Italy. It’s nice to make some mint tea with a few twigs when coming home. The presence of the find is always temporary but makes the hike more memorable.

On nearly every island in the Cabo Verdean archipelago, I caught a whiff of something very lemony and minty. Sniffing out the inland plant (pictured) wasn’t hard, but determining the species and whether I could munch it or make a tea of it proved elusive. As always with foraging, it’s imperative to remain cautious. So besides stopping and smelling this plant every time I got the chance, I left it in peace. My memories of that trip are full of olfactory joy.

As a photographer I’m terrible at packing light. My suitcase and backpack are overloaded with cameras, lenses and other paraphernalia, which means that never have any room to bring back souvenirs from my travels. Which is why I collect fridge magnets – they take up almost no space in my luggage, and they don’t clutter up my little London flat with random stuff either. But after about 15 years of collecting I’ve become very picky about my magnets and I won’t buy any old tat – they have to mean something and capture a moment or a memory from my trip. Which is why sometimes I make my own.

If I’ve been somewhere and picked up a trinket, a badge, some small carving or even a bit of rock, I’ll take it home and superglue a small magnet to the back of it. So alongside my regular shop-bought magnets I’ve also got a little lacquered heart given to me by a pottery worker in Morocco, a small piece of obsidian glass and a bit of tezontle volcanic stone from a work project in Mexico, and a tiny ammonite fossil that I bought in a workshop in Morocco. But my favourite is a small bit of lava from when I climbed the volcano Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo – not being a tourist hotspot they don’t sell fridge magnets there so I had no choice but to make my own and I love it!

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