2010 was quite a busy year with 12 missions: Brazil (2), Argentina, Peru, Ghana, Namibia, Germany, France, Uganda, Malawi, Canada and Abu Dhabi including also conferences in Morocco, Abu Dhabi, Australia and Canada.
Over the year (for both business and pleasure) I flew 79 sectors on 21 airlines in 25 different types of aircraft.
New airlines used for the first time during the year were :
TAP (Portugal) AA Abaete, (Brazil) Royal Air Maroc, Air Berlin, Air Namibia, Aerolineas Argentinas, Austral (Argentina) and TACA (Brazil/Peru).
Countries visited for the first time were: Morocco, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, Ghana and Uganda.
And so 2010 comes to an end. The travel diary for 2011 can be found at :
http://waggstravels2011.blogspot.com/
Cheers and see you soon......................................
Monday, December 27, 2010
December 27th: Christmas in London and back to Vienna
Christmas shopping in London was a bit limited because it was very cold and the threat of more snow semed to keep a lot of people at home. Still there was areplica German Christmas Market along the South bank of the River Thames near the London Eye. It was a copy of the sort of thing we have in Vienna where there are about 14 markets each with their own character.
The snow was melting fast in London but to the north it was still affecting transport systems. The annual informal Christmas reunion dinner went well with most of the usual crowd attending.
Christmas Day and brother-in-law Michael drive my sister Soo and I to have Christmas lunch with my Sister Ali, her husband Tim, daughter Beth and partner Ruben, and Dadwag. We saw plenty of snow about but the roads were pretty well clear everywhere .
Lunch was very good as always and we all had a great time; plenty of food and drink and lots of fun with the presents.
Sunday 26th was a travel ; preceeded by drinks at the house of an old friend of Soo ans Mike's. Then a train to Heathrow from Paddington as the tube drivers were on strike and check in at Heathrow. The BA staff at the desk were friendly but the flight was late. The gate staff were very bad at telling us what was happening with the delay but we did eventually get away and arrived in Vienna just in time to run the risk of missing the last train; this flight is so often late that I always book a cab nowadays. So that should be the last flight of the year - just New Year's Eve to go.........................
The snow was melting fast in London but to the north it was still affecting transport systems. The annual informal Christmas reunion dinner went well with most of the usual crowd attending.
Christmas Day and brother-in-law Michael drive my sister Soo and I to have Christmas lunch with my Sister Ali, her husband Tim, daughter Beth and partner Ruben, and Dadwag. We saw plenty of snow about but the roads were pretty well clear everywhere .
Lunch was very good as always and we all had a great time; plenty of food and drink and lots of fun with the presents.
Sunday 26th was a travel ; preceeded by drinks at the house of an old friend of Soo ans Mike's. Then a train to Heathrow from Paddington as the tube drivers were on strike and check in at Heathrow. The BA staff at the desk were friendly but the flight was late. The gate staff were very bad at telling us what was happening with the delay but we did eventually get away and arrived in Vienna just in time to run the risk of missing the last train; this flight is so often late that I always book a cab nowadays. So that should be the last flight of the year - just New Year's Eve to go.........................
Thursday, December 23, 2010
December 20: Christmas in London
As has been my habit since living in Vienna I arranged to go to London for the Christmas period to see my two sisters and my father as well as catch up with some good friends. This year the travel plan looked to be in jepordy as Heathrow Airport failed to cope with snow - that is what you get when you sell your main gateway airport to a dodgy firm of spanish builders who prompt;ly lower investmnt in the basic infrastructure and turn it into a shopping mall with no thought for passengers, risk management , etc, emergency weather planning and offer the CEO/MD a bonus which is greater than the amount spent on snow clearing gear for the year. That person finally (too late) said he woudl not accept the bonus ; I wonder why he is being paid all his salary as he appears to have failed at this job let alone done anything to deserve a bonus!
Anyway British Airwas assured me through their website that my flight would be one of the 50% that would leave Vienna. On the day I checked in OK and deposited my bag and went to the gate as advised. At takeoff time weahad no news froim BA except they told all those with connecting flights they would be travelling another way....the rest of us worked ot that this menat we would be leaving late. Fianlly after still no BA announced (or anyone else for that matter) news we were advised that the plane would board shortly - which we did and departed nearly one hour late. En route the pilot flying explained that Heathrow had been closed but as we had a 15 minute hold anyway all would be OK....After 20 minutes in the holding pattern the piot explained that the airporrt would re-open in 20 minutes or so....Finally after over 3 hours in the air for a 2h10m flight we landed to see very few machines clearing snow, one runway closed, deicing equipment that was so odl and inefficient it was verys ad. The place was a shambles and yet when I got to the bagge hall for once at LHR my bag arrived at the same time as me.
The tube to London was the next joy - a train jammed to the rafters as they seemed to be running late and were few and far bewteen. But it ran (which is more than it will do on Sunday when I am due to return- atube drivers' strike) and I finally made it to my sister and brother in law`s flat with time to spare before heading off to a reunion dinner at another flat in West Kensington. The susualcollection of old friends from school and partners was around and we had a great evening.
The weather has been cold and a little more snow at times but it is clearing up.
Tuesday saw me at the Essex workshops of P&A woods as the photgrapher whilst my brother in law helped award certificates to some prize wining coach-building apprentices . The workshop only does RR and bentley cars and is a fabulous place. After the awards we got a quick tour and saw red label and 8 litre bentleys form the 30s, modern (BMW) Bentleys . There was a Rolls from a Maharajah with a matching pair of Lee Enfield rifles clipped to the running board ready for any tigers one might see, and fantastic wooden body work at the rear to hid e the hood. The whole place is incredible and they also told me that they did some aeronautical work includng RRMerlin engines. Plenty of snow on the road away from the motorway but we had no trouble getting anywhere we wanted.
Shopping in London was also on the agenda, but I stayed local to avoid the Oxford Street crowds and slush!
Anyway British Airwas assured me through their website that my flight would be one of the 50% that would leave Vienna. On the day I checked in OK and deposited my bag and went to the gate as advised. At takeoff time weahad no news froim BA except they told all those with connecting flights they would be travelling another way....the rest of us worked ot that this menat we would be leaving late. Fianlly after still no BA announced (or anyone else for that matter) news we were advised that the plane would board shortly - which we did and departed nearly one hour late. En route the pilot flying explained that Heathrow had been closed but as we had a 15 minute hold anyway all would be OK....After 20 minutes in the holding pattern the piot explained that the airporrt would re-open in 20 minutes or so....Finally after over 3 hours in the air for a 2h10m flight we landed to see very few machines clearing snow, one runway closed, deicing equipment that was so odl and inefficient it was verys ad. The place was a shambles and yet when I got to the bagge hall for once at LHR my bag arrived at the same time as me.
The tube to London was the next joy - a train jammed to the rafters as they seemed to be running late and were few and far bewteen. But it ran (which is more than it will do on Sunday when I am due to return- atube drivers' strike) and I finally made it to my sister and brother in law`s flat with time to spare before heading off to a reunion dinner at another flat in West Kensington. The susualcollection of old friends from school and partners was around and we had a great evening.
The weather has been cold and a little more snow at times but it is clearing up.
Tuesday saw me at the Essex workshops of P&A woods as the photgrapher whilst my brother in law helped award certificates to some prize wining coach-building apprentices . The workshop only does RR and bentley cars and is a fabulous place. After the awards we got a quick tour and saw red label and 8 litre bentleys form the 30s, modern (BMW) Bentleys . There was a Rolls from a Maharajah with a matching pair of Lee Enfield rifles clipped to the running board ready for any tigers one might see, and fantastic wooden body work at the rear to hid e the hood. The whole place is incredible and they also told me that they did some aeronautical work includng RRMerlin engines. Plenty of snow on the road away from the motorway but we had no trouble getting anywhere we wanted.
Shopping in London was also on the agenda, but I stayed local to avoid the Oxford Street crowds and slush!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
8-12 October: Uganda and home.
The mission in Uganda was another training course and Keith and I had quite a high workload but the participants were pretty animated which made the week much more fun, and hopefully a better learning experience. The hotel where we worked was only a short distance away from the place where we stayed, but enough just to give us all a break in the evenings. Although the food was OK in the Imperial Botanical Gardens K and I took to walking up the road a few hundred metres several evenings to a chinese restaurant on the same road. The sign at the entrance was intriguing....
...........although the food was excellent and the beer was cheap we never did find out what the movies were!
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| Peter with a Nile Special... |
The high point of each day was our beer overlooking the shores of Lake Victoria in the hotel gardens as I mentioned. We tried several brands of local beer and they were all very cold and acceptable..
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| ..Moonberg was another drop we tried.... |
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| ............and Tusker (from Kenya) also went down well! |
The gardens also provided some interesting wildlife ...
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| A blue kingfisher in full song |
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| A glossy ibis |
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A brown heron on a nest  ...............................and Maribou Storks everywhere..................... We also went to Kampala, the capital, for a visit as it was only about 40 Km away. The traffic in the city was horrendous and these poictures barely tell the tale of our slow progress..40 minutes to do less than 1 km at one point.   But despite the chaos and the noise we did see these 3 Maribou storks nesting in a very small tree in the centre of the road!  The last evening we had a bit of a party at the hotel and I was danced and sung onto the car for my trip to the airport. The flights were with Brussels Airlines and the A330 and then an A321 were pretty uneventful. The flight was early out of Entebbe and witha very quick stop in Nairobi we arrived in Brussels early ona cold, dark rainy morning. Sadly the connectionw as not greta and I had four hours to wait (and buy chocolates for the office). Then a good flight with a nice breakfast back to Vienna arriving at lunchtime on a cool but dry day.Another mission completed. Hoppefully the last for the year. |
Sunday, November 14, 2010
October 28-30: Lima, Peru
The days of 28 and 29 were spent working on the training seminar with the local participants. I took to eating at the ASwiss restauarant just down the road frm the hotel as it was a good place to sit and watch the world whilst sipping a pisco sour and eating good fod.
The traffic in Lima is pretty awful and ther are lots of minibusees of varying states of epair - mostly battered and rather dodgy in appearance- but ther is also a great metro bus service.
On the expresssway through town the centre two lanes are dediciated to special buses which are like a wheeled version of an underground train:
The traffic in Lima is pretty awful and ther are lots of minibusees of varying states of epair - mostly battered and rather dodgy in appearance- but ther is also a great metro bus service.
On the expresssway through town the centre two lanes are dediciated to special buses which are like a wheeled version of an underground train:
The video shows the bus pulling away from one of the stations which are located in the centre of the road and linked to the street by lifts stairs and ramps etc. All very neat and looks good when the three lanes each way are grd locked in the rush hours. The buses just keep running.
Saturday morning I went for a walk to the Inca markets but was not moved to buy anything after all. The
weather was cool and cloudy but by 1130 a sea fog was drifting in and by 1230 it was cool and damp - and then suddenly the sun appeared at 1330 to give a sunny aternoon.
I had moved hotels to the San Antonio as the other place was full and they would not let me stay on. The new place was where we had run a course in 2008 so I knew the area OK but we had stayed in the sister hotel across the road whilst using the seminar room here. Turns out all the rooms are suites and quite impressive with a mega spa bath dominating the living area.....
The end of the stay drew close aqnd after another lunch at the "pizza & pub alley" we set off for the sirport and ours eparate flights home. Mine was a LAN flight to Madrid and then Iberia to Vienna LAN was OK but an older B767 and a bit tired - the crew too. Iberia provided an Airbus and the crew were in top form. Saturday evening and the end to anothe mission came as we landed on time in Vienna.
The end of the stay drew close aqnd after another lunch at the "pizza & pub alley" we set off for the sirport and ours eparate flights home. Mine was a LAN flight to Madrid and then Iberia to Vienna LAN was OK but an older B767 and a bit tired - the crew too. Iberia provided an Airbus and the crew were in top form. Saturday evening and the end to anothe mission came as we landed on time in Vienna.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
7 November: The source of the Nile
The hotel proved to be OK, although a slight musty smell does seem to hang in the air at times and the air-conditioner in my room is a bit noisy.
I met up with my mate Keith as expected over breakfast where we made a plan to hire a driver and car for the trip to Jinja to see the source of the River Nile. I was very keen to see the source of the river that I knew from living at the other end when I was in Egypt over 30 years ago. The other plan was to find Keith a fishing guide. He is a big fisherperson and the idea of catching a Nile Perch in Lake Victoria was just too good to be true for a real Territory barramundi man! Another breakfaster turned out to know another guest who had done just that so before too long the telephone numbers had been obtained from the Russian who had been fishing the day before and Keith was on his way to setting up a deal. Sadly it looks like it will be Friday afternoon and I shall not be able to go as my flight home will depart too early that evening to allow a good afternoon's fishing.
The drive to Jinja was with a local tour guide called Aggrey who had a smart new Toyota with air-con and drove with just the right amount of local knowledge and agression for us to make progress in the horrendous traffic without our being white knuckled all the way, we felt safe all the way. The drive included skirting around Kampala in the suburbs and the traffic was pretty bad. It seems Sunday is when parents visit their kids in boarding schools for picnic lunches etc and so there were lots of cars around as trucks and mini-buses everywhere.
The drive went through lots of agricultural land with acres of tea plantations and sugar cane as well as some rain forest.
Eventually we saw the lake again and drove over the Owen Stanley hydroelectric dam to reach Jinja and the road down to the official source of the Nile. We parked up and walked to the monument and then down the the water's edge to see the start of Africa's longest river.
There were plenty of birds to watch with pelicans, egrets, cormorants, and kingfishers on the water side and even Maribou Storks circling lazily overhead. Also there were plenty of souvenir stalls....
After not buying T shirts or taking a boast ride we sat down to a lunch at the water side drinking Nile Special Beer (what else) and Keith had fish and chips with tilapia the local major fish. Then it was time for the drive back, the traffic had got worse which seemed impossible but it took 3 hours to get back to Entebbe. Again we saw a lot of interesting birds including more Maribou Storks and even a few Black Kites just the same as you see in Darwin! We met up with the counterpart to sort out some work details and then had a sunset beer (Nile again) watching the monkeys and hornbills in the hotel garden as we stared out across Lake Victoria and discussed our work programme for the next 5 days. There are many interesting birds around but I was not having a lot of luck with my camera. Hopefully I will do better tomorrow.
I met up with my mate Keith as expected over breakfast where we made a plan to hire a driver and car for the trip to Jinja to see the source of the River Nile. I was very keen to see the source of the river that I knew from living at the other end when I was in Egypt over 30 years ago. The other plan was to find Keith a fishing guide. He is a big fisherperson and the idea of catching a Nile Perch in Lake Victoria was just too good to be true for a real Territory barramundi man! Another breakfaster turned out to know another guest who had done just that so before too long the telephone numbers had been obtained from the Russian who had been fishing the day before and Keith was on his way to setting up a deal. Sadly it looks like it will be Friday afternoon and I shall not be able to go as my flight home will depart too early that evening to allow a good afternoon's fishing.
The drive to Jinja was with a local tour guide called Aggrey who had a smart new Toyota with air-con and drove with just the right amount of local knowledge and agression for us to make progress in the horrendous traffic without our being white knuckled all the way, we felt safe all the way. The drive included skirting around Kampala in the suburbs and the traffic was pretty bad. It seems Sunday is when parents visit their kids in boarding schools for picnic lunches etc and so there were lots of cars around as trucks and mini-buses everywhere.
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| A few of the very many minibuses everywhere we went |
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| Tea to the left, sugar to the right - all we need is a cow for the milk! |
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| The bird gallery at the source of the Nile |
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| The downstream view of the White Nile from the riverside at Jinja |
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| An egret on take-off |
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| Keith witha Nile beer in front of the Nile River |
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| Picnic day at a high school on Sunday |
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| Me with my Nile beer and Lake Victoria behind me - hotel gardens |
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| A Pied Hornbill at sunset in the hotel gardens |
The drive went through lots of agricultural land with acres of tea plantations and sugar cane as well as some rain forest.
Eventually we saw the lake again and drove over the Owen Stanley hydroelectric dam to reach Jinja and the road down to the official source of the Nile. We parked up and walked to the monument and then down the the water's edge to see the start of Africa's longest river.
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| The monument at the source of the Nile |
There were plenty of birds to watch with pelicans, egrets, cormorants, and kingfishers on the water side and even Maribou Storks circling lazily overhead. Also there were plenty of souvenir stalls....
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| Keith negotiating the alley of souvenir stalls |
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| Traffic on the road to Jinja |
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| Lorry park - Uganda style |
6 November: Uganda calling
Another 0530 taxi call and I was off to Africa for the last time this year and what should hopefully the last business trip before Christmas. This time it was an Austrian Airbus 319 to Brussels and then on to Entebbe with SN Brussels airlines. The mission is another one week training course in Uganda. My first time to that country and "another pin in the map".
The flights were fine and included a short stop in Kigali, Ruaanda to re-fuel and drop off passengers, a "tech stop" style which was very quick and we did not get off the plane. The short hop of 350km to Entebbe followed and although I arrived at 2300 local in Entebbe the visa purchase on arrival was very smooth and the hotel car was there to take me to the Imperial Botanical Beach Resort Hotel on the shores of Lake Victoria.
The hotel is vast and an old grand style-famous for the fact that the Clinton's stayed here at some time in the past . The gardens are lush and have a population of monkeys and hornbills amongst other wildlife.
There must be other wildlife too as we saw armed guards arriving evry evening at sunset to patrol the grounds!
The colleague assisting me for this training event had already arrived from Australia but at 0100 I decided we would leave the reunion until breakfast !
The flights were fine and included a short stop in Kigali, Ruaanda to re-fuel and drop off passengers, a "tech stop" style which was very quick and we did not get off the plane. The short hop of 350km to Entebbe followed and although I arrived at 2300 local in Entebbe the visa purchase on arrival was very smooth and the hotel car was there to take me to the Imperial Botanical Beach Resort Hotel on the shores of Lake Victoria.
The hotel is vast and an old grand style-famous for the fact that the Clinton's stayed here at some time in the past . The gardens are lush and have a population of monkeys and hornbills amongst other wildlife.
There must be other wildlife too as we saw armed guards arriving evry evening at sunset to patrol the grounds!
The colleague assisting me for this training event had already arrived from Australia but at 0100 I decided we would leave the reunion until breakfast !
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