On the hunt for gout!

Last week was such a great week. It was a sojourn to Porto to explore the wonderful maritime historical city and its enchanting river Douro where the finest port in the world is produced. For many years I like a hot port in the winter with my newspapers on Sunday. Typically, it was a glass of Sandyman but over the years I've enjoyed quite a number of other brands: Fonseca, Grahams and Foleys. I was spoiled when I saw the variety in Porto. I typically drink red but after a friend of mine gave me some white, Lagrimas (translated to "tears" appertivo port) I was also converted to it!

Our first stay was Hotel Palacio which a Portugese native who works with Camila, a lovely guy called Daniel, recommended. I booked it for 99 euros a night on hotels.com and while a small 10 minute ride out of the city it was worth it. The welcome we received was as good as any I've had in other hotels, with a couple of free glasses of port and an enjoyable 20 minutes being given by the women booking us in with a map of porto and the region and telling us what to see, do and eat.

After a couple of days checking out some of the local river haunts including a decent churrascaria where I got my fill of picanha and Camila also got some bacalchua, we took a two hour train to Regua in the heart of the douro to another recommended hotel, Acaporou which was excellent but expensive at 220 at night. Unlike others I've been in this was deep inside a vineyard and hugged the river Doruo itselt with an excellent view. We stayed for 3 relaxing days and toured around the local "quintas" or farms tasting all types of wines and cheeses. The trip was made even better in that we had a chance to meet our French/Portugese friens Liza and Al who spend a night hanging out with us!

We'll be back, I'd recommend mid Sept, as that is when the fun is to be had with the harvest of greats being prepared.

San Fran, Sydney, Mumbai and Rome

The last few months since joining LinkedIn have been a whirl wind. Very long hours coupled by the steepest learning curve I've encountered.

Random highlights from recent trips:

• Bumping into an old work colleague on George Street, Sydney as I went for a 7am run. Small world.
• Meeting a blind man in Mumbai with 10% vision who was bursting with excitement after marrying a beautiful women who has 30% vision. The humblness in which he told his story will also stay with me.
• Street children begging at your taxi window
• Experiencing the mania of cricket world cup in Mumbai, only comparable to the soccer world cup in Brazil. Thousands and thousands of Indian kids bringing cricket bats with them everywhere.
• Lawless, fearless, 3 wheeled, rickshaw drivers in India
• Rome with Joe and Dad. Priceless. We should have done it years ago.

San Francisco

I'm recently back from my first visit to the wonderful city of San Fran. On this occasion I was over for a two day off-site (internal meeting) with my US colleagues to plan for next year. I recently came back from another visit to Hyderabad in India via Dubai and I've been piling up the miles on the road. In recognition of being away from home a lot my manager allowed me to change my usual business class flight status to two economy flights to allow my wife to come with me. So on this occasion it was the two of us! This was Camila's first visit to the US and she needed to go through a lengthy, absurdly bureaucratic process (and I mean absurd) including an interview before she got a ten year visa to visit the US. Eventually all was sorted out and we both found ourselves in SF for the first time. I spend two days at the internal conference and then we both took another 4 days off to the check out the city. We stayed in the highly recommendable W hotel, on 3rd avenue and Howard (the pancakes are a must). Which is a very modern boutique hotel which caters for the young at heart? It's location was perfect and it took us no time to get to Union Square as well as down to the port area.

Highlights on the trip:
1. Seeing what an Apple conference looks like. When arrived the launch of the new iPhone was in full swing and you could feel the buzz in the city
2. We checked out a baseball game and were lucky enough to be with the Microsoft team in our own corporate suite which was an experience
3. We visited Alcatraz which was a fantastic audio tour that I would highly recommend. You need to book a day in advance as it is almost impossible to buy tickets on the day.
4. We checked out the famous Fisherman's Wharf with its whining and belching seals which loiter around the front of the harbouring smelling badly in their hundreds.
5. We rented some bikes from Blazing Saddles (which brought back some memories when we were taking out the bikes as I met some young lads from Limerick who were on their J1 student visa for the summer [reminded me of when I did the same in New York, Long island]), from there we paid 32 dollars each, which i thought was a little steep, and spent a lovely hour cycling along the cost and over the famous Golden Gate Bridge and on to Sollenous before we got the 30 minute ferry back to leave the bikes back. Great views from the bridge and well worth the effort
6. We went to a very nice Brazilian churracaria and stocked up on some of Camila and I's favourite food: fejoada, manioc and of course picanha.

On the home we also hit it lucky as we got upgraded to business class, which we were delighted with, not sure why, but it helped a lot getting a few hours sleep before arriving in London. San Fran left a big impression on me. It is clean, there is a lot of green living taking place with lots of people recycling and cycling, the restaurants and bars are great, and there is loads of people using technology which is no surprise considering the HQs of Google, Apple, Facebook, Oracle and scores of startups are nearby and dotted across Silicon Valley. I'm really looking forward to coming back and maybe next time making a detour to Las Vegas!

Caracus Clouds and Corruption

High above the sprawling metropolis of Caracas, 2150 meters up by cable car you will find the wonder Avila Magico. It is here that I caught my first majestic view of Caracas’s sprawling skyline etched into the rolling jungle hills all around. The cable ride to the top costs 18 bolivars or approximately 3.50 euros (using the official exchange rate), and it take a glorious 18 minutes to get to the summit. For me this funicular ride was made all the more special as I entered a great big bulbous grey cloud half way up. As it enveloped the tiny cable car I was in, visibility dropped to no more than 3 meters.  I was alone, moving at a 45 degree angle with a sheer drop below and wild canopy vegetation all around.  It felt like I had my own personal cloud to move me forward gliding gracefully over a thriving green tree ceiling. It lasted for almost 5 minutes.  I didn’t want it to stop. I felt I had been physically transported inside my own grey matter. Occasionally, another cable car, always empty, ghosted past me and evaporated into thin air. I was suspended in the air but moving forward. 360 degree cloud all around me and only the sound of the cable car wire sliding me along reminding me that it was reality - not a dream. It was surreal.  A moment like no other.

At the top you can see the coast line and tower jungle below carved into the valley. While at the top I went hunting for a Venezuela magnet for my collection back home and wasn’t disappointed. With broken Spanish I chatted to a very nice shop attendant and I managed to get a lovely piece of polished wood with the city vista on it.  With hunger setting it I decided to eat some more delicious Arepas that I had been introduced to the day before. These are delicious corn bread pancake like breads that the locals stuff with all kinds of things: vegetables, sauces and meats.  Easy on the palette I think the folk back home in Ireland would enjoy them and I’d encourage them to seek them out where you can. Unfortunately, we don’t have Venezuelan restaurants that I know of back home but I’ll be looking for some Arepa ingredients in the Brazilian shop in Dublin when i get back.  At the top of the mountain is a half kilometre stretch of well laid out path with some small and large restaurants. Also, at the top is the famous Hogert hotel which was created by...

I joined a tour of local Venezuelan’s as they toured the hotel but left half way so I could get down early and make my way to the airport. On the way down I hit the cloud patch again and this time as I glided I thought about Aruba and how far it was from here. I also thought of home and looked forward to getting back there which is always the double bonus when travelling.

Unfortunately, I need to report that security is a huge issue in Venezuela and as I was to learn in the airport corruption is rife under the despotic rule of Hugo Chavez. While in Caracas my colleagues in work informed me of the difficulties of living in Venezuela at present. 40% deflation in the currency in the last 12 months; two dual currencies in operation with the locals having little or no ability to buy dollars or Euros unless using the black market; minus 2 GDP growth, 35% unemployment, a huge reliance on oil revenue to keep the country afloat; 95% food importation; mass emigration; constant electricity and water breakdowns; a border dispute with Colombia and horrible violence on the increase.  Venezuela is not a safe place at the moment. It feels as if it is also going to get worse listening to the locals. Maybe it will become Burma or worse Zimbabwe? Chavez has a seemingly iron grip on the country and he has already changed the constitution - al la Putin style - to allow himself serve well beyond the normal two four year terms usually allowed. 

While going to the airport I made the mistake of not asking the taxi man to escort me to my check in. This is something you really don’t need to think about in other countries, at least the ones I have visited. Normally when you go to the airport you step inside the door, you are greeted by a monitor showing what check in gate you go to and then you make your way there hassle free. In Caracas this was not the case. Anti-drug police where everywhere.  Like spiders setting a web very quickly an English man working for Cisco and I where asked to go into a room where our bags were carefully checked for drugs. We then both had to enter a machine to do a body scan. We were told we needed to pay a 40 euro tax for exiting the country which was normal in Venezuela and I knew from talking to my colleagues I had to pay. When I went to the counter to pay it the security people asked if I would trade my dollars with them for the local Bolivar dollar. This was a way for them to make a little more money for themselves as the US dollar or Euro on the black market was worth at least 40% more than the official exchange rate pegging. I explained I didn’t have any of either which was the case and that I would use my credit card. Then out of the blue the officials started asking me for a “propina” which is a tip in Spanish! I refused to give them anything. At which time a young officer started to heckle me. I understood enough Spanish to know that the words he was using were not nice.  At this point I had my passport back and was in the public area where you pay for your exit tax. He followed me and asked me again for a “propina” and I refused. As I made my way to the  Air France check in but he was again giving out!  Luckily, nothing else happened. Looking back, I learnt that I should have got my taxi man to escort me to the gate and possibly this wouldn’t have happened. At the time in this situation you are not sure if they are going to plant drugs in your bag or for how long they may detain you. Everyone is speaking in colloquial Spanish and your passport quite often gets distributed amongst 6 or 7 people and sometime one of them enters a room alone and you’re not sure what they are doing with it. An uncomfortable situation and one I hope I don’t have to go through again. It helped showing my Microsoft ID and I count myself lucky no further complications arose.

When through the gate the Cisco gentleman in front of me bounced into me again and we went for a beer together. He was very annoyed by the whole experience he went through and vowed never to come back again. I could see why. For me it’s sad when officials like this are so blatantly corrupt with foreigners.  This is obviously only the tip of the iceberg of the type of full-scale corruption in place, at this time, in Venezuela. For the locals who have to live with this type of quality of life on a daily basis my thoughts are with you all and I hope that brighter days are soon to come. Seanie Fitzpatrick and his raspacious mob and our struggling slow-drip government seem like knights in shining armour compared to the crew down here on the streets of Caracas. I’d take Cowen and co any day of the week compared to Hugo Chavez. Make up your own mind, but in doing so, check out this excellent documentary: War on Democracy.

Colombia, Bogota

Having made the flight from Seattle to Atlanta I had less than 72 hours to visit Bogota. The classic in and out so not a lot to report. I was here to work to evangelise and explain a new global social media recruitment strategy that the team I work for is deploying around the world. I was also here to talk about some direct sourcing techniques using Boolean logic to pin point information using search engines and databases. A training that helps our recruiters around the world source more passive candidates on the internet. I stayed in a boutique hotel called Hotel Casa Medina, which was very comfortable and very close to the office. I’d highly recommend it if you come here.

What strikes you straight away when you arrive is the security protocols. Fingers prints needed to change money. Finger prints needed to enter the office. Guards and sniffer dogs checking our cars as we enter into shopping malls. Like a lot of south American countries you have to pay attention to where you are going, when, what you wear, etc. One of the girls in the office kindly brought me and one of my other colleagues from the US to the famous T junction one of the nights which is a big shopping mall beside a T street full of modern western mostly restaurants. While there we stopped off at the local Irish bar where on a Wednesday night I got the chance to watch a packed pub of Colombian’s sit back and have a few beers after work. While there Claudia our host from the office told me a little about the FARC guerillas and how they are almost completely wiped out by the present government even though they still manage to detonate occasional bombs with devastating effect in the country. We also heard about stories about how beautiful Cartagena on the coast  and the capital of flowers Meddelin. While, only paying a quick visit to Colombia I’d definitely like to come back. While the traffic was bad in the city and the security is high, I felt safe, the people we met were very nice and the government seems to be stable and moving its economy in the right direction.

Mauritius

About a 5 hour flight from the east of South Africa is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 500 miles east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the Republic includes the islands of Cargados Carajos, Rodrigues and the Agalega Islands.

The island is most famous for an extinct bird: the dodo. Uninhabited until the 17th century, the island was ruled first by the Dutch and then the French after the Dutch had abandoned it. The British took control during the Napoleonic Wars and Mauritius became independent from the UK in 1968. Now the country is a very proud republic full of sugar cane and tea plantations with the symbol of the mythical bird everywhere you look. The people are kind and generous and look more Indian than African. Similarly the culture is closely pegged to the Indian markets and Hindu temples are everywhere.

Nowadays the island is also well know for the speed and ingenuity by which it has tapped into the world tourism market. It was for its proximity to South Africa and the lure of a relaxing week on the beach and in a nice hotel is what would we were looking for. It was what we got.

The Heritage Golf Spa is on the south side of the island and one of the new breed of hotels. They care for your total needs while there and at 300 euros a night is a little pricey but worth it all. Events like water skiing, kayaking, cloud surfing, archery, giant chess, bikes, hills walks, tennis, massage, aquarobic sessions, and much much more are often. For us we went for a treatment a day of massages and then we both took a water skiing lesson a day. The entire experience was completely relaxing and exactly what we wanted and needed after 4 weeks on the road and the especially in the knowledge that "back to work" was looming.

One of the best experiences we had was a stroke of luck. The day we were due to leave to go home ir flight got delayed. It was 8am when we were in the airport and we learned that we wouldn't be leaving until 8pm that night. Something that made our heads hang for 30 minutes as we were trying to learn about when and how they were going to get us home our heads dropped a little. They then said they'd be sending us to a nearby 5 star hotel, we could have free golf, as much free food as we wanted, free internet and go snorkeling if we wanted. Now that's what I call looking after your displaced customers. I got 18 holes in and Camila relaxed on the beach getting some sun rays. We then went on the most amazing hour of snorkeling I have ever been on. What was happening under the water blew us away. School of fish everywhere racing around the famous Azul Blu lagoon, with hundreds of them surrounding us with some cheeky ones even kissing us! There was animals under it that I never knew existed. Hand in hand we snorkeled together for 30 minutes in about 3 meters of water with about 15 other people in a huge lagoon and then we went exploring a bit. It was brilliant - I really really loved that snorkel - the very best I have ever done. The 12 hour flight home after that was a breeze.

Safari - the big 5

We decided to try out look seeing them in Shamwari Game reserve in Port Elizabeth a two hour flight from Cape Town.

The big 5 was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot: the lion, the African elephant, the Cape Buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros, either the black rhinoceros or the white rhinoceros.

Unfortunately, the big five are among the most dangerous animals on the planet so as such they have been hunted aggressively with huge reductions in their numbers of late.

For those of you that don't know alot about them as I didn't before the trip here's a small animal lesson on each:

The Lion (Panthera leo) is a large carnivorous feline of Africa and northwest India, having a short tawny coat, a tufted tail, and, in the male, a heavy mane around the neck and shoulders.

The African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) is a very large herbivore having thick, almost hairless skin, a long, flexible, prehensile trunk, upper incisors forming long curved tusks of ivory, and large, fan-shaped ears. There are two distinct species of African elephant: African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana).

The African Buffalo or Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a large horned bovid. It is the most dangerous of the Big Five, reportedly causing the most hunter deaths.

The Leopard (Panthera pardus) is a large, carnivorous feline having either tawny fur with dark rosette-like markings or black fur. Leopards are the most difficult to acquire hunting licenses for and are often difficult to hunt due to their behavior and their nocturnal feeding habits. Leopard hunting usually overlaps several weeks of baiting.

The Rhinoceros is a large, thick-skinned herbivore having one or two upright horns on the snout. In Africa, there are two distinct species of rhinoceros; the Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) and the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). Both of these species have two upright horns on the snout.

This was the first time we had gone game driving at it certainly is exciting the first time you start to head out into the bush in a small jeep with a fully loaded gun on the bonnet of the car just in case you have any difficulties. Our first ride started at 4.30pm just after we arrived from an hour's taxi from the local airport. It was lashing out of the heavens but we were determined to see what we could find...

more to come...

South Africam, Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope

I’ve always wanted to visit and always knew I would.  Landing in Cape Town was with mixed emotions. I could feel the sense of history around.  If ever a fascinating country be, this I knew from my pre-study was one of the best from which I could further my education.

It was the land of two oceans: Atlantic and Indian.  It was at the very southern tip of the massive continent with neighbours such as Namibia and its famous jagged dunes, Bostwana with the incredible rich diversity of the world famous Okavango Delta. . Zimbabwe and a batter and bruised people with one of the world’s longest reigning despots, to the east Mozambique and its beautiful coastline and last but not least tribalism personified in the mountain men of Lesotho with their incredible Drakensberg Range and the brave Zulu tribes of Swaziland. It was the land where the Dutch and Portuguese set up early colonies. With the Dutch deciding that the Cape should be set up as a farm for its Dutch East India Company exploits to offer its sailors a resting point and an opportunity to search for hidden gold and diamonds. Then in 1806 the British had their time as overlords and encourages its expansion by soliciting the Boers (Dutch, Flemish, German and French settlers) to take plots of lands and build a thriving communities. Conflicts as we know ensued and with despicable Berlin conference of 1848 the crude lines that divide many tribes unfairly across the continent and which lead to the current map we have of Africa was unfairly drawn.

Going from the airport to the Cape was a sad moment. The famous “Cape Flats”shanty towns where tens of thousands of disadvantages black south African’s were hoarded into stuck out like a sore thumb on the horizon. They gnawed at me and insulted everything good in the world. As our taxi speeded by they reminded me of the other such camps of deprivation I had seen before: the slums of Rio and the horrible disease ridden sardine like shacks of Mumbai. This time a different country, but the same old story. I had seen it before and knew it well: inequality, rapaciousness and apathy of the grossest form. All 7 deadly sins were visceral and very much alive.  However, as a i studied an old women holding a small dusty dog beside her shack I reminded myself tha this was not the time for introspection. I was conscious while acknowledging the indigenous peoples’ plight and the tremendous social, economical and racially fueled fight they still had on their hands and the false dawns once promised after Mandel’s reign, I was on my honeymoon. There would be another time to think of such issues and I would have time to see my own interpretation of the balance truth of how things for the different demographics in this complex society actually was.

  

As we passed the towns, and I started to stare at the beautiful Table Mountain one last thought entered my minds as we left the poor behind so quickly.  It was that of one of my hero’s ( Professor Muhammad Yunus) dreams - that maybe some day my childrens children’s children would only have to see such poverty in a museum - museum’s of poverty. No longer real in the world. Just relics of a past brutal immature time when man had shrieked some of its essential responsibilities to look after the planet and each other. No more slums, shanty towns or favellas. World Peace. The eradication of poverty as we know it on the earth.  (You can learn more about Professor Yunus, his pioneering work on micro-banks and why this eminent Bangledeshi received his Nobel prize, here). As I stared at the unusually beautiful chunk of rock that gives Cape Town such a dramatic setting I quietly smiled to myself, and was content, that with men like Muhammed Yunus and the mighty Mandela, life was beautiful, and I thanked God I was now about to explore one of the world's most beautiful cities with my equally beautiful new wife!

More to  come...

The Wedding

It's kind of hard to describe the happiest day of your life so far.I'm not even going to try. I hope this video here and these small section of photos give you a feel for what it was all about.