The Offshore season begins

OK, the 2009 Wags offshore travel season has begun. Which is why I am sitting in Maputo, Mozambique just now having arrived from Vienna overnight via Frankfurt and Johannesburg. Fot those of an aviation bent it was an Airbus (AB) 320 of Austrian, a Boeing 747-400 from Frankfurt with Lufthansa and then an AB 319 from JNB with South African Airlines. As this was a real business trip it was all supposed to be Business Class but I was upgraded on the Lufthansa leg to sit in First Class - very nice and a decent bed almost as good as the QANTAS First Class.

The arrival at Maputo was pretty good but we had a few problems getting transport to the Hotel but here we are at the Hotel Tivoli. Not the greatest but adequate. The city is a mix and I think we are away from the centre but we have found a shopping mall nearby with a food court (open air) where 7 beers (4 people) cost only 8 euros. Dinner in the hotel was adequate but we are planning an assault on a sea food place once we find out where the good ones are. I have great memories of LM prawns from Laurenco Marques (now Maputo) during my work in neighbouring Swaziland in 1976.

This is not apparently a cheap place but we are looking forward to getting a little time to look around, perhaps on Friday after work. There were a number of slums on the way in from the airport but also some really nice old colonial portuguese villas in between the newer houses in the areas overlooking the sea.

On the drive in from the airport I only had my phone to use as a camera - those pictures only after I get back to Vienna as I do not have the right cable with me. I will use the other camera and post some local pictures tomorrow. The old National Library building across the street is a true colonial relic, a great building.

Oh - why am I here and what am I doing? This is a one week start up meeting for aregional project to assist countries in Africa who are getting into uranium mining to improve their regulatory systems and learn a bit about modern U mining safety and environmental management. The whole project will run for 3 years and this week is just to bring the various interested parties together and hammer out the final details of the work plan.