Humming on Hobie's in Lotos-Eater Land

The two week holiday in Mauritius was fabulous. It is resonant of the Land of the Lotos-Eaters (Tennyson) in which it seemed always to be afternoon because of the languid and peaceful atmosphere. Club Med has a great formula there. Every day it's great food and cocktails, which in normal circumstances would quickly register an extra 5kgs on your bathroom scale. But you burn it off. Each day I exerted myself in a melange of Hobie Cat sailing, water-skiing, petanque, ping pong, water polo for the guests vs the staff and tennis in the evening with the floodlights coming on in the fading light. And it's French! Yes there is a smattering of South Africans and other nationalities but most of the guests are from France with a few from Reunion as well. My French is appalling now, through lack of practice, but within a few days it started to come back and French people are so friendly when you try to speak their langauge, no matter how broken. Club Med has just come out with a big improvement in earnings and it seems they are re-branding higher up the income curve. All I can say is when that Hobie starts to hum through the water and you've one hull way up out of the water, there is no place you'd rather be. The QSL is from Mauritius Broadcasting Corp heard on 684 kHz AM in Johannesburg in 1993.

Chile in sunny Mauritius

Blog has slept for many weeks! In the meantime I holidayed on the intoxicating island of Mauritius. The sun shines, it's warm 24 hours a day, the water is perfect. When it rains it is just enough to keep everything green. We were at a Club Med and I sailed Hobie Cats, water-skid, played tennis, water polo and petananque all day. I needed to get back home to rest! We loved meeting friendly French people there. During our trip, Chile exhumed the body of Salvador Allende in an attempt to finally lay to rest the question about how he died in the military coup that brought Pinochet to power. In the 38 years since then, Chile has become the leading economy in Latin America and is surging again on the back of the buoyant copper price. But it is not just copper that drives Chile. It has significantly broadened its economic base since Allende's disastrous economic path. Pinochet was no saint, of course, with many brutally killed and tortured. The economy failed again in the early 1980s but the country continued to reform and is now a model for many emerging economies. See my article on Chile here http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=144199. The QSL is from Radio Presidente Balmaceda, heard on 31mb in Cape Town in the 1960s.