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One final adventure

Inevitably we had a number of adventures catching busses and getting about generally, including a delayed flight that threw our schedule and pre-booked hotels into temporary chaos, but the best was the cab that failed to appear at three in the morning to get us to the airport when leaving.  As time ticked by the hotel staff roamed the streets looking for a replacement.  It’s a long drive and everyone appreciated the urgency. 

 Cuba1080

At last a cab is found.  Off we set; but as we are travelling through a deserted ex-industrial area; there is a loud bang.  The cab’s front near side tyre has blown out.

The driver is beside himself.   Our bags are thrown from the boot and lie in the middle of a wide intersection; the jack and spare are uncovered.  Ten minutes he says; just ten. 

He is so panicked he hurts his hand jacking the car.  He is so charged with adrenaline he needs help to get the spare onto the wheel bolts and to thread the wheel nuts. He keeps dropping them.  I help again.

Ten minutes later our bags are back in the boot.  He can shave five minutes on the trip if we are fast. 

We complete the rest of the journey at 100Kmph plus, ignoring all the red lights.  I tell him to take his time going back.  I'm hoping his adrenaline has subdued and he gets back safely.  We give him an extra $5. He smiles broadly.

 

We made the flight.  Phew!

And so we left Cuba; a unique place caught in a strange time warp; at least for the present.

 

 

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Travel

Spain and Portugal

 

 

Spain is in the news.

Spain has now become the fourth Eurozone country, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to get bailout funds in the growing crisis gripping the Euro.

Unemployment is high and services are being cut to reduce debt and bring budgets into balance.  Some economists doubt this is possible within the context of a single currency shared with Germany and France. There have been violent but futile street demonstrations.

Read more: Spain and Portugal

Fiction, Recollections & News

Egyptian Mummies

 

 

 

 

Next to Dinosaurs mummies are the museum objects most fascinating to children of all ages. 

At the British Museum in London crowds squeeze between show cases to see them.  At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo they are, or were when we visited in October 2010 just prior to the Arab Spring, by far the most popular exhibits (follow this link to see my travel notes). Almost every large natural history museum in the world has one or two mummies; or at the very least a sarcophagus in which one was once entombed.

In the 19th century there was something of a 'mummy rush' in Egypt.  Wealthy young European men on their Grand Tour, ostensibly discovering the roots of Western Civilisation, became fascinated by all things 'Oriental'.  They would pay an Egyptian fortune for a mummy or sarcophagus.  The mummy trade quickly became a lucrative commercial opportunity for enterprising Egyptian grave-robbers.  

Read more: Egyptian Mummies

Opinions and Philosophy

Australia's $20 billion Climate strategy

 

 

 

We can sum this up in a word:

Hydrogen

According to 'Scotty from Marketing', and his mate 'Twiggy' Forrest, hydrogen is the, newly discovered panacea, to all our environmental woes:
 

The Hon Scott Morrison MP - Prime Minister of Australia

"Australia is on the pathway to net zero. Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can, through technology that enables and transforms our industries, not taxes that eliminate them and the jobs and livelihoods they support and create, especially in our regions.

For Australia, it is not a question of if or even by when for net zero, but importantly how.

That is why we are investing in priority new technology solutions, through our Technology Investment Roadmap initiative.

We are investing around $20 billion to achieve ambitious goals that will bring the cost of clean hydrogen, green steel, energy storage and carbon capture to commercial parity. We expect this to leverage more than $80 billion in investment in the decade ahead.

In Australia our ambition is to produce the cheapest clean hydrogen in the world, at $2 per kilogram Australian.

Mr President, in the United States you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia we are creating our own ‘Hydrogen Valleys’. Where we will transform our transport industries, our mining and resource sectors, our manufacturing, our fuel and energy production.

In Australia our journey to net zero is being led by world class pioneering Australian companies like Fortescue, led by Dr Andrew Forrest..."

From: Transcript, Remarks, Leaders Summit on Climate, 22 Apr 2021
 

 

Read more: Australia's $20 billion Climate strategy

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