Just Arrived In Tunisia Again

Today is my first day in tunisia with Jetlag, got back to Tunis yesterday with no luggage and some monir sleep problems, the trip was nice as I flew not into Paris Charles De F*^king Gaul Airport, but Milan, a nice small place but it seems it is as bad as losing luggage as Paris. I have just had a week on holiday at my parents-in-laws house for christmas. it was Ok but there house is pretty basic and pretty typical of country folks, barking dogs and noisy neighbourhoods, i was dead on my feet after day 3 with no sleep, but we saw the relatives and we went cross country down the peninsular that divides into Panama and Costa Rica. it was a beautiful place and very remote, but it was so remote then when we got to the remote town of Pavones, they had run out of beer, now how can you enjoy christmas lunch when there is no beer, and the roads were shocking in town, completley rutted and we were bouncing around in the jeep, it was horrible, it made me think again about my retirement plan to live remote in a tiny village

The Contractors Lot, Crooks and Thieves

I have been working as a contractor for about 5 years now and luckily I have been working for 1 company for most of that time. It is a subsidiary of a large multinational and is pretty effiecient and has an integrity policy that i have to sign each year and I have had a few problems with getting paid my expenses and salary but that was just administration, they eventually closed down that office as it was so bad. I have had good treatment and great money for all of that time but they work you really hard. I had a miserable trip last year to Qatar and wanted to try working for someone else. I got a contact through a guy i had worked with and they offered me a job working in Italy for the summer, you can read all about it below. I had a great time and I was part of the Acceptance testing program and i saw the testing and assembly of the equipment i work on in the factory in Florence, but from the first pay statement i got i knew i was going to have problems with the company. They complained about how expensive my accommodation was, they never gave a proper breakdown of my expenses and Salary, I was suspicious from that day on, i asked about a full breakdown and they admitted a missing expense for about $500, i asked about Insurance and was given some bullshit and I then realised i had been working there without any insurance, they never got me any even after all that time i was there. When i realised that i was going to be working in Angola for ever i started planning to leave and i ended up back at my old agency, on better money, nearly three times as much) and with plenty of time off and with a promise of a long term job in Australia with my family. I quit after someone found my blogsite and read about my plans, i was not sure i was going to be paid by the company and in the end the result was they never paid my expenses, I complained and they stopped talking to me; i started complaining to the end customer about my expenses not being paid and they put pressure on the agency, they came up with the small print in my contract and they clawed back some ex-gracia payments i had had for my wife's travel costs and so i still never got anything out of them. I now know that this outfit is typical of all the other small agencies that scrape a living in between the major groups, having a group of about 5 guys, all the usual cast-offs from big groups who cannot get a job with anyone else, small agencies exist by employing guys who are not good enough to work for the big groups, they shave costs by paying crap and not paying certain stuff like insurance, very dangerous game if you have any medical problems. and depending on who is the owner they can be crooks, employing guys and then not paying them, all shady stuff. I was lucky they just shaved me of about $2000 but in the long run i had the better part of the deal. I had a fantastic 4 months in Italy all expenses paid, i got alot of experience. I learned about shady agencies and the oily crooks that run them. The agency i worked with was run by an ex-empoyee of a large mutlinational company but who had been running the far easy group as his own fiefdowm, doing shady deals with accommodation, skimming money from here there and everywhere and is a thorough shady character. he appears really pleasant but under his shiny suits and fancy car, he is a crook and a typical representative of the lower end of the Angency world, They even threatened to take me to court to exact damages if i continued with my complaints to the end customer, they are just full of shit, I wish i could name them here but that would be bad as i would be giving them free advertising, They cannot get into the area of work with the big boys but just picking up the crap left over that no-one else wants, like china and horrible places in the far east, who knows, they may keep stealing money from guys for the next 20 years or the owner may get a bullit from a pissed off contractor.

Birthday Bash For Octagenarian Costa Rican Cowboy

Last year sometime a member of my wife's family found out about an uncle that owned a ranch in the north of the country and had a family birthday party each year. This year we were invited as I was in the country and we planned to be there with a sister of my wife and her family. The drive was about 75 miles and out into the northern farmlands up near Nicaragua, we were told that his place was a huge edifice and that he was a millionaire, this had our imagination running wild with visions of Dallas style buildings, when we tried the directions we found a dirt road running over some pretty wild areas with quite alot of trees for this type of farmland and not many houses, after a while we felt lost and the only person we could find to talk to was riding a horse, this tells you what sort of rural community we were travelling in. We continued along the route and the road became more difficult and more wild, but the cowboy on his horse has also mentioned the edifice, we were really interested in this place by now, we drove over a large hill and down a deep valley and then came upon the edifice, it was a group of farm buildings and animal pens. The main buildings were actually for horses and cattle and the large silos for the animal feed, the house was a tiny single story house,( by San Jose standards) and stood amidst the animal pens, we parked up and stumbled across the boulders strewn road and into the well manicured gardens, laid out with a play area for the kids a large lawn area, which had a temporary wooden dance floor on it and a place for the band to set up on, there was flood lighting for all the areas including the large barbecue kitchen and serving area, and candles hanging in baskets in the trees around the area, I was laughing at how small the house was compared to my imagination but for a rural farmer it was huge, most farmers live in a tiny wooden hut with maybe two or three rooms, but this was a fully laid out house but still tiny. The lawn seating area was laid out with tables and chairs for the food and the only problem was it was next to the pig pens and even though they had moved the pigs, the smell was incredible, luckily the wind was blowing so we only got the full blown smell from time to time. We were met by my wife's cousin and then introduced to the old Cowboy himself and he was a sprightly man with his cowboy hat who was in full control of events and had all his faculties, i was glad to see this as my dad has now lost all of his faculties and is 87. He showed us around the place and ten were found an unknown auntie of my wife who was about 80 years old, they had big families in them days, there were 13 members originally, all but 2 are dead. We seated ourselves near the kitchen and they had waiters bringing out food which was mostly home reared barbecued pork, it tasted fantastic and they also were bringing out the beer, great!!. The beer flowed and then a band set up and was playing local cantina music to dance to, I was forced to dance latin style by my sister-in-law, the little girl was playing with the 20-30 second cousins in the play area, we spoke to some of my wife's cousins and found an old boy who spoke perfect english, he had been a high court judge and had learned his English at a fancy school in San Jose. He even had friends in the British Embassy a long time ago. I was drinking rum and coke after the first couple of beers but as the night wore on they ran out of coke and i had rum and sprite and when that ran out i was forced to drink rum and fanta and then rum and water, disgusting, what i do for a good night out. we ate and danced and drank and laughed the night away. It was the best cowboy birthday party i had had in a long time, in fact the only one. It is true this man is a rich man, his lands are now worth millions of dollars and his cattle and pigs fetch huge sums of money, the operation is run by his two able sons, one is a lawyer who works for a local bank and the other is a doctor who runs the importing business in Mexico importing the meat from this farm. But as you know old men never spend their money and this guy probably spends $20 a week but at least the party each year for family and the farm workers is a great blowout for everyone, I have never seen so many cowboy hats together in one place.

More cowboy hats than you can count

Suprise Holiday At All Inclusive Hotel on Pacific Coast

This week my wife was hinting that we shouldn't buy too much food in the supermarket, it only took 8 or 9 more of similar messages from her until i got the message something was afoot. I am bulletproof to hints, they just bounce off me and i have to be told directly or I normally just don't get it. Anyway i finally got it and the next day we left pretty early with enough gear for 3 days only, but it was a long drive of nearly 5 hours but the weather here has finally turned into the dry season and the clear blue skies are fantastic. We arrived at this huge complex and it took 30 minutes to check in after so many folks were trying to get in at the same time. We were staying at the main hotel complex and it was a reasonably old hotel that was in the middle of a large renovation, this is why it was so cheap, we were paying £60 a night for everything for 3 of us. I thought it was a good deal, the pool side bar was a treat and it had snacks all day long and we were having a great time with the little girl jumping in and out of the pool all day demanding hot dogs and coke, I was demanding Rum and Coke and hot dogs and Jenny was having Pina Coladas, it was a great place and the restaurant was equally nice with a large selection of foods and the service was fantastic. We also got a free trip to the new Afrika Safari park, we left on the 4th day and went to the safari park, we were shocked by the prices of the trip if we wanted to touch the animals, they wanted $65 each per adult and $55 for the little girl, a grand total of $185, total robbery, and it was even worse once we had found out how few animals they had, they had 4 Giraffes and 3 Eland and about 30 Zebras and 2 ugly wart hogs, that was it from Africa, apart from some raggy assed Ostriches. They had some Arabian Oryx and also some Indian Antelope and some local small white tailed deer some pecary's, a hopeless attempt and i was glad we got the free trip, i would have been upset to have driven 4 hours to see this motley crew of animals, the weather was nice and we could hand fee the ostriches and 1 really tame white tailed deer.

The hotel was on the top of the hill overlooking the bay, great sunset



We had a very nice 3 day trip to a very nice hotel, but i wouldn't go again, i like trying different places all the time. Afrika isnt worth the trip, they need more animals and at least some elephants, antelopes are not enough