February 2010

I'm in Paris now, started a job today for which I am partly indebted to you!  Long story, but it all begins with Jeremy Palin and the week I spent at Arrow after meeting him at Las Beatas - now I am the European trainee for a French shipbroking firm (Barry Rogliano Salles), spending a year learning the ropes here in Paris before (hopefully) being posted somewhere exciting if all goes well next year.  Options / possibilities are Dubai, Ho Chi Min City, Shanghai, Geneva, Madrid or London...  All depends on my performance (and the market I suppose) this year.
 
Since leaving Las Beatas I finished Edinburgh (I saw you chez Christopher that summer), and had a lot of fun managing a 14,000 hectare private hunting reserve and camp in Zambia for a couple of months that summer.  James (brother) and I were in charge of the whole place, including 2 separate camps of 8 beds in each, about 30 men and some pretty tough jobs including building a 1400m airstrip in virgin African bush (no jokes necessary), repairing camp structures, building a new road network, game counting and controlled burning of bush, anti poacher programmes, and eating hippo and crocodile curry!  Constant challenges made it a really rewarding, beneficial and fun experience - extremely remote and under-equipped camp and surroundings made us become very resourceful.  Great game too - all the big 5 bar rhino, and plenty of close encounters had while camping out which is exciting!  In all seriousness, Las Beatas was a great help in seeing how a well organised and efficient hunting business should be run: congrats due to you guys and the Muela's for showing me a great example to follow!
 
I then did a mini internship trading grain in The City, and did a few interviews ending up with me here.  Before starting work I went to the Nepalese Himalayas for a last trip of freedom for 6 weeks.  I trekked up to Everest Base Camp - or nearly did until a pretty perilous encounter with HACE and altitude sickness necessitated a rapid descent in the dark and cold!  Stunnning area, particularly in mid winter when no one else is silly enough to try it (it was -17c sleeping in unheated plywood cabins...but lovely blue skies and a fabulous experience)
 
Hope this provides something to put on the website - Las Beatas has been instrumental in me becoming involved and following shipping as a career, and in preparing me for the Zambia experience which I thoroughly enjoyed.