Last Weekend - Maragra beach

Maragra Beach

Last weekend we went to Maragra beach, which is situated about 80 km north of Maputo in the Manhiça District.

To get to Maragra beach we have to ask special permission from Illovo Sugar (used to be a South African sugar company)

Maragra Açuar produces about 100 000 tons of Raw sugar and molasses from the about 10 000 hectares of land here. Its owned by Illovo sugar which in turn is a subsidiary of Associated British foods (ABF), is currently ranked as the 2nd largest sugar producing company in the world.

Anyway, it takes about two hours from city centre Maputo to the beach, this time stayed at another resort and not Calanga beach resort.

Maybe it is the time of the year, but the beach was full of blue bottles and massive jelly fish.

Enjoy some photos I made from this beautiful day with the beach all to ourselves.

Click the photos to see them full screen .

Quick family visit - Lisbon - Part I

Always great to come home

Whenever we have to fly to Europe for some conference of trade show we make sure that we fly into or out of Lisbon.

Firstly it is the only direct flight from Maputo to Europe, in this case Lisbon. 

Secondly, it is great as for myself, I stay a couple of days extra and sleep at my own house and stay with my kids and visit my parents.

Thirdly, and as a hobbyist photographer, Lisbon has to have the best light for photography as one can see on the following photos.

Last month, I had to go to Barcelona (will post my visit to one of my favourite cities in Europe) for a conference, so I had a couple of extra days to stay in Lisbon.

This will be a two part post due to the photos I made during this visit.

As this is already Autumn, the light was Superb with some high clouds that made some contrast background that I love.

This time I walked with my Daughter and it was such a pleasure the two of us doing this. Memorable times, for sure.

All photos made with either the FUJI X70 and the Fuji X-T1.

Please click the photos to see in full screen mode

Short Sunday Drive in Mozambique

Sunday Drive

Got up at about 08h30 seing that Monday is a holiday in Mozambique, and asked the wife "how about a short Sunday drive" of which she said OK.

My idea was to take a short drive around looking for local people so that I could make their portraits and offer them the photo using the FUJI INSTAX SHARE SP-1. Filled the deposit with diesel and off went went at 09h50 in the morning.

Brought the FUJI X70 and the X-T1 with the 35mm as my beloved 56mm was stolen last year.

Typical Road.

Heart warming feeling

As always, I take my FUJI equipment, including the INSTAX SHARE S-P1 so that when I see a local young face, I ask permission and offer them their printed photo. The reactions, as always are priceless. Today, most of the young people could hardly speak Portuguese, but we understood each other.

The End

As we got home, I wondered how many kilometres we drove and went strightto google maps and this is what we drove.

My wife was not impressed at all, but at the end quite enjoyed this memorable "African short drive".

To make this post short, our short drive lasted 8,5 hours and we drove 430 km

Pemba - Northern Mozambique

Working weekend

As I had to go to one of our recently opened offices in Pemba, which is about 2500km North of Maputo, I decided to take my wife with me and stay for the weekend.

Pemba is the capital city of the Cabo Delgado Province, lying in a peninsula of the Pemba bay. It was elevated to a city status since 1904 then called Porto Amelia, after the queen of Portugal.

It is also the headquarters of most multinationals that are investing in the offshore gas initiative.

Anyway my work finished on Friday late afternoon and went straight to our hotel which is literally on top of the beach and had a swim at about 18h00 already dark. The wife was a bit scared, but then enjoyed our night swim. 

As always the water was warm, but I could see that we were going to have a cloudy weekend which could ruin our swim weekend.

The next morning we woke up with overcast sky so decided to take our 4x4 and just drive around to get to know the surroundings of Pemba.

All photos made with FUJI X-T1 and FUJI X70

Cloudy skies

We had cloudy skies but Pemba is still beautiful. Now imagine with sunny days. It will be paradise.

Faces

I always take my FUJI INSTAX share-SP1 with me. It just makes my day to print and offer to the local people, specially young people. Their faces when they see themselves is priceless.

Diamonds Mequfi Beach Resort

 This is the most recent 5* beach resort in Pemba situated at Mequfi beach which is run by the Planhotel hospitality group.

This is quite something out of the ordinary. It cannot be described, that is how beautiful and looked after it is. Full of different activities, it is just

Toronto - One of my favourite cities

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

This was my third WWPC in Toronto and I am always happy to come back to this vibrant city. This year as always I saw a lot of construction going on, something that I am not used to see in such a way neither in Portugal or Maputo in the last couple of years.

It is a city I love to visit for its vibrancy, energy and multi cultural space. IT seems it is always growing in both physically and economically.

I brought 3 colleagues from Mozambique and they loved it. When we had some time to spare, we walked around, took them to the CN Tower, the fantastic Niagara Falls, which, by the way, the Canadians have the better view.

Anyway, below are just some of the photos I made of this great city of whom its people should be proud to live in it.

Below are just some of the photos 

By the way, I brought on this trip my FUJI X-T1 and X70

Please click and see in full screen for the best view

Beautiful CN Tower

Panorama from the top of CN Tower

 Street Photography

Niagara Falls

Another View of Toronto

The Distillery District

I had a half day all to myself, so I decided to have a photo walk, and went to the well known Distillery District.