Today was a travelling day - after a leisurely breakfast we sat and relaxed - I wrote emails that would go once I was back in the wifi of the Lantana hotel in Antananarivo. We were collected at 1130 for the short drive to the airport - indeed it didn't take us the hour planned and we arrived about 1215 and were first in the check in queue. As we got out of the car a rather elderly but wirey gent, with a porter tabard on, descended on us and insisted on carrying Johns bag. We could not go into the building until 1230 - so queued in good English tradition - and the queue behind us grew. As the doors opened a young man tried to usurp the elderly gents bag carrying role -but he persevered and succeeded in regaining control of Johns bag but the young man carried mine a very short distance to the desk and then shouted pay - I had the tip in my hand for the older gent and avoided his hand and gave it to the older man - saying he was our porter .....the older guy smiled in agreement and walked off leaving the younger looking a little miffed!
Having checked in we went and sat in some chairs in the next door waiting area and said our goodbyes to Jack who reassuringly advised us that they stay until the flight leaves just incase it doesn't! This trip we took off ahead of schedule with a touch down at Nosey Be and arrived ahead of schedule at Antananarivo - plus all our luggage - another good result.
I changed money for the next leg of the trip while John waited for the luggage and then we found our driver and guide.
Our guide was Njavi - our driver was the same guy we had for the first leg of the trip- a good driver with a sparklingly clean car!
Back to the Lantana hotel - we didn't eat dinner as we still had nice sandwiches and fruit left from our packed lunch -but I did go and order two hot chocolates.
I caught up with my 300+ emails - thankfully many could be deleted and via Skype I phoned the passport office to make an appointment for the Monday we return for a new fast track passport - mine has 2 pages left.....one will go in Tanzania in 2 weeks time and then we leave for Costa Rica and the US in mid December and albeit my passport doesn't expire until 2018 I will have no pages left ( and it was already the big size!) Despite an interesting phone line I managed to get my appointment for 8am on the 19/11 - seemingly a very efficient service.
Today's picture is of a young boy driving his Zebu through the national park with rice provisions on board - locals are allowed to use the paths to get from the town of Joffreville to their villages on the other side -but they must not disturb the forest. It is a good but uneasy relationship. The boy was closely followed by his mum and sister who were a little behind him and carrying other provisions.