Another early morning!

Despite being an early riser I am completely over getting up at 3:30 in the morning to go to the airport. Not even the birds were up when I left home this morning! Anyway I got to the airport in good time and nervously checked in my luggage because it was a bit overweight (again!). Fortunately nothing was said and my suitcase was checked through to Antananarivo.

The flight to Johannesburg was once again in the new Airbus A320. This is my fifth time flying this route in the last 6 weeks and the fifth time in that aircraft. It is quite nice as it is very spacious so I'm not complaining.

When I was standing in the line to go through immigration at OR Tambo airport, I saw someone I knew! Dave Japp from Capfish in the Cape was on his way to Dar es Salaam. We got to chatting and then he wanted to know how the WIOFish database works because he wants to use it for a consultancy he has been awarded. So we sat down together at his boarding gate and I gave him a quick lesson in how to extract the information that he needs. I am really happy that the database is getting used more and more!

His flight left 30 minutes before mine so once he had gone I went off in search of my gate and it wasn't far. It was amusing watching SA Airlink sort out a bus to take us to our aircraft. The first bus to arrive was not ours apparently, it was just parked in the wrong place. They moved that bus and one arrived for us and we started to get on it when the controller decided that it was too small so we were shunted off of it to stand around in the 7°C Jo'burg chill to wait for another bus. Eventually a longer bus arrived and we all got on. Actually it was still a squeeze so I'm not sure how we were all supposed to have fitted on the smaller bus.

The Arvo RJ85 jet was not full at all so I had an open seat between me and the next guy which was good. I do so much prefer to not have to sit next to anyone and share their germs. We seemed to hang about on the apron for ages but did get going after about a 30 minute delay.

The flight was not too bad. There was not much to see most of the way since there was cloud cover almost the whole way across the Mozambique Channel. This was a bit sad because we flew directly over Europa Island and I was hoping to get a look at it. The clouds cleared up in time to see the coastline of Madagascar and then started to build again as we headed for Antananarivo. There are not too many photos from the flight because my window had a bit of a distortion in it and everything looks a bit blurry but here are the best ones.










I got through immigration at the airport fairly quickly and the only comment customs gave me was that my name is "good". The hotel transfer service was waiting for me and we got going. It is a fairly long drive from the airport and it was all in silence. The driver does not speak English and I just didn't feel up to having a conversation in my broken French. Besides it was relaxing to just look at the surroundings on the way. This is the same driver that I had last year and I like him because he is a very careful driver unlike some other hooligans I have experienced in some other countries this year.
The rice paddies on the way from the airport to the hotel

After I had checked in to the hotel and hung up my work clothes, I went down to the underground pool for a swim. It is supposed to be heated but there wasn't much heated about it so I became part of the human stew in the Jacuzzi. Ordinarily I don't do public Jacuzzis but it was very clean and there was no one else there so I gave it a whirl. It really was nice but also not hot enough so I didn't stay long and returned to my room for a hot shower.
The view from my hotel room window

It will be an early night for me tonight for sure. I can already feel how heavy my eyelids are. Tomorrow morning I had to pay a courtesy visit to the Secretary General of the Fisheries Ministry before the workshop can get underway and I need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for that.

Have a good night everyone!


Location: Lalana Rainandriamampandry, Antananarivo, Madagascar

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