Missed flight #1

A relaxing morning quickly became a very, very stressful day. I slept in, had breakfast, and a shower before packing my bag and getting ready for my afternoon flight. As is typical for me, I left early and arrived at the airport about 4 hours early at 2 pm. My taxi driver and the security guard did not speak a lot of English at all, but once we arrived, the security guard was saying that I couldn't enter the airport. I figured I was too early and was trying to tell him that I could wait out the front. Eventually, he said something in broken English that sounded like "already gone." I was shocked and confused, so I showed him my ticket that said 6:50 pm departure. Then, luckily, another security guard arrived with much better English and said that the flight was brought forward to this morning and that there were no more flights today. I was very shocked, and without data, I had no choice but to get the taxi driver to take me back to the resort for a night. This is when the panic began to set in a little bit. I could not contact the airline, flight centre emergency number, or my travel insurance because I did not have a sim card, and these companies didn't have whatsapp numbers. I could not contact my family or my travel agent because it was very late and no one would be awake. I had no way of figuring out why I wasn't contacted about the change of flight and had no way of trying to find a new way to Antananarivo. One of the disadvantages of booking through a travel agent. I frantically emailed as many people as I could to try and sort it out, but very few companies reply to such emails in sufficient time. I couldn't even go get a sim card because my resort is in the middle of nowhere to the north of the island. I checked to see if I could buy a flight tomorrow, but they were sold out for the next week. The only slightly viable option that would get me to my tour on time was an international flight to Rèunion, a one hour layover, and then a flight to the capital. This was risky. As a one hour layover on an international flight is destined to fail and would cost me 1,300 USD, something I am not willing to pay given the risk involved. If I missed the second flight, I would have to wait till the next day, in which I would miss the start of my tour. This is important because my tour also started with a very early morning flight (5 am) to Toliara. This means that if I ended up in Rèunion, missed my connecting flight, I would have to double down, buy another flight to Antananarivo, and then have to buy ANOTHER flight to Toliara. This means I would potentially pay for 4 flights in 24 hours, costing me at least 2,000 USD. Given that I couldn't contact my travel insurance to confirm I would be reimbursed, there was nothing I could do. I was not willing to take the risk and spend all the money. After many hours of emails and stressing to no avail, there was nothing else i could try. So i went to bed, hoping for something better in the morning when my parents were awake. It was a depressing and very stressful day in which I felt helpless and frustrated the whole time. As such, this is my first proper nightmare while travelling, and given it's been 5 months, I guess it's not a bad record, but I hope it's the last nightmare i have.Okumaya devam et