Tsiraka Bandrakouni

Nah
It's fun. :)

This morning was exciting. Olivier volunteers with the local equivalent of sorta-coast-sorta-life guards. Pretty rad: he gets to zoom around in a ~40ft rib with twin 300HP engines. 40kts sounds like a hoot.

And so at 3AM he got up and out to go offload a malaria-sick Russian sailor from a 600ft cargo ship in bucking waves. I sorta slept through it and was only slightly concerned about his getting back in time to get me to the airport. A plan B was in place but was not needed.

I enjoyed a cloudy sunrise and some coffee then he returned and I packed up my backpack (this should be faster! I've packed so. many. times) and we headed off for one last delicious pain au chocolat et cafe elaongee. Ah... I will miss France (erm, Mayotte).

We cut things a wee bit close on getting me to the airport. It's a tiny airport and only runs a couple flights per day.

Interestingly.... It seems that two or three of today's flights are basically now. How efficient of them! And what a tremendous amount of disorganization!

The highlight of my travel day is going to be hard to pinpoint... But the first very exciting moment was the check-in agent telling me that it is not possible to board *To Madagascar* unless one has a return/exit ticket *From Madagascar*. This regulation is not unusual, per se, but discovering it a week after buying my ticket while trying to board was very exciting. Finding out that I had five minutes to resolve the situation or I'd miss my flight? Oh, boy! What fun.

At this point I want to express my profound appreciation and gratitude for having a credit card and a USA passport.

So I trotted over to the ticket counter and asked about a refundable ticket to anywhere (while humming a Journey tune). My eyes jus barely remained within my noggin when the lovely young woman told me it was 4,970 euros. Laughing, I said "that's refundable if I change the ticket, right?" She said yes. I rephrased and re-asked the question to ensure no language barrier. One cannot be too thorough in these matters!

And so I bit the bullet and bought the ticket.

To my tremendous relief, it was €497.
Sometimes losing a zero is quite a relief despite being nothing.

And while doing this the gate agent came over to tell me that carry-on is limited to 6kg (less than 15lbs) and I have to check my backpack. So I reluctantly left my passport with ticket lady and followed gate lady to check my bag. It merits mention that I am on the plan now with dozens of people who have roller bags that are very clearly more than 5kg.... But no matter.

Oops: spoiler. I made the flight.

Ok
So checked in and booked onward, I got into the immigration/security line at about 7:30, for an 8:00am flight. This is never a great thing and recent missed-by-minutes flights have me feeling less than optimistic about tight timelines.

In the glacial immigration line I managed to relax into whatever is coming next. What choice is there? When two people cut in front of me for passport control I laughed out loud... And the person behind me called out something to them, which apparently shamed them into stopping and letting me go. So sometimes laughter *is* the best medicine!

Security was remarkably thorough for a 50 minute puddle jumper flight in a turboprop. What the hell am I going to do hijacking *this* plane?!?

And so I hustled through.... To wait.

They took our tickets then had us walk down a flight of stairs to the tarmac, where we waited fifteen minutes. For a bus. That didn't work. Then one that does. To drive.... 26 seconds at 5mph to the plane. Ha!!

The gate agent walked past us after we boarded the bus and got to the plane 20 meters away before we did. What a remarkable example of following rules. Good for another chuckle.

And so finally at 8:46 we are taxiing. For a flight for which I was urgently rushed through boarding at 7:00.

Sigh. Travel *is* fun, but sometimes ya gotta look for the joy in the absurdity. A lot like life, no?

And that refundable ticket? It says no refunds in the fine print.Read more