We were to do a city tour today, with a guide called John. We packed all our gear for the flight to Mauritius in the morning, then had brekkie. We took our 2 bags to reception and asked them to keep them until we collected them, after lunch.

We met John at reception, and the city tour started by leaving the sanctuary of Sakamanga and entering the melee outside. It was busy on the street,  and crossing the road was a bit fraught, but we just kept John between us and the traffic, and crossed like a Malagasy.

John took us to the Avenue of Independence along which we walked up to the presidential palace. There were hundreds of Police, Gendarmerie and army personnel everywhere, getting ready to quell any unrest in the leadup to the election in 2 days time. I just kept thinking of the advice from the consulate – “avoid any demonstrations…” … oh well.

We visited the colonial era train station, then the markets, which were fascinating. I thought you could probably buy anything there. I was particularly taken with a couple of large bird cages, made with wire, by hand.

The markets led to a long stone stairway that climbed a hill. There were views of the markets and city to the north as we climbed and we were taken on a circuit of the top, which was a long north-south ridge. The way was quite intricate, through paved streets and narrow lanes. We saw many churches, the home of the military and a theatre built by the president during COVID that John said was a huge waste of money since theatre wasn’t part of the culture, and people were doing it tough at the time. We were shown the entrance to a factory where golden-orb weavers were milked for silk, which was used for bullet-proof vests among other things. After walking about 6km, our guide phoned Mickael, who picked us up, driving us back to Sakamanga. We had lunch there, then got back in the car with our luggage for the drive to the airport.

Mickael had found us some Kopa, a special Malagasy sweet made with banana and pistachios. I was a little disappointed in it, as it tasted a bit smoky, and was not that sweet. Still, it was an experience.

We stopped at the craft market on the way to the airport – I bought a T-shirt and Liz bought a metal boabab, the like of which she had been eyeing off for a while.

At the airport we bid farewell to our driver, and checked-in, after trying and failing to change to an earlier flight from Perth to Sydney. The half empty flight left on time and we had a short flight to Mauritius, before transferring to the full flight to Perth. We were a bit perplexed as to why we had to go through passport control for a flight transfer.

The flight to Perth left early. We landed at 9:30 pm in Sydney, after a very short sleep for me. I think Liz slept for a bit longer, but I was glad to be off the flight, as the passenger next to me was a bit of a nightmare.

Our arrival in Australia marked the end of our trip, and this blog.