WEATHER: 15C in Tanna and 22C in Reunion Island
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: A breezy travel day again
BUMMER OF THE DAY: The weather is crappy in Reunion
BUYS OF THE DAY: My duty free perfume purchase
WORD OF THE DAY: FRENCH
An early start this morning. I was getting picked up at 6.45am, so I was up at 5.30am and got my computer booted up and continued to load my Africa photos as I did my final pack, if nothing else I am dedicated to getting my pictures on Facebook. I got so absorbed and the internet speed was cracking along, I decided to skip breakfast and just keep them loading till 6.30am, when I headed downstairs to find Alan there waiting for me to take me to the airport. What a nice surprise! Plans changed and his party of 4 weren’t coming in till the afternoon, so it was nice that he came, cause he still could have sent his brother.
So with the music playing for the last time we drove for the 45 minutes to Tanna International Airport. After yesterdays ‘awkward’ moment when I went in for the thank-you hug, there was no repeat of that and just a friendly handshake and a BIG thanks again. It was all said yesterday, so I was now back on my own again for the next 10 nights. I don’t know why I imagined that the Madagascar component of my trip would be relaxing with a lot of driving and hiking 3 times in national parks. But I know for a fact that the next 10 nights will be spent chillaxing. I have no day tours pre-booked; I will just see how I go when I get there. I would like to see the Volcano which can be done in a full day tour, otherwise I just want to load photos and relax and know I don’t have to be anywhere at any time. I will probably get sick of that after a few days, but besides the 7 nights I have on the river cruise I will be back being with people and back on the road again, so I will savor these days even if I do get bored.
Check-in was s seamless process again, who would have thought that Africa would have the quickest processes? The counter wasn’t open when I got there, but I only had to wait 20 minutes. I’m flying Air Austral, a French airline, and there was just the one check-in agent to start with and I was next in line. The lady before me had her hand luggage weighed as she checked in. Well I had my carry on back-pack already on my back, as per my normal check-in process, as I know that sucker would definitely weigh more than the approved 7kg so this was going to plan already. Well there was an Air Madagascar flight leaving just before ours, so they had a check-in agent next to Air Austral, so he called me over to help out the queue. So thank-god I didn’t get the other guy, cause I don’t know what I would do if I got pulled up with the weight on my back. So I was checked in and they need to put hand luggage stickers on your carry on, so he asked me what carry on’s I had and I pointed to my handbag and he said what about the backpack on your back. Oh crap, I’ve been found out, but he wasn’t interested in weighing it like the other dude, he just wanted to get the regulation hand luggage tag on the sucker. Phew thank you travel god, you have looked after me again. I am happy to report my checked in bag was only 19.1kg! Yay, I’m getting this travelling with one bag down pat finally after 7 months!
The only thing that I didn’t get done was to visit a post office with all the crap I bought in Madagascar and with some left over bits from Africa, so I am actually carrying a spare piece of hand luggage. But I hope to off load this in Reunion or worse case in the Seychelles. So with my window seat boarding pass in my hands, actually I am sitting in seat 2A! I have a feeling that this plane ain’t going to be a big aircraft if I have a 2A seat, but he saw the size of my carry on backpack, so it can’t be that small that it won’t fit in the overhead. This seems to be my worse fear these days travelling on the smaller aircrafts.
Tanana’s airport reminds me of Darwin’s airport of old. Tin shed feeling, hasn’t been touched by development since it was built in the, oh I would say 40’s, oh maybe I’m being a little harsh, how about the 70’s. A departure card had to be completed and then I was waved through at the departure entry and then through to customs, 10m away where there was one person working, processed in 3 minutes, 2 steps to the security screening, 20 seconds through that and I was done. I didn’t even have to pull my laptop out of my bag. I guess what sort of terrorist would want to blow up Tanna or Reunion Island for that matter. The shops were just starting to open; it was only just after 8am I guess. I still had 40,000AR (20AUD) burning a hole in my pocket, so the one shop that was open was the perfumery. Well I do actually need some more perfume, so I bought a bottle of Givenchy and even though I did like the smell, I was also looking at the practicality of the size and shapes of the bottles so they wouldn’t take up too much room in my toiletry bag. OMG, I AM becoming a seasoned traveller. I also need to point out that this is the FIRST duty free purchase since leaving home (except the travel adapter I bought at Heathrow) and that is a mammoth effort for me. Considering I have passed through now around 23 airports, I am pretty proud of that stat! Well that killed 10 minutes.
The plane we were catching was late arriving, but as it is a smaller aircraft there isn’t too much involved in turning it around, so we only had to wait an extra 10 minutes and they called us, we were processed and let through the gate for the walk to the aircraft. It was an ATR 72-500, which in layman terms is a rear access only plane with propellers and a 2x2 seating arrangement. So even though I was in 2A, I had to walk the whole aircraft to get to my seat, but lucky I was one of the first to board so I didn’t have to bump and grind past people in the aisle. Well there is always some-one worse off than me, and the lady that was sitting next to me arrived and her hand luggage wouldn’t fit in the overhead locker, so she had to store it at her feet, but as the plane door closed there was no-one in the row in front so she did a swappsie and I got another seat to myself. I have to say I have been quite lucky with my seats on all my flights. I have just probably just jinxed myself, but touch wood it continues.
The flight was only 1 hour and 45 minutes and it got me landing into Reunion Island just after 1pm as we wound our watches forward an hour. I had looked at my documents on my IPod (once again I hadn’t had a chance to print them) and it is on the flight I noticed that the flight time on the voucher was the old flight arriving in at 6pm. I had to juggle my flights around back in February as the original flight cancelled, and I must have overlooked letting the wholesaler know. DOH. So I knew for a fact that there would be no-one there to meet me as I wasn’t supposed to be there for another 6 hours. We got a bus transfer in Reunion to the terminal and because I was last off the plane it meant I was first off the bus! Woo Hoo! So with no visa and no paper required to get through customs I was at the baggage carousel in record time. The trolleys were not free and at this point I had no idea on currency and had no local money so with my bag one of the first off, I hefted my big backpack on my back and with my other 3 bags made it through to arrivals.
I found the tour company’s booth and what would you know it was closed. Yeah, well they weren’t expecting anybody were they? There was an information counter not far away so I went up and asked where there was an ATM and also a pay phone where I could call the company; I at least had those details on my IPod. So I went to the ATM and not knowing what would pop out I took the 3rd option of 70 something’s and it was Euro that came out. Okay, well I have some left over Euro from my Contiki tour, so I rummaged around and found some coins, enough for the phone. So I find a payphone and it only takes cards! It doesn’t say what type, so I found another bank of phones and they are all the same. So I make my way back to information and she explained that it is a credit card like I should have known. This is all my fault, so I haven’t lost my temper and I asked the lady if she could make a call for me, it was local, I had the number and I showed it to her and she didn’t believe me that the counter was closed, so she went and checked and we came back and she finally made the call for me. After a few calls back and forth and after around 40 minutes some-one was coming to get me. The information lady ended up being really nice and I was super grateful for all the help she gave me. No point in getting cranky right? It just makes other people cranky and then nobody is happy, even if this wasn’t my fault, I would have been the same. I knew that Reunion Island was French, but so was Madagascar, I didn’t expect the whole country to be..well French. Everything is in French, well at the airport and nobody speaks English, or if they do they don’t let you know. All the signs are in French and all the information boards are in French. What happens if you don’t speak French – um like me?
So my French only speaking driver (and he is the tourism business and he only speaks French) arrived in an 18 seater new Merc bus all for me. To get from the airport to St Denis the capital was only a 15 minute drive, but I was continuing further down the coast to Les Bains which was a further 30 minute drive. The scenery on the drive was pretty amazing, hugging the coast line that had massive cliff faces on one side and the ocean on the other. I would love to tell you that it was beautiful blue water, but it was overcast and blowy and totally not a tropical island feel but the cliffs were pretty cool to look at on the upside. It was also nice to be on a normal road, with normal drivers (well they are French) and travelling at the actual speed limit, it took me awhile to work out what was actually different while we were driving, I was missing all the honking car horns. It was eerie and quite…….
I’m staying at the Hotel Le Lagon, which is a 5 star hotel and I rekon this has pretty much been the bargain of the century when I booked it through a wholesaler for $50AUD a night and that was for a single room and it includes breakfast! Now that is a bargain. So my bags were whisked off me when I arrived and I walked into the massive reception area to check-in. I think my early arrival may have thrown them out but without actually letting me know about it. They asked me to take a seat and I waited for 25 minutes with no-one coming up to me to let me know what was happening, so I went back to the counter and she told me they were just waiting for my free drink. I couldn’t really give a toss about my arrival drink, but after a further 10 minutes the drink came out with some paper work that needed to be signed. Well the paper work was a 5 page booklet that I had to sign in 3 places and provide my credit card details on. Man talk about a hotel taking their contracts seriously. So after signing my life away I met my ‘guide’ and she then took me around the resort and showed me where the 3 restaurants were, the amazing looking pool, the pool bar, the club house and then to my block of rooms. I am about the 5th block back from reception, you just about need a packed lunch to get there, but the room itself is pretty cool. So after Corrine left I checked everything out, the room is littered with bougainvillea flowers and the base colour of the room is that beautiful aqua blue which the towels are of the same colour. Ahhhhh this is going to be home for the next 5 nights and I am really excited that I don’t have to be anywhere, I don’t have to dine at a certain time and I can sleep in and have nobody to account to. This is going to be heaven. I cranked up the laptop to see if the Wi-Fi reached this far and even though I have a ‘low’ signal it seems to be working okay. I have used slower, so that is great as I want to use this opportunity to load the last of Africa and get Madagascar started loading.
Even though it pretty much has taken me a whole day to fly only 2 hours I was still feeling okay after waking up at 5am. There are a set of ‘suburb’ shops a 10 minute walk from the hotel, so I decided to take a walk down there and scope the place out. The great news is they have hairdressers there and a supermarket. Now I haven’t seen a supermarket since leaving Cape Town, so I was finally able to replace my 6 month old razor, that surprise surprise had given up the cutting ghost and I also got some water, schnacks and because I could some camembert and cabana with some biscuits. A touch of home. I was on the hunt for a Reunion sim card though which I couldn’t get there. I asked at the newsagent and the lady didn’t speak English but so I was handed over to the guy who told me I had to go into Saint Gillies which was 15 minutes by bus and I got him to write it in French for me and also the words for sim card. I stopped at the bakery on my way back to the hotel and grabbed myself a pizza bread to tie me over till dinner.
So I walked back to the hotel and dropped of my goodies and then asked the concierge to call me a taxi. Well he is the concierge right? Anyone would have thought I’d asked him for a ride to the moon. He had some attitude and I have come to the conclusion he is an arse. He huffed and puffed that it was going to take at least 40 minutes for it to get here and that it will be very expensive and proceeded to pick up the phone. Woah woah – cool your jets buddy. What are my options, so he told me I could catch a bus for 1.50EUR. Well that sounds a lot better than 30EUR one way in this damn taxi. So back to the shops I walked and made sure I was on the correct side of the road and a bus came along within 5 minutes, talk about luck and the bus driver knew where I wanted to go without even showing him my piece of paper from the newsagent man! Alright, I’m starting to get the hang of this French language (by not using it) and no talk thing.
I spent 90 minutes in Saint Gillies getting my sim card with a lot of hand gestures, having a look around the shops and then back on the bus, which incidentally had the same driver I got on the way in, so at least he knew where I got on as I had no idea on the name of the stop, but I had land marks to keep an eye out for so I would know when to press the button. Aren’t I a smart cookie. Saint Gillies reminds me of Noosa, little beach side town with surf shops and restaurants. Cute.
By now I am pretty knackered. It has been a long day, so I decided to not do anything for dinner. I had the cabana and cheese in the fridge, so after my wonderfully awesome hot shower with the MASSIVE shower head I made myself a platter of cheese, bikkies and dip and this constituted as my dinner, keeping in mind I had the pizza bread around 4pm.
So another country, well even though Reunion is technically France, it is another stamp that I will need to get for my Globetrotters book and a tick in the box. I’m looking forward to 5 days of rest and relaxation and being in one spot for a small length of time.
Welcome to Reunion Island.
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