October 19th

We did not sleep well. The electricity went off for a couple of hours starting around 2 am, then came on briefly then off again. This caused the room to become too warm. Also today is a travel day and we usually don't sleep well on these days anyway. We finally gave up and got up around 530ish. Readied and mostly packed our stuff, then went to breakfast by 630. We had the ham and cheese omelette, juice and different breads. I had tea and Jeff had hot chocolate.

Finished we went up and made sure all our packing was ready to fly. Checked out by 0715 – we are early. So we sent a WhatsApp to George. He did not respond and showed up at 0725. We loaded up and headed out. George wanted to take us to one last place. It was 28 km away but took us two hours to get there. The traffic was a mess, we were mostly stopped for 25 minutes. George found out there had been an accident and he had a live feed. I doubt the person that was on a bicycle made it.

Anyway we arrived at our destination about 0950 (two hours and 20 minutes). This was 'Lemur Park' – it's actually a Lemur Reserve and a Botanical Park. We saw six different kinds – two different kinds of Sifakas, and four kinds of lemurs. Our guide, Hery rattled the names so quickly they did not all stick. These are the ones I remember: Eastern Grey Bamboo Lemur; Ring-tailed Lemur; Black Lemur (the male is all black, female is brown); Cockroach Sifaka; Crowned Sifaka. The facility helps them build a unit and goal is to return to wild. Hery touched on deforestation. He explained more of the plants. I guess I am on information overload because while a bunch of information was repetitive, there was new stuff, but it eludes me now. We enjoyed this visit. We looked at their T-shirts, although nice were pricey. So we bought a couple Youzou and then left.

It was around 11 – our flight is at 5pm, but supposed to be there 3 hours ahead – so 2pm. Air Mauritius does not allow check in online – so we wanted to be there by 2pm. George drove us toward the airport. He took us to a local market that we could look for a T-shirt. It took three shops, but we found what we were happy with. Jeff dickered some and arrived at a price everyone was happy with. Loaded up and on closer to leaving Madagascar. We did stop at a Malagasy food chain – Le Gastronomie Pizza. They had kabobs. Jeff and split one plate – chicken and fries with a shredded carrot salad and shredded melon salad. George had one as well. Jeff and George had non alcoholic mojitos, I had my last World Cola. We paid for George's meal. Finished we got in the vehicle one last time and drove the last 10 minutes to airport. Said our goodbyes to George. Jeff gave him a nice tip and also our binoculars (we never use them anymore) and his (empty) wallet (Jeff was using it as a throw away wallet, but it is not necessary). George seemed surprised.

Anyway, there were no tears and we left to check in. It was 1345. Through customs and at gate to wait by 2pm for 5pm flight. I blogged, walked some; Jeff walked some, researched and looked at feeds on his phone. Boarded our plane early and we backed up 15 minutes early. We're on a bigger Airbus (not a double decker). No problem flight. They actually fed us on this short flight – curry spiced (no sauce) pasta, not too bad. We landed, through passport control, and sat down in the Mauritius Airport Lounge by 711pm. We are tired: combo of not sleeping well night before and traveling. They had the rum tasting going on. So we had a little sample of a Mauritian spiced rum. It was pleasant. We had a some appetizers and couple of french wines, of which the Bordeaux was good. Time to go and we boarded next and last flight to Reunion. We boarded out on the tarmac via bus to the plane. We are in a turbo prop plane and we load in the back – only place to load! Our seat assignment was changed by the airline from 2a/c to 19a/c. We were a little upset – but because of back loading we were first off the plane. Again, no problem flight. This was an even shorter flight, less than 50 minutes. We were through customs, and bag retrieval quickly. (We didn't have the first bag but we were first to have both bags.) Then took a taxi and at Airbnb and bed by 1145. 

So bye to Madagascar – it was an great adventure and a MAD tour! Enjoyed immensely!!!  🙂  😉