Today would be our final day in Madagascar.  Our flight was not until later in the evening, so we would have the whole day to spend in Tana.  After breakfast, we packed our things and prepared to leave the Palissandre Hotel for the last time.  We checked out and Nadine’s family arrived to pick us up.

As the kids had not had breakfast, we stopped at a bakery and had some ice cream.

The above picture is the final photo I took on this trip.

Next, we headed out to a market to do some shopping.  We went to a place just off the main road where there are hundreds of vendors with booths selling crafts and locally made souvenirs.  We bought many carvings and other souvenirs to take home to Canada.

We went to Tsiry’s parent’s place for a nice lunch.  This is a tradition they do every Sunday afternoon.

After lunch, we headed back to Anita’s place to relax, and pack our bags for the long trip home.  Our flight was leaving at 10:30 PM, and we needed to be at the airport early to be sure we didn’t miss it.  Around 7:45, we left for the Ivato airport (Code: TNR).

By now, we’ve been to this airport many times, as it was the central point for all of our excursions during our time in Madagascar.  This time, we would go to the international terminal, which was much larger that the domestic terminal.  I was surprised at how large this part of the airport was.  Air Madagascar serves about 50 or 60 different cities and towns within Madagascar, but really doesn’t fly to very many International destinations.  However, the international terminal was large, and filled with people.

We found the retail outlet where we were to pickup the model ship purchased in town yesterday, claimed the package, and proceeded to check in at the Air Madagascar desk.  The check-in line took about 30 minutes.  It turns out the flight is completely full, so we don’t have much flexibility in choosing our seats (Air Madagascar does not have advance seat selection, and on domestic flights, doesn’t even assign seats at all).  We were in the centre section, so we didn’t have a window seat, but since we were flying overnight, that didn’t really seem to matter much.  After checking our 5 bags and keeping only one carry-on bag each, we headed back into the main terminal area.

We met up with Nadine’s family again, said our goodbyes, and then headed over to customs and immigration.

In Madagascar, you have to clear customs and immigration when leaving as well as when entering, as they carefully control items leaving the country.  There weren’t very many people in these lines, but they moved very slow.  The agents were not terribly friendly, worked very slow, and basically demonstrated all of the qualities of a typical unionized employee you would find back in Canada.  I wasn’t impressed, but I’m sure Jack bin Layton, Buzz Hargrove and other idiots like them probably would have been proud!

We cleared security and waited to board our plane.  They boarded the plane from both the front and rear doors to move things along quickly.

We made it on board, took off almost right on time, and settled in for a long ride home.