We made it through the night in Morondava, and the air conditioning in our room worked very well.  One thing I’ve noticed of all places we’ve been, is the air conditioners look the same.  No place anywhere seems to have a central air conditioning system.  I haven’t seen any homes or stores with air conditioning, just hotel rooms, and sometimes they charge extra to use it.  It’s basically a unit built into the wall of the hotel room that is operated with remote control.  The picture below is of our hotel room in Morondava.

Another common feature in hotel rooms here, is you must insert your room key into a slot in the wall to activate lights and air conditioning.  All of this leads me to believe that electricity is expensive and limited.  Tsiry tells me that typical electrical demand in Tana, a city of about 1.5 million, is about 125 megawatts, or about 83 watts per person (about as much as a single lightbulb).  Compare that to Ontario which I think is about 2,200 watts per person in the summer.

Anyway, back on topic, we went out into the heat of the patio for a light breakfast.  After breakfast, we just went back to the comfort of the air conditioned room.  The pool looked very nice, but with the intense sun, even going to the pool was just too hot.

Around noon, it was time for our ride to the Morondava airport to catch our flight back to Tana.  Here are some photos at the airport.  For such a small place that only gets 1 or 2 flights per day, the departures area was surprisingly large and comfortable.  It wasn’t air conditioned, but at least we could enjoy a cold drink.

Here is the main entrance to the Morondava airport (code: MOQ)…

Here I am updating the travel blog in the departure area under a ceiling fan…

Our plane as it arrived, and our luggage waiting to be loaded…

So our plane arrived (see above), and we boarded the plane.  There were a total of about 8 people on this flight, so it didn’t take long for us to get on board and take off for Antananarivo early.  It couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes from the time the plane landed to the time we were airborne and heading back to Tana.

We got back to Tana, and there was a significant temperature difference.  Morondava was 35ºC and Tana, which is only 370 km away by straight-line distance, was only 21ºC!  As the day progressed, it dropped even more, to the point where I put on a sweater.  The skies were getting grey and rainy for the first time since we’d been here, and it seems that we’re starting to feel the low pressure effects of tropical cyclone Bondo that is starting to threaten the northern area of Madagascar.  This could present a problem, and we will watch the storm closely, as on Dec 26 we are due to tour the north of Madagascar.  Just our luck that the only tropical storm on the radar anywhere in the world at the moment, just happens to be where we are due to go!

Anyway, the grey skies don’t present any problem for today, as we were planning on being inside.  Tonight we are heading to Tsiry’s parents for a Christmas eve dinner.  Before we go, we stop by the supermarket for some wine.  Just so you don’t think all stores are junky holes in buildings that look like they should be condemned, here’s a photo of a modern store.  It has a parking lot like any grocery store in Canada, and inside it’s like an RCSS store (but a little smaller) selling groceries, clothing, televisions, jewellery and other things you would expect in such a store.

We then headed out to visit Tsiry’s parents.  Pictured here is an office building across the street from the supermarket, like any you might find in Canada.

Here is a new road with nice pavement and four lanes!  This is a bypass around the city.

We arrived at Tsiry’s parents place for Christmas Eve dinner.  It was a nice new house that he just finished building, located up on the mountain overlooking Tana.

Here is a photo of everyone after dinner.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to relax for the evening.