Dinner last night was a bit of an ordeal. I’m not really sure where people who live here actually eat. As far as I can tell there are like three places, and they’re all part of hotels. And here’s the kicker — they only do buffets. We found one that would allow us to take a pizza to go and I was able to get a fish curry from our hotel, but it was not without considerable effort. La Digue, a much smaller island had more options. They had a few different takeaway places and locals and visitors would frequent them. I honestly have no idea how anyone on Praslin gets a meal.
In the wee hours of the morning, we received our covid test results. Negative once again. This is excellent news, because I just don’t know what we would eat for another 14 days on Praslin, particularly when buffets seem to be en vogue. It’s like the whole tourism industry on here was like, “White people like a buffet. Let’s go all in on that.” Nicole and I were ready to leave just to find more varied food options.
We arrived at the airport about 50 minutes before our flight, which is about 40 minutes earlier than we needed to get there. Close to departure we were all assigned a square in the boarding area based on our seat location and marched out in order to the DHC-6 Twin Otter. Nicole and I were again seated up front and I had a decent view of the golf course and Anse Georgette, the beach we saw yesterday.
Thanks to Nicole’s Hilton Honors Gold status, we were able to use Priority Pass to access a lounge at the Mahé airport since we had more than two hours to kill. Initially it was fairly calm. There were only a handful of people when we arrived, but about 50 children showed up in short order and ruined our zen. Etihad’s flight to Abu Dhabi is the only one departing in the next several hours, so they will all be on our plane. Why are all flights to the Emirates full of kids? We haven’t seen any the entire time we’ve been here, and they all materialized in in this lounge.
We eventually boarded our Etihad A320 with an estimated 75 children bound for Abu Dhabi. Most people presumably take the Emirates flight to Dubai, but as previously mentioned, a psychopath sets the schedules for that airline, so the Dubai flight is inexplicably a four hour redeye that arrives at 430 in the morning. We went with the more civil option to Abu Dhabi which was scheduled to arrive around 7pm.
This time last year, Abu Dhabi had numerous hoops to jump through, especially if you were coming from Dubai (as we would have been). You had to get a special test, and in many cases were given an actual tracker. Travel was highly discouraged. I was a bit disappointed, but as Nicole prophetically stated at that point, “We will probably be there next year for some reason.” And here we are.
Nicole was a little disappointed with her Indian-inspired cuisine on Etihad, but we were mostly annoyed with the loud screaming and coughing children running around maskless like a bunch of Karens. The four and a half hour flight seemed longer due to the inexplicably large number of children running amok. We then ended up stuck behind these massive families while trying to get our mandatory PCR test and process through customs.
We finally got to the exit and took a taxi to the Grand Mercure in downtown Abu Dhabi. I got a deal for them on ID90, the company I used to be a “brand ambassador” for. Like Hotel Tonight or other last minute booking options, we’ve gotten used to cheap prices equating to rooms next to the elevator, or in one case in Colombia, a room in the lobby. So we were a bit shocked when they upgraded us to a King Suite with washer and dryer, kitchenette, and large corner room. The laundry by itself is a huge get. Some of our stuff that had exposure to the sea smells a bit . . .dank.
I’m not sure if an error was made at some point or who they think we are, but a man then came to our room with a complimentary fruit basket and sweets. I realize we are Bricole, but I didn’t think our brand had really hit the Arab world yet. After having some Paul’s food delivered, we settled in and tried to wash the day off of us. Tomorrow we shall briefly explore Abu Dhabi.
passports & pepto bismol 