29th to 31st October 2015. Antananariva, Madagascar to AbuDhabi to Sao Paulo, Brazil (and thence to the Falklands).

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I now resume with final posts on my journey to Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and the Atacama Desert. The last post covered Port Dauphin and leaving Madagascar from Tana (Antananariva).

My trigger for this journey was signing on for a cruise to South Georgia Island. I then realised that it was possible to combine this with a photographic tour of Madagascar, there being a little over a week between the two. It seemed appropriate to spend that week in the Falklands because the ship for South Georgia left from there and I was thus minimising my chance of missing the departure. The problem was that the plane for the Falklands left from Santiago in Chile only once every week. At the time there were no cheap direct flights from Johannesburg direct to Sao Paulo that fitted in with my timetable and I chose to save over $1,000 by flying via Abu Dhabi. That left me with a massive 55-hour transfer from Tana to Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi to Sao Paulo to Santiago (where I managed to snatch three hours sleep at a hotel) to Punta Arenas to Port Chalmers to Pebble Island.

This will be the first of three posts of views from my seat on the airplanes. I didn’t have a window seat from Tana to Johannesburg or from Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi so no images there. This post covers the flight from Abu Dhabi to Sao Paulo. No images after that for the night flight from Sao Paulo to Santiago. The second post shows views of the Andes and the third post aerial views of the Falklands.

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Abu Dhabi Control Tower.  Either an example of post-modern architecture, a representation of the crescent moon, or the result of strong winds that weren’t in evidence when I was there.

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A highway near the Airport.  As you can see, this really is a desert environment.

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Dormitory suburbs and an elaborate clover leaf.  One wonders what it’s like living there when the wind gets up and the sand blows in.

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In the Gulf near Abu Dhabi.  Probably an exclusive hotel on the left, perhaps an exclusive residence on the right.  Accessible only from the sea.

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This is five hours later over Africa.  This is an arid region and my guess is Sudan or South Sudan.

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This image and the next one are at a similar location.

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Now we are closer to the coast (and nearly a couple of hours later).  The cloud cover is just starting to break up and we can see a large river winding below us.  In each case there are small towns beside the river.

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Here a large town is more visible.

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Now the coast and the Atlantic Ocean.  Looking at the coast in Google Earth I couldn’t map the location but I think it’s probably the coast of Gabon or perhaps Congo Brazzaville.  The previous three images are relatively close to here.

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Now we are on the other side of the Atlantic, seven hours later.  This appears to be Guarujá, a seaside suburb of Santos, the port for Sao Paulo.

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This is Repressa Billings (or Billings Reservoir), the main source of (hydroelectric) power for Sao Paulo.  There are problems with pollution and it was down to 20% of capacity in 2015 as a consequence of an El Niño drought in 2014/15.

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Sao Paulo, the most populous city in South America with 11.2 million people in 2013.

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