Madagascar Unfiltered Days 6&7: Sapphires and Isalo National Park

Madagascar Day 6: Leaving Mikea and Learning More About Sapphire Sales

Our stay in Mikea was short but oh so sweet! To be completely honest, I didn’t sleep much because my lucid dreaming was out of control due to the constant stimuli inside the tent, but the daytime experiences were worth it.  

(That was random of me to say but it means that when wind is blowing or there’s sounds while I’m sleeping I usually have very vivid, realistic, and mostly terrifying dreams that I can typically control but also tend to turn into sleep paralysis. I’ll be writing an entire post about that soon).

So we boarded the boat again; this time it was high tide so we could load up from the shore instead of taking the cattle cart. We spent the hour long boat ride taking in the sights along the shore, which were both the gem-colored waters, and beach-front villages.

Then it was another two hours on the sand and dirt road from hell that seemed like it never ends. When we finally reached the paved road, I almost got out of the car and kissed it. Not that it was drastically better since we still had to swerve around potholes, people, and slower vehicles.  

We stopped on the way back in Tulear where we had arranged to meet with the local woman who sold Sapphires first. And may have also contemplated trying to book the one hour flight back to Antananarivo rather than spend the next two days driving.

Full disclosure, we had arranged to meet her before we knew about how bad the mining conditions were, and the toll they take on the environment. In my first posts I mentioned how I’d only want and suggest buying gems from locals so the money goes directly back to the community, and in the last post I explained what really goes on with the sapphire mining. 

The woman and a man came with the gem stones, which were in worn down jewelry boxes or folded in paper. I don’t know a lot about buying gem stones but at least knew you were supposed to weigh them and look at them in the light for impurities. Scratches or uneven cuts usually is a designation that the stone is real and not synthetic.

When they first pulled out all of the stones, I was immediately drawn to the massive ones first. They glittered in colors of royal blue and purple, and also some that were clear like diamonds.But they weren’t sapphires. The sapphires are about one twentieth of the size of the larger ones, because the larger ones are made from natural stones and crystals that are more abundant. Sapphires are rare and hard to find, and when you do find them, they are usually in small pieces.

I weighed and selected two of the “larger” sapphires (and by larger I mean bigger than the rest of the tiny ones they had — these were the same sizes we saw at most shops), plus a bigger non-sapphire, and she quoted me a pretty good price of about $50 for all three.

Then they mentioned something about being able to get pink sapphires — which are even more rare, and the deal continued. The woman had to take a taxi to go get the pink sapphires, and although we were pressed for time, the wait was worth it.

The pink sapphires were twice the size and weight of the blue sapphires, and therefore of course, twice the cost. I ended up with one 1.7 carat pink sapphire and two 1 carat blue sapphires for $160USD. This is a great deal compared to the cost of 100% real sapphires sold by jewelers, but the real value for me was obtaining a natural element from Madagascar, which probably will no longer exists in the future.

As I mentioned in the post before this one, the debate of supporting buying sapphires or not is a difficult debate. On one side, if you can buy them from locals, you are helping a lot of people who need the money to survive.

But on the other side, you are encouraging more mining with ridiculously low wages for miners, and the deforestation that it causes.

I would love to hear your comments below on a possible solution to this!

Arriving in Isalo and Jardin Du Roy

I’m not going to lie, after hardly sleeping for two nights and catching a bit of a cold…I passed out for the majority of the ride to Isalo. I did wake up randomly at one point just in time to see the word “Pharmacie”, and asked our driver if we could stop so I could get cough medicine.

By the way, for those of you worried about getting sick or injured while traveling, FEAR NOT. Every time I’ve gotten sick or injured, I’ve easily just popped into a pharmacy…or hospital…and gotten anything I needed. Not just that, it’s always been medicine that works ten times better and is ten times cheaper than it is in the U.S.

If you want to read more about what to do if you get sick abroad, I’ll have a thorough post about that topic up soon as well, so be sure to subscribe to my emails!

And if you want some more reassurance about the financial aspects of getting injured or sick abroad, check this post out: Countries with the Cheapest Healthcare

ANYWAY! After purchasing some herbal cough syrup for about $1 (that actually worked), we kept driving into the night to reach Isalo. Unfortunately dusk was just sweeping in when we got there, but it was enough light to give us a glimpse of the massive regal granite stone estate framed with bougenvellia trees and towering boulders.

Although it was dark, I could tell that the Jardin du Roy was something that could have appeared in a fairytale. The vast, well-manicured green lawn, chirping with grasshoppers (that also had no shame in flying at you or trying to share your bed), dotted with the stone structures that comprised the rooms was nothing short of whimsical.

Madagascar Day 7: Horseback Riding and Handicraft Shopping Before Departure

If you haven’t read many of my posts on here or social media, I’ll go ahead and let you know that I am OBSESSED with animals. Especially horses.

So when I saw horseback riding on the Wau Madagascar itinerary in Isalo at Jardin du Roy, I was beyond excited. Waking up at 6am to do it, not so much, but it was all the time we had before the final driving stretch back to the Antananarivo airport.

Seeing Jardin du Roy in the early glowing hours of the day was absolutely fantasy-like. The granite block buildings, manicured lawn flecked with frangipanis, and towering boulders made me feel like I was in France or something.

Then we got to the stables and I knew I was for real in a fairy tale. The U-shaped stables had some of the most beautiful horses I’ve ever seen poking their heads out of each stall. I immediately ran up to all of them to say hi and give a scratch to each.

It was a touch decision to pick which one I wanted to ride, since I always go for the chestnut brown ones with white diamonds on their foreheads because they remind me of my childhood horse Nikki. But since I was feeling fairytale-is, I went for the tall, all-white mare named Rochelle.

I’ll go ahead and let the photos do this experience justice, but trust me when I say, it was nothing short of magical!

Madagascar Handicraft Shopping

The amount of Madagascar decorations I now have for my apartment is obscene. Thank goodness I only had a little bit of Malagasy Ariary money left, because otherwise I would have needed an additional suitcase to get everything home.

If you’re into buying local handicrafts, souvenirs, decor, bags, etc., definitely what until the end of the trip. Both because then you don’t have to carry it around, and also because the best place with the cheapest prices is a couple hours outside of Antananarivo.

I can’t remember the name of the exact location because we just kept stopping each time we saw stalls, but there’s an area in between Ambavalao and Antananarivo with tons of them.

You can negotiate prices, but to be honest, they’re already so cheap, and these people need the money more than you do, so just pay full price.

We FINALLY made it back to the airport in Antananarivo after an extremely long week’s journey. The amount of insight, education, and experiences I had was priceless, and has motivated me to write a lot more again, and share more personally about destinations worth visiting and how we can help them.

I’ll have an entire tips an info post out next, and again, if you’re interested in joining an eco-tour next year with me, please drop me an email or comment below!

Disclaimer: This tour was sponsored by Wau Madagascar, however all experiences, writing, photos, and opinions are my own.