2nd July Antsirabi

The trek started after breakfast to the mines and the road once we left the bitumen was a horror. We drove nearly to the top of the ranges to the SE of Antsirabi and then leaving the driver with the vehicle set off. The view was spectacular but hint, check your batteries or take spares. Two photo’s and the batteries are dead.
A short walk brought us to a working Rose Quartz mine. Pink quartz is everywhere, discarded as it’s massive and not gem. They don’t have any gem quality there as they have only just started but I pick up over a kilo of lovely clean, bright pink material that should star.
My guide now heads off cross country to the working beryl mines, aquamarine and morganite. There are apparently only two people still working each, gold again. I’m talking up and down spurs and ranges passing a lot of empty mines on the way.
My guide gets renamed to the answer he gives to every enquiry about how much further “One hundred metres more”. We’re going up a last monster range and he tells me they are near the top. I look at my GPS and we have nearly come 4 km as the crow flys. I don’t want to think about how far it was actually on the ground. It’s cold as there is a strong breeze and Antsirabi is also known as the coldest city on Madagascar, and just before we hit the top we get drenched in a shower. Lovely! If only that is the worst news. We get to the mines and there is no one about. He races off to check with a local village and comes back to tell me they are all at a wedding in Antsirabi. I can hardly blame him as phones don’t work out here so he had no way of knowing. This is the problem when you visit mines. To say I’m buggered when we get back to the car is an understatement.
Straight after lunch I buy some more Iolite and my first decent Tourmaline, 3 stones 12.6grams. I now get to see some sapphire from a new location near the capital, when I check the map it’s only 500kms away, that’s near!!!! It’s a lovely blue but he only has small pieces as he sold the rest this morning whilst I was out hiking. He does have some larger milky coloured blue ones from the same field and since they are cheap I buy them for the heaters to have a go at. Its looks like I will now head north again in a day or so. I’ve been very disappointed with the beryl and tourmaline situation and tomorrow is my last day here. I’m hitting the gem market to see if there are any interesting stones or specimens and I have to see if I can get some stones people want.