Panning for gold and gems

We didn’t need to get up till 7am today. What a treat.

We left our good hotel with its pretty grounds to head for the hot savannah, stopping at a petrol station to buy water. On Hery’s instructions we had been saving up plastic bottles and he had a sack of them filled with tap water to distribute to some of the children in villages we pass through as they are still waiting for rain and are short of water.

Before we reached those villages we went through a couple of gem mining towns. (When in SriLanka our jeweller said he got his gems from Madagascar, the most famous being sapphires). The men mine in sandstone so it is quite common for them to die in roof falls. They also pan for gold and gems in the nearby mud. There were a lot of very swanky cars in town unlike most places with the aged Peugeots and Renaults.

After a couple of hours we stopped at NP for a 2 hour walk in a small woody, scrubby area. It was 36 degrees. We saw a giant chameleon, some birds including a black parrot and some other Safika type of lemur in a tree. The guide gave me some feathers for Thomas - he’s going to be 11 soon and wants some feathers or a stone from here for his birthday. He’s a boy of simple wants.

We had our picnic lunch of dry roll, cheese, tomato and egg then headed on through more gem towns before journeying for reaching the arid region

Usually on trips like this the guide acquires a large container of water and we decant into our water bottles to save on plastic. We were surprised when Hery said not here. We had to buy large bottles from petrol stations or the hotels. A few days ago he told us to start saving our bottles. Today he filled them all up with tap water, explaining that in the south people struggled to get water. Climate change has exacerbated the problem. They walk distances carrying Jerry cans to fill up and then have to boil it. Children and women came running out of their tiny daub and wattle huts along the way calling for aqua. Hery held out a bottle and a woman would take it and yell “merci” and smile wildly. They were so grateful it was humbling.

The journey to Toliari was long and hot. The air coming in the windows was very hot as it was 36 when we set off, rising to over 40. (No air con in the bus)