On to Tanzania!

End of December 2008
I am now preparing for another buying trip - this time to Tanzania. Like the trip to Madagascar, I prefer to work within a buying group. And thus, we are working with a group of 12 participants, not including drivers, guides and our hosts. I know five of the participants personally and they are all involved in the gem trade in North America. The balance of the team are mostly Europeans.

We are hopeful that internet access shall not be a problem.... but we're talking Tanzania. So our expectations are not set high. If I do have access, I will continue to post my findings and stories here in the blog. If not, well.... it will be done as soon as I have internet access again. Hope you are able to follow along.

My flight arrives in Dar es Salaam on the 7th of January, returning to the U.S. roughly around the 21st. So we have about 12 days on the ground, with 6 of them at a mining camp in the Umba Valley. Here's what we're hoping to find:

This is Scapolite I picked up from Tanzania two years ago. Hoping to see some more.

From northern Tanzania, there is a relatively new find of Spessartites. While the Tanzanian goods may not rival the very fine Nigerian rough, they are still attractive in their own right.

One of my favorite gems to cut is Tourmaline. I am very hopeful to find some on this trip.

So now all we have to do is find the rough!

Adding new gems from Madagascar roughs

September through December 2008
Am working through the goods from Mada. Here's a few that were completed in the past several months.

In the rough, we saw many larger roughs in Sphene, though many of them were really 'cabbing' grade. So it was mostly the smalls that we were interested in since we were certain they were 'cuttable'.


Only picked up one piece of Apatite - and this is from a slice off one end of the larger crystal.

This was cut from a crystal we purchased as golden Beryl, but we knew it was Scapolite before we left the country. It was a fine piece nonetheless, and now enjoy the look.

Many of the larger Garnets had a purplish overtone, and given their Specific Gravity, they should fall into the Rhodolite range. But locally in Mada, they are all lumped together.

Back in Tana... more dealers

July 5th and 6th, 2008
After spending some fun time in Tulear, we flew back to Tana. It's roughly a 17 hour grueling drive and flying seemed so 'civilised'.

We're now back in the capitol. Our pocketbooks are a smidgeon lighter, but we are still interested in looking at more goods. We thought we had already seen everything this dealer had, but we did not count on his influence in the local market. There were goods shown to us on our final day [shown below] that we had not seen earlier.



Here's a full view of one spread. All Garnet, mostly Almandine - but really they just mix it all together - probably because it is all found together and is in the same color range.




Then, from time to time we are surprised again. We 'cherry-picked' some goods from the parcel.

Closing up in Illakaka and heading south

July 3rd and 4th, 2008

We're finished with our buying in Illakaka, and are now weaving our way through town. This photo shows a typical street scene as vehicles have to tangle with pedestrians and carts.

Sometimes bike travel is easier than autos.

As we are passing south, there are numerous small 'buying' shops along the way.

We are now leaving Illakaka, heading south towards the town of Tulear. The signs regarding Sapphires are on many signposts.

And then, just as we are leaving all hustle of the town, we see such a nice building set up for Sapphire buying. It seemed this was somewhat of an anomaly.

At this point we are on our way to the ocean. And then we are surprised again to find digging taking place in another river near a small bridge. The work continued upriver for several kilometres.

As you can see here, we are looking out at least 5 kilometres.