In the center south of Madagascar there is a mining boom town called Ilakaka. Ilakaka is the kind of place that attracts the kind of people that you don't want to bump into after a payday night out. The reason people come is because underneath the town is one of the world's largest sapphire alluvial veins. Sapphires are not diamonds. They are Aluminium oxide. Trace amounts of metals give them their color. The most common and popular is blue, but sapphires can also come in yellow, purple, orange, and green. They also come in red, but those ones have a special name; rubies. Ilakaka has an alluivial vein about 20 meters from the surface and they take them out the old-fashion way. First a hole is dug 20 meters deep. Next someone is lowered into the hole to see if they can find the stones. If they are lucky, teams excavate the area and take out what they can get. We got to see the process, and Eva got a rough sapphire for future use.
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| Zebu-power. |
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| Excavation Team. |
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| Our guide/Driver Mamy. |
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| The local spa. |
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