21 August 2025
After breakfast we again take the Route Nationale 7 and head towards the port city of Toliara on the southwest coast.
On the way we pass through Ilakaka, a small market town of Sapphire diggers. It was a once-booming town that sprang up after large alluvial sapphire deposits were discovered there in the 1990s. Between a 1/3 and 1/2 the world’s sapphire production poured out of its soils. But now, the area has fallen on hard times and big stones are few and far between. All the mining is done manually and the work in the mines is dangerous. Locals fill flour sacks with dirt from the mine areas and take it down to the river to ‘pan for sapphires. We watch them from the bridge, along with a horde of ‘young entrepreneurs’.
Anne is interested in perhaps buying a sapphire so Kenny arranges for us to stop at a workshop in town. I was absolutely amazed that sapphires come in all colours of the rainbow! It is also very difficult to find quality unless you know what you are doing so Anne decides against the idea.
Then we drive into a totally different landscape again: flat topped mountains, wide grassy plains, areas of burn off, termite mounds and lots of birds esp kites. We are still at high elevation. We have also moved into new tribal area: the Mahafaly people. The Mahafaly are zebu farmers and their tombs topped with zebu skulls and totems. There are lots of prickly pear cactus, and we start to see baobab trees (are fire resistant and not used for wood as they are fibrous, but they can be fed to zebu if they fall down).
Although the area is mostly deforested, there is a small amount of remaining transitional forest. We stop at Zombitse National Park with the hope of seeing the Sifaka dancing lemurs. Unfortunately there are no Sifaka today but we did see a nocturnal lemur that is endemic to this park. On our walk we saw the Malagasy giant chameleon, lizards, snakes, colourful birds and even owls. We see some towering baobab trees and learn that although their roots are shallow, they can extend 50 metres.
After a picnic lunch we continue on our way on a very long straight piece of road! We are at about 700m elevation and start to see mango and tamarind trees.
We pass through town of Sakaraha where there is gem trading but not mining. Girls are selling crunchy grasshoppers.
There is a very rough patch of road after our good stretch, with lots of kids filling potholes and trying to get money.
Jojoba berries and tamarinds are being sold in baskets on side of road. Charcoal is also made from tamarind. There is cotton being grown, along with kapok trees, cashew trees, papaya, cassava and sugar cane. Andoharotsy is the village where rum is made from sugar cane combined with tamarind. They mix and heat it in barrels.
Lots of grass fires – is illegal to start but never catch people as they put the fire inside zebu drops and put in grass. Takes 15 mins or so for fire to burn through and set fire to the grass.
We often saw very warriorly young men marching along the roadside with sticks and guns – to move zebu. I had a funny incident videoing a group going past to discover one at the back filming me – we shared a laugh.
Then the landscape changes again to being scrubby rather than grassy. This area is home to another different ethnic group – the Antambuoy. We are coming down to sea level and can see the Mozambique Chanel ahead of us, and the port city of Toliara.
It is getting late and we drive up the coast to Ifaty, a quiet fishing village of Vezo nomads. It is dark by the time we reach our lodge Les Dunes so we don’t get to discover the gorgeous palm-fringed beach until next morning.
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