Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Africa Revisited - A New Trip

I can't believe it came upon me so fast.  This coming Monday I am leaving on my second trip to Africa.  I will be revisiting some of the places of last time and adding a couple new ones.  And of course, I will be looking for gems!
My trip starts in Newark Airport via United, with a one-day layover in Amsterdam on the 10th.  My Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi doesn't leave until 8 p.m., so I get to spend the day in the international terminal.  Luckily Schiphol airport has a funky "hourly hotel" called Yotel, where you can sleep in a little 20 square foot cabin for a few hours.  
My travel companion, as last time, will be Jochen Hintze from Jentsch Mineralien.  Jochen is a well connected Africa veteran - his first trip to Africa was about 50 years ago when he hitchhiked to Morocco as a teenager.  Jochen has traveled almost the entire African continent and has crossed the Sahara desert six times so I feel safe in his hands.
Jochen is flying in from Germany so we are going to meet on the flight to Nairobi - assuming his flight from Hannover is on time!  After another five hour layover in Nairobi on the 11th, we get on another plane to Antananarivo Madagascar.  And after YET another layover of about a day, which we will be spending at the same hotel as last time, a well protected simple little complex just outside of town, we will attempt to take Air Madagascar to the island of Nosy Be.  
Attempt?  Yes.  Go to google and search for Air Madagascar reviews.  You'll see what I'm talking about. Air Madagascar is the only airline in Madagascar and sometimes it flies, sometimes not.  When there's no fuel, that is.  Or some other issue that you will never find out about. 
Read some reviews below:
"WORST AIRLINE! BUT one does not have a choice to use Air Madagascar when travelling around Madagascar. Among the locals, the airline company has been nicknamed Air Maybe..." 2 star review "The thing is, if you want to fly from Tana to Nosy Comba, there are not so much other options than flying with air Madagascar. The short flights are very expensive because they have the (corrupt) alone right to fly on some routes. They just do what they want and take their time...." 2 star review
The flight to the island Nosy Be is only an hour, but if you go by car and take the ferry you need two days. Nosy Be has a number of "luxury" hotels as well as standard hotels starting at $10 an hour, going up to about $200.  We are going the "luxury" route which is still way less money than a good hotel in the Carribean.  The Vanila Spa hotel costs about $150 a night.  The website looks stunning to my somewhat simpler tastes so I can't wait to see what I will really think when I get to this nearly "off the grid" location.  (Try booking a flight to Nosy be through a site like Travelocity - Air Madagascar doesn't even exist on there).  
Assuming we will make it to Nosy Be, we will stay there about four days and then get picked up by our friends, Irene (Andou) and her relative Gael with his father's vehicle, on Sunday, take the ferry back to Madagascar proper, and continue on a 2 day drive down to the Green park hotel in Antsirabe.  We will spend a few days there looking at gems and if it goes as it did last time, sellers will line up for us early in the morning and stay until sundown, or sleep in the street or a very cheap hotel (our hotel is on the expensive side for the area, about $15 a night - but very safe and very pretty).  
Here's a video from our previous stay in Antsirabe, 2 years ago.
On Sunday the 23rd we head to back to Antanarivo and from there to Nairobi where I get to see Doreen Kawira and her little baby son who will be one year old this summer.  I sponsored Doreen's college education and I met her for the first time 2 years ago.  Now I help her raise her son (she's a single mom, a state of affairs not very unusual in Africa, sadly).  Doreen also works full time at the University of Nairobi and with the help of Cecile Raley Designs and the money we have raised, it will stay that way and she can afford the nanny every month, who costs about $100 (25% of her salary).  Donations for Doreen, by the way, are very welcome. GoFundMe Campaign gf.me/u/jmg7u7
I will stay with Doreen in her apartment for one day and then we are off to Arusha, Tanzania via Precision Air (don't trust the name lol).  We stay in Arusha another 9 days or so, this time at the Mount Meru Hotel, and we plan a 5 day trip to an area called Kongwa, to look for some rare crystals that I know nothing about.  We will be joined there by a German friend of Jochens.  
If all goes safely, I will be back on a plane to Amsterdam on August 1st, and arrive in Newark on the 2nd after another 1 day stay in Amsterdam.  I plan to do some gem shopping in Arusha as well, mostly with Jaimeen's (Prima Gems) uncle as well as our Greek friend Reno who owns a shop there.  Perhaps I will also buy from the locals, this part is always the big adventure and you never know what you're gonna get.  
I will try to keep you posted throughout the trip, but mostly through small tidbits of information - the internet in most places in Africa is very slow so uploading anything but text is very difficult.  But I will try, and I will most certainly try to return home in one piece!
Please read some of my previous blog entries about Africa here: 

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Padparadscha Sapphire – What’s the Story?

Every since Britain’s Princess Eugenie has been sporting a Padparadscha sapphire engagement ring valued at over $130,000, these lotus flower colored beauties have been all the rage.  Industry prices have actually risen as a result.  In terms of color, purists claim that a Padparadscha should combine peach-pink and orange tones, ideally mixed evenly (no color zones), and have light to medium saturation. But exactly how that looks is a point of contention.  The ideal comparison is the Lotus flower which it is named after.  Given the huge variation in both color and saturation of actual lotus flowers, it might be fair to say that this reference is more romantic than it is helpful.
Originally “pads” were mined primarily in Sri Lanka, and this is why “purists” still consider only a specimen with the famed Ceylon origin to be a true Padparadscha. Nowadays, however, gems from other regions with the same color characteristics, for instance from Madagascar or Tanzania, can be deemed a “pad” as well. Some gem dealers will refer to those as “African Padparadscha” but one should not rely on the nomenclature being exact. In any case, it is still true that a Padparadscha sapphire from Sri Lanka will command a premium in price, even if the color quality is the same as a comparable stone from Africa. Whether this is justified or not, the take-home message from this is: if a seller is asking an additional premium for the Ceylon origin of a Padparadscha sapphire, one should only pay the extra if the alleged origin is backed up by an origin report of a reputable lab (GIA, AGL, ...). 
 Traditionally only an unheated sapphire is eligible to be considered a “pad” but that has since changed s well.  Heating may turn an originally only very faintly peachy colored sapphire into a “pad.”  This should not command a premium in terms of price, however.  As to the nomenclature (is it a pad or not), I would probably stay away from the term, to be on the safe side.

GIA has a very interesting article on the historical development and currently use definitions of the term Padparadscha sapphire, which you can look at here: https://www.gia.edu/doc/Padparadscha-What-s-in-a-Name.pdf
According to the report, written by Robert Cownsingshield, no reliable laboratory criteria can be established to standardize the term Padparadscha – at least not one that all labs would agree on.  However that said, a color description can be given that will be used as a comparison base for color.  Here’s what Cownsingshield says about that:
It is GIA's opinion that this color range should be limited to light to medium tones of pinkish orange to orange-pink hues. Lacking delicacy, the dark brownish orange or even medium brownish orange tones of corundum from East Africa would not qualify under this definition. Deep orangy red sapphires, likewise, would not qualify as fitting the term padparadscha.
This definition is best applied by comparing to what the lab considers samples of the right color.  Unfortunately, some laboratories are much stricter in their application than others.  The strictest US lab is probably AGL at present. 
Candidates for the Padparadscha Label from our Collection - All Sri Lanka Origin, the rightmost stone is heated.
1.03 Ct. Sri Lankan Sapphire, 6.4 x 5.7mm, no heat Link here
1.56 Ct. Sri Lankan Sapphire, 7.5 x 5.7mm, heated, labeled "Pad" despite heat. 
 Oval Padparadscha Sapphire, Unheated, 6.67 x 5.36mm. Link here 
Now, it would be expensive both for sellers and buyers alike to have every single possibly qualifying sapphire evaluated by AGL.  So it is often left to gem dealers to decide how to classify their purchases, which is why it is so important for a buyer to find a reliable and also knowledgeable source for their sapphires when it comes to the less valuable pieces (probably at a price over 1K, a declaration of “pad” should probably be verified by AGL.  My own source, as many of you know, is Dudley Blauwet, who has extensive industry experience and sources all his sapphires directly.  Here’s what Dudley has to say about the way he distinguishes a pad from a peach pink sapphire: 
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