November 8 – spice tour and stone town walking tour
We started our morning off with a spice tour. As previously mentioned, Zanzibar is known for growing a variety of spices. During the tour, we got to smell and taste (when safe) a variety of spices and plants including cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla, lemongrass, eucalyptus, cocoa, coffee, cardamom, ginger, black pepper, and turmeric.
I’ve already forgotten a lot of the information, but some of the things I learned are the cinnamon comes from the bark of the tree while the cinnamon rolls come from the branches, in Zanzibar eucalyptus smells like lemons not like mint, and pepper comes as either white or black but they both start out as green (and technically pepper is a fruit!).
I certainly had not idea that nutmeg grew within an outer fruit and it’s the seeds within the pod that are ground to make the nutmeg spice.
Something we noticed being around Stonetown is how ornate many of the doors are. They are thick wood with intricate carvings. The guide for our walking tour explained that doors have a mixed history. Some were influenced by Indian traders and may have large metal studs, originally these studs were used to protect from aggressive elephants and other animals in India and the designs carried over to Zanzibar. Some have chains engraved on the side to indicate the family living there was against the slave trade and supported slaves being freed. Each door is hand carved and is unique.
Cats, cats, everywhere! I’m used to seeing stray cats and dogs when travelling; however, Zanzibar was a bit different. There are plenty of stray cats and all of them seemed friendly. Each one that I bent to take a picture of rushed up to say hello. Oddly enough, we did not see a single dog while on the island!
We went out for dinner with some of the other individuals who are part of the group we are on safari with and then headed back to the airbnb to catch the sunset.
Tomorrow we are headed back to Nairobi before heading on safari!
Thanks for wandering with me,
Julie
J Cork Photography 