We headed out of town and stopped at a coconut plantation where the guide told us 60% of the land is owned by the government and the balance is privately owned. The plantation had a few plants of the spices the guide wanted to show us growing in between the palms as it was a demonstration garden for tourists. The farms where they grow spices would usually only have one or two types growing and this way we could see several at once.
Faud, the guide, beside a pepper vine. The different kinds of pepper, green, red, black, come from the different stages of maturity and white pepper comes from taking the outside skin off the peppercorn.The vanilla flowers once a year and has a flower related to the orchid family. A it produces beans only once a year it is very expensive.
The clove is the most commonly grown spice here and the government controls the clove plantations.
Here you can see the clove flower which will now turn into a red fruit with a seed. On either side of the flower are the cloves we know and they are picked before the flower comes.We tasted curry leaves, and lemongrass (aka citronella) and picked cardamon pods. Faud sliced pieces of cinnamon bark off the trees so we could smell it.
It was interesting to learn about annatto, a fruit that looks like a rambuttan ( a red spiky fruit that is common in Asia), it was split open and its bright red seeds crushed. It is a natural dye used in the olden days for lip stick and today as a food colouring.
None of the spices are indigenous having been brought to Zanzibar by the traders from India and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). We also saw, pineapples, star fruit and jack fruit.
From the plantation we visited the sultan's wife's private bath house, hammam. Twice a week she was taken the 10kms or so to have bath as she didn't want to share with 90 odd other people.
After a short stop to taste some fruit and get hassled by begging children and young boys asking for tips we stopped at a stall where we could buy packets of ground spices. The Europeans bought packets for Christmas gifts while I chose a rice masala to try one day when we cook for ourselves.
A meal of chapati, rice, a vegetable stew, and a local green vegetable called spinach was served. We sat under a palm shelter and ate sitting on mats in a small village. The meal was supposed to contain the spices we had seen in the plantation but no one told us what was in the dish but it was yummy.
We met some interesting people in the group. Raul was a 70 year old pediatrician from Brazil and asked us to visit him when we go to the World Cup there. He was heading home to fund raise $10,000 to build a school for some Masai people.
Dorothy was from Atlanta and belonged to a group called the International Women Judges' Association. She was being shown around by a Ugandan woman from the group who worked in Arusha. Dorothy was full of life and probably in her 80s.
Along with some young people from Belgium and Germany we finished the day off at a quiet local beach before heading back to Stone Town for banana and nutella pancakes and ice cream.
