Spice Girls

25/07/2011

An early start today as we'd booked onto one of Zanzibar's famous Spice tours.

We were kept waiting for a while in an office (in true African fashion - as no-one seemed to know what was going on - but it was refreshing to see other tourists waiting too!).

Eventually our minibuses showed up and our guide was very helpful pointing out key information along the way, such as David Livingstone's house and wood that was being used to make Dhows - Zanzibar boats.

The tour at the Spice plantation was excellent - really informative with the guide highlighting an array of fruits and spices and facts about them.  Apparently nutmeg contains traces of ectasy and when used by women they get a high and their eyes are rounded and more appealing!

We were given the opportunity to try each fruit and spice - I am a big fan of lemongrass and cinamon at the moment!
I will definitely be working with those spices over winter.  Apparently lemongrass, ginger and cardamon make an excellent tea!  I must try it.  Hmmm.

At the end of the spice tour we had the opportunity to try every single fruit; mango, types of oranges, starfruit, jackfruit and custard apple (my favourite!)
The sour fruits I'm not the biggest fan of but that maybe due to having an ulcer :(

We were also taken to see the Sultan's baths and to a slave cave.

The Sultan had 99 wives at one point!

The tour even included a home cooked lunch (all veggie!) with a number of the spices we'd sampled.  Delicious. :)

The afternoon was spent relaxing on the beach before heading back to Stonetown.

We decided to save money on food and eat out at the fish market - I was a little dubious about the veggie options, but then I had got a good lunch!

The fish market was so so cheap with stalls everywhere.  I had falafel which was really filling and definitely worth it.  We also had the opportunity to talk to some of the locals -  it's hard to work out who is being irritating and who is being genuine, but some of the locals were asking to practice their English.

We also met an amazing teen called Isa, who was mute, full of character and really friendly.
Such a lovely day.