Spices
Trip Start
May 31, 2006
1
46
68
Trip End
Oct 14, 2006
Zanzibar,
Tanzania
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Africa House...Zanzibar Sunset Cocktail...how apt!
. Then after a warm shower back at the room we headed to Africa House, a hotel that has a balcony facing the direction of sunset, and had a Zanzibar Sunset cocktail and took photos of the sunset with most of the group again. It was great, but ended up being so crowded with tourists with the same idea that it took a little of the edge off the pleasure. We then went to the night market and I had a Zanzibar Pizza, kinda a cross between a stuffed pancake and a pizza - but I had mine with banana and chocolate...stunning...also tried some of their spiced tea...and wandered along the stalls...a lovely start to the Zanzibar experience. The following day started with an early breakfast and then headed off on the spice tour. Our guide was a local called Ali who had learnt a lot of his English from a South Londoner and as he was talking he would slip in some cockney rhyming slang, or English sayings, or adopting a posh accent...very entertaining most of the time J We started out at the Arab Fort built during their occupation and built out of coral (as the whole island is made of coral), after that we went to the House of Wonders, so called because it was the first place in Zanzibar to get electric lights, next we headed in a minibus to a Palace where the 3rd Sultan of Zanzibar entertained his many wives. Next we arrived at a spice farm where we got guided around and given the chance to smell and try many spices and fruits...it was quite an amazing attack on the senses...amazing...there was jack fruit (cross between pineapple and banana flavour, cocoa plant...where you chewed the flesh round the seed, lemon grass, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, and many more all taken direct from the tree in front of us
At the Sultan's Palace
. Then we got to have a little fruit and tea picnic where we tried mangestines (lovely), pineapple, passion fruits, lychees, along with ginger tea, mixed spice tea, vanilla tea...with all that done we watched a guy climb a coconut tree and fetch a coconut and then cut it up for us to eat before heading back to Hamim's house in a part of new stone town (the new part of town we were staying in Stonetown which is the old part of town). Hamim's wife had made an amazing fruit juice and rice and beef meal for us, Jamie ate most of the meat, but I believe it was nice! And we shared lots of jokes about Jamie with the guys that had met him that day on the trip...he'd made quite an impression. That afternoon, half the group headed for the Northern Beaches on Zanzibar, whilst Sara, Tamara, Chloe, James and Clare stayed in StoneTown to go swimming with Dolphins the next day. So we spent our afternoon eating Ice Cream by the sea, and shopping on Narrow Street, and then our evening at the market again, this time having a savoury dinner course before tucking into the pizza again. 
