Beaches & Spices

Saturday, 15^th January

It’s 3 in the afternoon and we just took cold showers after returning to a room where the 30°C recorded on the thermostat of the air conditioner felt cool as we came in from outside!  I see that it is -37°C in Yellowknife right now.  I think I prefer the latter.  Neither extreme is fit for humans and there’s nothing much to be done about either other than stay indoors, however, if one has to go outside, at least one can dress for the cold.

Chili Peppers

Jack Fruit

Lemon Grass

Lychees

Mace and Nutmeg

Pepper Berries

Vanilla Beans

'Spice Queen!'

Yesterday we enjoyed one last morning of lazing at the beach before moving on.  After lunch a driver came to pick us up at the appointed time, sent by Ali whose van has broken down.  We loaded up the suitcases and drove south and west from Pwani to Stone Town.  On the way, we stopped for a tour of a spice farm.  A very green and peaceful place of about 6 acres, where almost all the spices you can think of from cloves to vanilla flourish amongst fruit trees and vines representing just about every kind of fruit that grows in East Africa.  The only major spice they didn’t grow there was saffron.  Abdullah, our guide, explained more than we ever wanted to know about each spice and fruit and after over an hour walking through the forest, we finished up in a clearing where a boy who had been following us around on our tour presented us with things to wear that he had woven from palm leaves and we tasted various kinds of tea made from the plants we had seen as well as each of the fruits which were ripe.  After that, before we got in the car to go, the owner of the farm, or shamba, had laid out packets of everything they grow, except for cloves, which must be sold to the government, for sale.  Of course we bought some!

As this was the day my tummy had decided to rebel against a steady diet of fruit and seafood as well as daily doses of heart attack breakfasts, I was thankful to make it safely through the afternoon!  Unfortunately we sped along too fast to get good photos of the rice paddies, mud or coral houses, or the bullock carts, as we had hoped to do on this return trip, but here are a few Helmut managed to get.  

Grass House

Mud House

Walls of woven palm matting

Rice Paddy