Mughamara: Our Arabic Adventure!: Zanzibar... Day 1... Spice farm!

Jambo!

A few weeks ago I had breakfast with my Georgia blind date, Michelle. She's getting ready to move back stateside and wanted to squeeze in one more trip together before she left. She mentioned Zanzibar and I was in! Africa has been on my to-see list for as long as I can remember and we just haven't made it there yet so I was definitely down! We booked our flights and hotel and started our countdown!

We headed to the airport Thursday evening and caught our flight to Dubai and then from Dubai we flew overnight straight to Zanzibar. Tired but ready for our adventure we landed to this gorgeous blue sky!

We de-planed and then were picked out and asked if we were Americans. Once we confirmed we were shuffled into a lounge where they handled everything for us for our entry visas. It was bizarre and awesome...lol! I guess as Americans we pay the most for the entry visa ($100) so we received a little extra special treatment.

We finished up with the visas and headed out to meet our driver. We had decided to just hit the ground running since we only had the weekend to visit, so we were starting our day out with a tour of a spice farm and then the afternoon with a tour of Stone Town so we could crash early at the hotel and be ready for the next day.

We met our driver, Lukmon, right outside the airport and his wife, Aisha, was with him- turns out, she is an American who came to Zanzibar three years ago on vacation, met Lukmon and moved across the world to be with him two years ago! So she decided to come with us and take pictures for their tour company. They were both super nice and it was awesome to have someone who knew some Swahili and local customs to tag along and help us out when we needed it.

The one thing we noticed right off the bat was how welcoming everyone was. Lukmon kept saying "Welcome Welcome!" and "Hakuna Matata" (yep... you read that right. Its not just a thing from the Lion King... Hakuna Matata in Swahili means no trouble or no worries.. and the Zanzibarians say it a lot).

Zanzibar is an archipelago in East Africa off the coast of mainland Tanzania and is made up of a few small islands and two large islands. The main one, Unguja is the one everyone refers to as Zanzibar. It used to be part of the Omani Sultanate until 1964 and theres a whole lot of history about the politics of Zanzibar and all that jazz, but for now, just know there was a huge Omani presence there and you can definitely see the influence. The population is 95% muslim and the traditional clothing they wear is the same as the Omani's. The food also reflects the Arabic influence as well.

We headed to the Paradise Spice Farm and met our guide, Mudi. The spice farm was in a lush jungle part of the island and it was gorgeous! I know I constantly talk about missing green and vegetation while living in Bahrain, but I'm telling you, that struggle is real. So its always a treat to be somewhere that is so verdant and beautiful!

We started out with a tour of the village. Mudi wanted to show us some traditional Zanzibar homes on the plantation. I'm not going to lie or sugar coat this... this part of the trip was not my (or Michelle's) favorite. It felt very intrusive and exploitive. I am absolutely a curious person. I want to see how people live and work and eat and all the things you travel to see and experience. But touring these homes felt uncomfortable and I felt like they were just put on display for us to see as some sort of novelty... our guide kept urging us to take pictures and ask questions, but it just felt... almost dirty in a way.

I took very few pictures. The one picture I got of the woman who lived in there I'm not going to post out of respect for her. Mudi told us later that the people who open their home to tourists get paid for their time and openness but, again, that just felt exploitive. These were extremely poor people. They had very little and I feel terrible that their lives were just put on display for well to-do travelers to come and gawk at. He kept wanting to show us more, but Michelle and I declined and said we were eager to move on the spice farm part of the tour.

So we headed deeper into the jungle and began the farm tour. Mudi was really knowledgable about all the plants and spices and he explained to us not only how they grew but what they were used for. Some of it I knew but some I didn't!

Cacao beans!

Cardamom! Those little green balls are cardamom pods! It takes three months for the pods to mature and turn white and then they are dried in the sun for five days. During the rainy season one plant can produce three kilos of pods! During the dry season each plant can produce one kilo! According to our guide, Cardamom helps with sea sickness. (Its also delicious in sweets and tea)

More little green pods were next. These are pepper corns! The immature peppercorns are green, then they turn to red, then black. You actually plant pepper plants with an acacia tree and it acts like a parasite (his words) and thrives off the tree.

Next is everyones favorite morning wake up... the coffee bean! Only arabica coffee beans are grown on Zanzibar and there are two beans per pod. The pods are red while there maturing and then they turn to black when they're ready to be harvested. After that they're roasted and become the wake up, caffeine powered magic bean we all know.

At this point in our tour this younger guy joined us and helped Mudi out. This is him climbing up the coffee tree to grab some pods for us to see.

Next up is a plant thats good for the "Bunga Bunga" as the locals call it... all natural viagra, apparently. Ginger root... about 10-15 pieces of ginger from each plant and they know the root is ready to harvest when the plants fall over and the root comes up from the ground.

This is a Neem tree. Its used to help treat Malaria and also diarrhea. They take pieces of the bark and make tea and drink it (Aisha commented that it actually worked for diarrhea and she'd used it before!) They also use the root of the plant for appendix (he didn't elaborate on this so I'm not exactly sure what it does with the appendix but there you go)

Star fruit tree!

This is a henna plant. You take the leaves from the plant, grind them up into a powder and mix with lemon or lime juice or water and you have henna paste to create beautiful henna tattoos on the skin. The root of the plant, however, is not so beautiful. The root is used for abortions. Its poison and when boiled with water and drunk it will abort a pregnancy. Abortions are illegal in Zanzibar but some women go to these extremes and it can make them incredibly sick and they have to go seek medical treatment to heal infection that inevitably happens.

Next up is the Queen of Spice... cinnamon! They use all parts of the tree- the root for Vicks vapor rub (and it legitimately smelled like Vicks!), the bark for cooking, and the leaves for tea. The peel the bark off in sections that curl up into themselves as they dry, naturally rolling up like we see for sale.

We came across the river in the village and met a man that had set up a little basket with some handmade soaps from the women in the village. They create soaps with the spices and plants on the farm and they have soap for everything- scents, sunburns, acne, etc. Michelle and I both bought some and then learned some more about the river.

During the rainy season the river is up and becomes a rice paddy but during the dry season, the water recedes but the land is still very fertile so it becomes a planting ground for vegetables and fruits like aubergines, watermelon, and tomatoes.

There were chickens all over the farm... and some very vocal roosters!

Lemon grass! Great to cook with, but also a natural mosquito repellent!

This is Zanzibar lipstick fruit. I thought is was a lychee but nope. You open that little weird fruit and there are red seeds inside. You can crush them and they become lipstick or Hindu people use it for the marks on their foreheads (called tilak)

The young guy that was with us (I never got his name) was a good sport and put it on his lips and forehead!

It started to rain so we sought shelter under a huge tree and our younger guide ran off the get giant palm leaves to use as umbrellas! While we were waiting under the tree a family came rushing by to get in out of the rain... and behind them was a cart being pulled by a bull headed back to the village!

With our jungle umbrellas!

Turmeric- one of my favorite things. Its good for coloring foods (and yours hands) bright yellow but its also a wonderful anti-inflammatory!

This is an Iodine plant- they make cuts in the bark of the tree and liquid seeps out. The take the liquid and spread it on their skin and it cleans and disinfects but when it dries it also acts like a glue so bandages can stick to it. It was super neat!

Pineapple!

And the king of spice is the clove! The autumn spice we all know and love is in that red flowery pod and even the leaves smelled of cloves!

Vanilla plant- this one also acts like a parasite with the acacia tree and when they replant the vanilla plant they plant it with acacia so that it will grow.

And the last spice on the tour was the Zanzibar lady spice... Nutmeg. Apparently besides being delicious in pumpkin pie, Nutmeg is also used to help a woman desire her partner... it starts out in those green pods and then matures to brown and then its harvested.

Before we stopped for lunch, we came to the coconut trees and this villager demonstrated how they climb the trees to get the coconuts down. He was hilarious! He sang all the way up the tree (and it was HIGH) and danced and played around at the very top.

This was at the very top- he kept laughing and hanging off the tree in all sorts of crazy ways!

He climbed down and skinned and cracked open a coconut for us to drink.

And he somehow didn't lose any fingers or toes doing this...

While we were watching the coconut spectacle, someone made us jungle crowns and little baskets and they crowned us Queens of the Jungle!

We headed to a sheltered area with a table and chairs and they served us coffee... which, at this point, we'd flown all night, slept very little, and were in dire need of! But this wasn't just any coffee. This was Zanzibar coffee. Let me tell you... it packed a punch! This little cup is shot glass sized and half of that and I was wide awake. I had two cups. Michelle had three. We were buzzing!

After our coffee they brought us lunch that someones wife had prepared for us! Pilau rice, aubergine curry sauce, salad, green bananas, chicken, and spinach in coconut milk. The Pilau and spinach were my favorite! It wasn't my absolute favorite meal ever, but it was fresh and a lot of love was put into it.

They brought us out some local chiles to try. Aisha loves them and at one of their favorite restaurants they call her the chile queen because she eats them all the time. I figured I'd give it a go and try it out. As I've gotten older I'm a lot more tolerant of spice and heat so I figured I'd give it a shot. It was pretty good- kind of between a jalapeño and a habanero pepper and it had a great flavor! They were all surprised that the little white girl could handle one of their chiles... I was pretty proud of myself...lol!

After we ate we were able to purchase spices from the farm! They had a whole spread of them set up for us to choose from so I got a mix of spices and coffee and tea to bring home!