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June 19 - Tanzania: Zanzibar Spice Tour and African Dance Dinner

Guy climbing coconut tree to get us coconuts

Today was great.  We started out the day by sleeping in, which is a nice way to start any day.  We had breakfast in the hotel, and at 9:30 departed for our "Zanzibar Spice Tour".  Our guide Harry first took us to Maruhubi Palace which is the palace the third Sultan of Zanzibar built for some of his wives.  It had multiple bathrooms, an aqueduct, and some other cool plumbing features.  But it burnt down in 1899 so all we could see were the ruins.

The Spice Tour

The Spice Tour was very interesting.  Harry took us to a plantation which grew curry, ginger, and bananas.  The weather was overcast and it suddenly started to pour during our tour (which was outside, of course), but we didn't mind because it was horribly hot.  So we walked around a rain-forest area digging up spices in a downpour.  The spices are especially interesting because this is one of Zanzibar's main exports, but also interesting because spices are so very cool for the senses.  We spent the entire day seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting the different spices and fruits of the island.  After the first plantation, we piled into a taxi and zipped off to another one.  This second plantation had a huge assortment of agriculture.  Some of the spices we saw: vanilla, lemongrass, black pepper, clove, cinnamon, cinnabar, mint, and nutmeg.  We also saw and ate a lot of interesting fruits: litchi, jackfruit, HUGE grapefruit the size of a large cantelope, coconuts, bananas, pineapples, custard apples, and some other things that I can't possibly remember the names of but were very yummy.  The guy in the picture above climbed a coconut tree and threw down a bunch of coconuts.  Then he cut them open and we drank the coconut milk and watched him make baskets out of the palm leaves.  We also walked quite a lot through some amazing countryside, and by this time the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.

Here is Dennis in his "palm tree attire":

After the Spice Tour, we were taken to a local restaurant where we had beef, fish, and rice that was delicious.

Stone Town

The area we are staying on Zanzibar is called Stone Town, but really it's the only town on the island so it's hardly ever referred to as such.  Jon and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the windy alleyways looking for souvenirs ("curios") and logging in at the Internet Cafe.  We ran into Vanessa at a store where she was looking at trading beads, and met the father of an excellent photographer.  This photographer takes most of the postcard pictures for Zanzibar, and has a lovely calendar so we bought a few postcards to send.  We also walked to the evening market to have some sugar cane juice:

African Dinner Dance

We decided to go to the Old Fort to see the traditional African Dance plus dinner show.  I think they had good intentions, but it really wasn't that good or informative.  The dancers were wearing t-shirts, and we never got a description of the significance of each dance.  Dinner was interesting, though.  There were a lot of local dishes with octopus, chicken, meat, and some samosa type stuff.  And the Aussies got up to dance with the dancers, which was quite amusing.  But two hours and a lot of drum beats later, we were beyond ready to leave.  Juliette and I walked back to the hotel, while Jon stayed with the Aussies for a little while.  Apparently, the dancers pulled Jon up to dance as well.

African dancing

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