Zanzibar, Part I

Two weeks ago, after several days of pre-vacation madness, hundreds of While I'm gone... emails, and three flights, we landed in Zanzibar.

Zanzibar, a semi- autonomous island off Tanzania's east coast of Tanzania, has a colorful history, both as a major crossroads for traders from Africa, Arabia, India, and Indonesian and as the home to dozens of lush, highly coveted spice plantations. Compared to sullen, struggling Liberia, Zanzibar was calm...even quiet.






Despite its relatively strong tourism industry, Zanzibar is still fairly poor. (I couldn't find any hard numbers, but nominal GDP per capita seems to be about $428/year. As a point of comparison, Liberia's is only $195/year.) Judging by the conversations we had with locals (ok, just one local - our tour guide) and by this sign, the government has some work to do to convince the population of its good intentions.

We spent a few indulgent days in Zanzibar's largest city, Stone Town at an opulent hotel called 236 Hurumzi (formerly known as Emerson and Green.


For our first dinner, we ate grilled seafood from a street market - a gigantic crab claw with sweet, tender flesh; smoky, chewy octopus; and soft salty mussels - all doused in fresh lime juice and dipped in a spicy-sweet tomato sauce.

We couldn't resist going on a spice tour - for good reason. A very knowledgeable guide brought us to a spice farm, where we saw, sniffed, and tasted products both familiar (vanilla, cloves, oranges) and unfamiliar (the "lipstick" plant). Here I am, sampling the latter:





And Peter, enjoying a familiar treat:



During the tour, a young boy demonstrated how to harvest coconuts. In this photo, you can see the piece of rope around his feet used to provide support, as well as the gigantic knife in his back pocket. Yikes.


The farm workers gave me an amazing little frog woven of leaves.


After the tour, we ate a traditional lunch at a Zanzibari home. I have no idea whose house we visited, but the food was delicious. Fragrant rice scented with cloves and cinnamon under a mysteriously spicy yellow lentil sauce, small chunks of fried tuna, a cool tomato and red onion relish, garlicky shredded spinach. And to wash it all down, fresh, juicy oranges.

We were happy and rested and ready for Part II...