(Post from June 15, 2019)
First we (read: Sam) navigated the narrow labyrinth of Stone Town city streets to find our cafe rendez-vous point with the day’s guide, Issa.
Next we got fitted for our bikes and briefed on the rules of the road: drive on the left, always look right, and remember to stay very close!
Then we peddled a few kilometers to the bus stop where we threw our bikes up top and crawled ourselves into the back of a dalla-dalla (local bus) which drove us to the drop off point of our all day big adventure:
A Biking Spice Tour!
We rode along a dirt road, single file, past fields with colorfully decorated signs marking the boundaries of various spice farms… until we came to our own: “Mr. Spice’s Spice Farm”.
THE Mr. Spice? I think we came to the right place.
There, we were connected with our dear guide, Haddiy, who wasted no time in diving in to the best highlights of his extremely biodiverse little plot of land.
Right off the bat, he gingerly strolled up to a tall bush and plucked a hairy-looking green pod from its branches. He cracked it open, smooshed the reddish berries inside with his finger, and proceeded to apply it to his lips, giving himself a perfectly bright red pair of puckers.
“You see? We use this for make the red color of the lipstick!”
The tour proceeded for the next two hours in very much the same fashion — highly demonstrative, playful, and delightfully informative.
I took notes and pictures of more (if you can believe that) than I will post here, but I did want to share a few of the standouts:
Annatto — the culprit of red lipstick
Yliang yliang. This flower is the basis of many women’s shampoos, soaps, and perfumes—most famously, Chanel No. 5.
These little buddies are called “Pilli pilli ho ho” in Swahili: hot chilies. Also the base ingredient for pepper spray. Green and red carry the same amount of heat.
Papaya. If you eat the leaves, it’s said to stop hiccups; the sap from its branches is helpful in removing sea urchin spikes; more mature leaves can be boiled and consumed in tea form as a remedy for high blood pressure, while young leave are good for healing malaria. Papaya on its own is a great meat tenderizer. Who knew??
Ginger root. According to Haddiy, “We make the beer, we use for the upset stomach… and we the men take it when we want to make a something nice for the ladies.” A new phrasing of aphrodisiac I’d never heard before!
Vanilla. Each plant must be manually pollinated, which explains why it’s so expensive!
Turmeric. Anti-inflammatory. Flaming hot color!!
Star fruit. 🤩 Enough said.
Nutmeg. The pit of a fruit with some pink spiral casing. Apparently also an aphrodisiac for women.
Aloe Vera. “Good for the sunburn for the white people.”
Pineapple. Big spikey plant on the ground is the mama plant! Mostly pictured because what a smart way of holding and cutting it!!
Cocoa beans. Different trees produce dark/milk chocolate versus white chocolate. If you have both on your farm, you’re supposed to plant them very far apart to avoid cross-pollination and confusion since the two types of trees are not easily distinguishable.
Pomelo or pamplemousse. Close cousin of grapefruit, but much larger!
Cinnamon tree. The bark can be rolled and dried to make cinnamon sticks, or ground into powder; the root of the tree is the main ingredient in Vick’s vapor rub.
Throughout our tour, Haddiy also had his teenage assistant Ahmed perfectly in step as his right hand man—climbing trees to shake down a fresh fruit for us to taste while Haddiy rattled through the description, standing at the ready with a water bottle for us to wash away sticky hands, and having cut limes ready and waiting on a small banana leaf at our next stop to enhance the flavor of our latest sample. When we reached the end of our tour, Ahmad presented us with palm leaf crowns, rings, bracelets, and frog-shaped pennant necklaces he’d woven during his spare time(??!!) on the tour.
(Apart from the obvious eye roll at the tourist gimmick, you do have to appreciate the craftsmanship!! One of our members is clearly more comfortably hamming it up than the other 😂🤦🏻♀️)
These two gents truly had the tour down to an art—it was such a treat to meander through the greenery and have someone point out so many spices and fruits we eat on a daily basis but have never known how they grow in the wild. Also amazing how perfectly choreographed the whole thing was.
After a picnic lunch with our biking guide Issa and another hefty haul from the gift shop, we waved goodbye and headed back home on our bikes!
The first half hour of the ride home was idyllic — rolling down a red dirt road through the backyards of farms and little houses… banana trees, palm trees, jungle greenery everywhere you looked. We even saw monkeys jumping through the trees!
Then the road started to get a little dicey. By dicey I mean rocks, roots, narrow passings and giant divots that could quickly send you off your bike and into a ditch (which it successfully did once with Sam… I stayed slowly peddling behind and promptly dismounted and walked my bike after seeing that mess!!)
By the time we were an hour in, the downhill had picked up, as did the rocky terrain—it felt like biking downhill over a road of dead coral (come to think of it, maybe it was??). Certainly this would be no big deal for a seasoned mountain biker, but for tentative and NON-thrill-seeking little me, this was a far stretch out of the comfort zone. Sam was in the same boat.
Little kids kept running out to the road, waving and yelling greetings to us, but by that point I was so white knuckled I just kept my gaze laser focused ahead and told myself I didn’t have to wave; my main objective was just making it through this ride alive (also because we did not have helmets 😬)
Two hours and some very sore bums later, we made it back safely!!
We finished out the day with celebratory drinks and a walk around the beach at dusk.
We came for the sunset, but mostly ended up watching the epic beach backflip competition and cliff jumping acrobatics. Where are Tanzania’s Olympic gymnastics and diving teams?? Looks like a strong recruiting class from Zanzibar!
Beach cruise with Francis tomorrow, then onto our final leg of the trip before Sam flies home!! Quick stop in paradise before we leave, though. More to come!
Thanks as always for reading!
-L
Tanzania Travels 