24 hours after departing, I landed in hot and humid Zanzibar (even at 2am), a nice change from what I left in Calgary. I stayed overnight here at an old Sultan’s Palace (a Heritage Site) located right on the Ocean and awoke to the sound of crashing waves, what a great way to start my day!
This morning I met my guide Joseph and we were on our way out of town towards the spice plantations. The drive was beautiful and we stopped at the Maruhubi Palace, which dated back to the late 1800s. The Palace once belonged to the 3rd Arab Sultan of Zanzibar and was the home of his secondary wives and where he hosted visitors from far away lands.
We continued on to the highest plantation in all of Zanzibar (120m above sea level). We tried a number of local spices including nutmeg, cloves (Zanzibar was once the largest clove producer in the world), cinnamon, turmeric and ginger, as well as many different types of tropical fruit. The herbs are grown for cooking but each also has their own medicinal use. Did you know cinnamon root is used in products like Vick’s Vapour Rub?
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