So this morning I wanted to visit a spice farm. But I didn’t want to visit just any spice farm. I wanted to visit a spice farm that had a track record of re-investing in the community so that it wasn’t all about profits. Thankfully the hotel knew what I was looking for and we (I was joined by one of the hotel owner’s counsins) ended up finding a spice farm which benefited children orphaned who parents had died of HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately I didn’t get any opportunity to spend time with the children like I had hoped (they were currently in school session), but I said hi to as many as possible and they were nice enough to let me snap some photos.

We continued onto the spice tour where our guide Solomon showed us the different spices and we got the opportunity to sample many spices right from the plant. It was a bit embarrassing at times to not know what some of the spices I really like the most (e.g. nutmeg, etc, etc) look like. I considered this to be a great educational experience involving food as well. After learning about the different spices in Zanzibar (including something called Freddie Mercury Fruit which turns your lips red) we sat down for a traditional lunch using spices grown at the farm. The lunch was delicious and not at all hot (as was my assumption that all of the spices would be hot, but there was a delicious range). Also interesting here was watching the guys climb the trees without any forms of harness. And they do it barefoot. I don’t think that this would be allowed anywhere in the Western Hemisphere 🙂

Finally, now I update this blog post to include a link to the video I took of one of the tree climbing boys singing the Kilimanjaro song whilst climbing the tree tops 😀