I went with a Queen song title for the first Zanzibar post and it has become much harder to keep it up than I thought so I am sorry. After a glorious night of sleep in a hotel we actually wanted to be at we woke up the next day to the sun streaming into our window. We enjoyed yet another marvelous breakfast on the room of the Emerson Spice Hotel and just hung out until it was time for the day’s adventure, a spice tour and cooking class.

Our guide picked us up in the hotel lobby and after an in-briefing when we picked the meal we were going to cook he led us on foot over to the Darajani Bazaar to do some shopping. That was a lot of fun going through the bazaar with someone who knew what they were doing and also knew what they needed to get. To give us the full experience he went through a routine where he chatted with the sellers and then told us the word in Swahili to say and then gave us the money to pay for the vegetable or spice we were buying. It was all very thrilling.

Then we found a taxi and we were off to the spice farm. In a throwback we were first served passionfruit juice but then it was time to cook.  They were in the midst of rebuilding the kitchen so we were under a pavilion on a mat which was a much cozier experience anyway. Our teachers were Hariun and Hazilah, two lovely women with tons of cooking experience. We sliced us some vegetables and started making the sauce, which unsurprisingly involved a lot of spices. We also made rice and a fish “soupu,” where they pre-boiled the fish and then used the fishy soup for other bits of the recipe. I say rice but it was a pilaf; we fried up some onions and other vegetables and then eventually put the fish in the middle of it and the whole thing was baked with coals on top of the pot.

For dessert we made a banana and coconut milk dish with cardamom and cinnamon. The most interesting part of this was making the coconut milk ourselves. I had never quite considered how coconut milk was actually made, I always figured it was maybe condensed coconut water or something? Clearly though that was wrong because what we did was spend time scraping out the coconut meat. During this process you are supposed to sing, they told us, though Hairun and Hazilah were generally too shy to sing in front of us. We all eventually did do some singing as we worked, that was fun. Then the coconut milk was made by adding some water to the meat shreds and then squeezing out the milk. The first squeeze gave “strong milk” for one part of the recipe and the second pressing a lighter milk. With lunch merrily boiling away we went out on the spice tour.

I dunno man I am a little disappointed by both spice tours I have been on. Very cool to see the different plants and stuff. But deep down maybe I am an infrastructure guy and what I want to see if the mass growing and harvesting of spices. Or maybe they don’t do it that way, maybe both the spice farms I have been to have in fact been intensive examples. We did both enjoy the tour for what it was but it was early afternoon and we were fading a bit. So, too, were the spice tour guys I guess. The guy that normally would have gone up the coconut tree, singing all the way, told us that the clouds were wrong and he couldn’t do it. I think he had just done it for some other guests 10 minutes before and didn’t want to do it again. We didn’t really want him to do it either so good thing about the clouds. We also got hats made for us out of leaves but mine was taken away because apparently I got the design for women; gender essentialism much? I thought I rocked it.

Anyways then we sat down to our lunch which was phenomenal if I do say so myself. I mean we couldn’t have done it without Hairun and Hazilah but still I did some good vegetable slicing and coconut squeezing there. After this we took the ride back to Stone Town. After relaxing a bit in the room we head out to get some shopping in for gifts for various relatives. Our big plans for the evening were also food-based, going to the Forodhani Night Market. With all the people hustling us to come to their stands the one we picked was the least hassle-y one. Our goal was a Zanzibar pizza and we went with the most classic option available. While we were waiting I got some fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice which was way better than I was expecting; it was great and I regret not getting more. As we sat down we gathered a small crowd of feline admirers which we very much enjoyed. For dessert we got a Nutella pizza, also very good, and then decided to go someplace quieter. We eventually concluded we could use a second dessert and had some drinks and sweets at The Secret Garden. It did in fact feel secret and garden-y and was a great way to wrap up the night.