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Published: June 12th 2011
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I. "No Shoes, No News"!
I have never really been a beach vacation-type of traveler. I’ve generally focused on historical and cultural explorations and/or outdoorsy endeavors of a physical nature (trekking, particularly). Just hanging out at the beach, especially with tons of other people around, has never appealed to me.
But Zanzibar might have made me a convert – at least Matemwe Beach has.
For some, Zanzibar is all about the beach; tourists coming from safari in the Serengeti beeline it directly to one of the seaside hotels, sometimes bypassing fascinating, beguiling Stone Town altogether. Several acquaintances back in Sudan actually thought it was odd that I was planning to spend most of my time in town, rather than relaxing under a palm tree. (Of course, these are the individuals who might find it odd that I came to trace the history of the Omani Empire…)
Still, I figured I had to at least see something of the fabled beaches of Zanzibar. I narrowed in on Matemwe, as it was described as being a stretch of particularly photogenic coast and – perhaps most importantly – far from the backpacker havens in the northern reaches of the
island. The hotel I chose, the Matemwe Beach Village, actually warns potential clients on its webpage not to expect an action-packed resort; it’s a place to come for some peace and quiet, a place to do nothing (“No Shoes, No News”!). Yet I was still skeptical. Was I making the right decision to tear myself away from the urban center of Zanzibar? Would I really enjoy lounging on a beach for a couple days?
The answers to both questions: resounding yeses!
As soon as I walked onto Matemwe Beach, I knew I had chosen well. Unlike the beach in Mombasa, which had been a hive of activity, Matemwe’s postcard perfect white sands were almost empty. There were no big hotels marring the coastline. My hotel, and the few others in the area, are deliberately low slung and set a bit back from the beach, their thatched roofs blending in with the local architecture. There were almost no touts trying to sell me weed and no prostitutes hoping to entice me as a client (sorry, ladies!). It was just me, a gorgeous beach, and the endless blue of the Indian Ocean. I regretted almost immediately that I hadn’t planned
on staying at least one more day.
I found an idyllic spot, a roped lounging platform under a natural lattice of tree branches, with a view of a bobbing catamaran and the sea. It became my retreat within a retreat during my couple days at Matemwe, a shady spot to read and pretend I was shipwrecked on a deserted island.
I think I read Robinson Crusoe one too many times as a kid!
II. The Clove Mafia
Cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, clove, vanilla…
Lemon, jackfruit, starfruit, coconut, banana, lychee, cacao…
Poetry.
I kept repeating the names to myself as I followed our gregarious guide on the spice tour, winding through the “plantation” (more of a semi-tamed jungle) and listening for the sudden downpours of rain that kept sweeping through. Each time we stumbled onto another seemingly wild plant or tree, the guide would point out a dangling pod or crush a leaf or dig up a piece of root. And it would turn out to be yet another part of the poem of spice and fruit. He also knew what everything was used for.
“This is Viagra for
women. This is Viagra for men…”
I suppose almost everyone takes a spice tour when they come to Zanzibar. The islands are famous for their spices, after all. But I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw and learned. Somehow when I heard the word “plantation”, I imagined neat rows of trees and trellises for vines, segregated by species. But if the plantation I visited was typical of those found across Zanzibar’s interior, the Zanzibari type is a wilder affair. The cash crops are intermingled both with each other – vanilla next to pepper – but also with “wild” trees and ground vegetation. Moreover, people lived amidst this wealth of green in simple thatch and mud huts, chickens pecking in the undergrowth, laundry hanging on lines strong between tree trunks. It was all so very organic.
But that organic-ness belies just how important spices are to the economy of Zanzibar. Take cloves, for example. This ingredient in a Christmas mulled wine is serious business in Zanzibar, constituting a significant proportion of the archipelago’s revenue. It’s so important that the government actually controls the clove market, forcing growers to sell directly to it (below market value) so that it
can then export the spice at a fairly high price on the open market – thus reaping a substantial profit. Of course, this means a black market in cloves has appeared, with runners exporting cloves illegally to Kenya in hope of securing something of the profit for themselves. Forget drugs! Cloves are the big thing!
***
At the end of the tour, Amy – a woman I had befriended at the hotel and my companion on this excursion – was crowned “Queen” with a crown of banana leaves and tropical floors. I, too, got a crown, though sans flowers. The banana leaf tie was even more fetching, I thought.
Before taking off, I breathed deeply. I wanted to keep those scents of spice and fruit with me as we returned to Stone Town.
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Tracey Cook
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Hello from Illinois!
Great to see that you are still traveling. I love going around the world through your eyes!!