Archives

Destinations, Food, Photography, Zanzibar

Cooking Octopus Curry with A Woman Named Peace

November 10, 2012

Coconut palms, mango trees, citrus fruits, rice and spice and fish. Turmeric, vanilla beans, hot chilies, black pepper, and cinnamon curls…

Zanzibar cuisine.

When we arrived on the island, a spice tour and a cooking lesson were my two highest hopes. Rather than find a touristy cooking lesson in Stone Town, I waited to look for a teacher until we left the city and settled into our spot an hour east, on the beach near the little town of Bwejuu. I’d read about a project in a neighboring village where local women taught cooking lessons as part of a grass-roots community development project, but as it turned out, I didn’t even have to look that far to find exactly what, or rather who, I was hoping for.

Removed by sea and time from the hazy city of Dar es Salaam (a gritty place on mainland Tanzania, ironically bearing the Swahili name Haven of Peace), a woman named Peace sits inside a woven-palm-walled hut on the white sands, selling her wares, saving her earnings, and offering kindness to strangers like me. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Musings, Photography, Zanzibar

Sandy Beaches Sell Postcards and Plane Tickets

November 6, 2012

We haggle over an hour long bus ride, will it be five thousand shillings or three?

We dicker, we hand over crinkled bills, we ride.

On a daladala, normal shifts.

Boxes and bags and bodies cram together in a metal shell unfit for road use by any and all US standards. Smells of sweat and burning oil mingle. Window glass balanced in rubber seals rattles as we ride, framing views of an island changing shape before our eyes.

“Computer training center” one sign says, before we pass another mud brick house with leaky thatch roof.

Bikes and cattle share the pavement. Coconut palms and banana trees lean away from us and toward the afternoon sun.

Between shores, the heart of the island beats.

Generations long since used to alien visitors seeking spice and spice of life watch another load of tourist overtake a load of produce. Dollars and cents.

Crossing from one coast to another, I wonder.

Who pays for paradise?

Whose normal is this, anyway? Continue Reading…

Destinations, Featured Places, Food, Zanzibar

Tasting Zanzibar: Dinner in Stone Town at Emerson Spice Hotel

November 4, 2012

We found ourselves at sunset in Tanzania, making that upward, upward climb, not pursuing Kilimanjaro’s summit, mind you, but following the wooden stairways winding skyward to the rooftop restaurant at Emerson Spice Hotel in Zanzibar.

My hopes for spice revelations in Zanzibar briefly went up in smoke after our disheartening spice tour…but the flavors and atmosphere of a magical night at Emerson Spice high above Stone Town’s skyline effortlessly resurrected the romance of our East African dream. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Food, Musings, Zanzibar

Cardamom Spice Tea: Bitter and Sweet on a Spice Tour in Zanzibar

October 31, 2012

“Zany Zebras Zoom Through Zanzibar!”

Alphabet cassette tapes of the 1980s pained a wild and colorful picture of a place in my childhood mind. Twenty years later, I heard Lynn Rosetto Casper’s voice through my iPod headphones. She was chatting with a Splendid Table listener who had recently returned from Zanzibar, and my imagination again filled with scenes of spice plantations and market stalls. I could almost smell the coconut and cinnamon and cardamom spice as Lynn rattled off recipes, and I was smitten by the sounds of such an exotic trip…

I remember Ted and I sharing travel planning dates at Townshend’s Tea in NE Portland, drinking alternating pots of highland, kashmiri, and masala chai…plotting our great escape. When we pinned down our travel route and sorted flights, this Tanzanian island off the eastern coast of Africa moved from fantasy to reality, and I could barely contain my excitement at the thought of tracking my favorite spices back to their origins.

My highest hopes:

1) Seeing my kitchen pantry spices growing in fertile soil under tropical sun

2) Bringing my cookbook-world to life by learning a recipe or two from someone living on the island

Like most visions of the unknown, reality came in different shades. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Photography, Zanzibar

Arrival in Zanzibar

October 30, 2012

After passing through Tanzanian customs chaos and spending one thought provoking night in Dar es Salaam, we arrived on Zanzibar Island via ferry boat and let Stone Town overwhelm our senses.

Blue oceans and bright saris.

Loud voices calling “Jambo!” and singing “Hakuna Matata” through the streets.

Hot sunshine blazing down.

Spiced coffees, spiced teas, spice tours. (Oh, spice tours. Wait for the next post…)

Flavors and colors and moments on the east coast of Africa… Continue Reading…

Destinations, Landscape Architecture, Musings, Zanzibar

Descending into Dar es Salaam…

October 26, 2012

Outside the plane window stretched a vast expanse of blackness punctured by glowing pinpricks of yellow and orange. Not twinkling stars in the sky: backyard and street-front fires.

We arrived in Tanzania after sunset, after nature’s light-switch flipped.

Descending into the Dar es Salaam airport seemed surreal. On the approach, I could make out suburbs entirely void of electrical streetlights or floodlights or illuminated windows. Instead, flames licked toward the dark sky from old barrels and brush piles.

It felt like another world. Continue Reading…

Destinations, India

Beautiful Ideas Help the World: ASIA {Sari Bari Giveaway}

October 26, 2012

If you’ve been following updates here on my travel blog, you know that this fall I’ve been giddy to launch a new series, Beautiful Ideas Help the World, featuring organizations I personally love, impacting lives all over the globe through beauty, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Since, sadly, I can’t bring back souvenirs for everyone, I’m hosting giveaways to go along with these posts, to offer each of you a little chance at something special from overseas.

Feature Two: Sari Bari: Kolkata, India
Enter to win a re-purposed sari bag by leaving a comment; read below for the full story.

How do you enter to win one of these beautiful sari fabric hobo bags from Sari Bari?
This is my personal Sari Bari bag I’ve been carting around the world, pictured here on the beaches of Zanzibar next to little coral treasures. See below for a photo of the lovely gray and gold bag featured in the giveaway.

Easy!

I’m not a fan of gimmicky giveaways, so I’m not requiring tweets or follows, but I’m providing links to all the relevant Sari Bari information, and I’d love to invite you to follow the project’s story and think about purchasing from them the next time you want your dollars and cents to go toward something beautiful.

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment below answering one of the following questions. (Leave a second comment answering the other question if you’d like to enter twice.)

A) How many bags do you usually take on an out-of-state or overseas trip?

B) Beyond a Sari Bari bag, which other beautiful re-purposed sari item would you love to call your own? Take a look at their line! – throws, table runners, bedcovers, baby blankets, makeup cases, jewelry rolls, scarves, computer sleeves…the list goes on and there’s no wrong answer.

Giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere. (That means you lovely international readers as well!) All you need is a mailing address. Winner will be chosen at random and notified by email. If winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected and notified. See here for full giveaway terms and details.

Giveaway closes at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time (that’s Oregon!), on Wednesday, November 7th. So, you can wait around until just about midnight on the 7th to enter (if you find yourself needing a distraction from US election results), or you can leave your name and answer below right now… Continue Reading…

Cambodia, Destinations, Musings, Travel Plans

Weekend Update: Death of a King in Cambodia

October 21, 2012

Hello, friends!

A little real-time note for you on this October Sunday.

This past week in Phnom Penh: Cambodians mourning the death of Former-King Sihanouk

Ted and I are in the middle of our five week circuit in Southeast Asia, and I’ve been fumbling around behind the scenes with the tail end of South Africa posts and the next stretch of updates from Zanzibar, Thailand, Laos, and now Cambodia. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, Landscape Architecture, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

In Pictures: A Landscape Architect’s Visit to Rustenberg Wines

October 18, 2012

The iconic crisp, white, delicately detailed Cape Dutch architecture of South Africa stands so beautifully against nature’s backdrop. Once I began seeing these beauties pop out from all corners of the Cape – suburban city lots and rolling wine country hills alike – I geeked out for a mini-moment and started pinning pictures of my new architectural crush.

Toward the very end of our time in the country, as a delegate attending the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ World Congress, I gladly accepted the opportunity to visit Rustenberg Wines in Stellenbosch as part of the Cultural Landscapes in Transition tour circuit, and, I’ll be honest, I was more than a little bit excited to take one or two original snapshots of Cape Dutch style to pin on my board…

For over three hundred years, various families have tended the land and taken care of the buildings and legacy of Rustenberg Estate and its incredible setting at the base of the Simonsberg Mountains. If you’re curious to know more, have a quick read of the site’s history: The Epic Stories and Wines of Rustenberg.

Anyway, that’s the gist. I won’t jabber much since this is really just a quick photo post…

And, yes, I promise, I’ll be out of South Africa soon.

Enjoy the peek at Rustenberg’s grounds and labyrinth and garden blooms – and remember these images are from the tail end of their winter! Continue Reading…