Spice Island

We made it to Zanzibar, an island that's part of Tanzania, known for its beaches, spice plantations and former slave trade. The main city on the island is called Zanzibar Town, with the oldest part of the city called Stone Town. We wandered through the winding, narrow streets for a day while, bought spices at the central market, and had dinner at the outdoor gardens. We also did a cooking class with our hotel's cook, toured a spice plantation, and went to a nearby beach with a sweet Danish couple that was also staying at our hotel (the hotel was outside Stone Town and the beach it was on was not the best for swimming.)

Skewers of seafood for dinner.

Fusion seafood lunch.

 Reading at our beach front hotel.

 A classic Zanzibar door.

 A Christmas tree in the Anglican cathedral.

 Spice plantation tour: pineapple

 Jack fruit

 Lemongrass

 Nutmeg

 Dhows viewed from our hotel.

 Hakuna matata beach.

Lions and rhinos and dik diks, oh my!

As I write this, we are on the beach in Zanzibar. We finished our safari yesterday. It was an amazing experience seeing Tanzania's national parks.

On the first day, we visited Ngorongoro crater. It is the largest intact caldera in the world. Inside, there is an extraordinary collection of animals. Because the crater has ample food and water, and due to the steep crater walls, most of the animals do not migrate in and our of the crater. We saw a lot of animals in the crater: zebras, wildebeest, hartebeest, several types of gazelles, warthogs, hippos, hyenas, elephants, many birds, one female lion and one black rhino. The rhino is particularly rare, as much of their population has been poached nearly to extinction. Apparently, rhino horn is thought to be an aphrodisiac in China, so poachers are paid obscene amounts of money to kill them and take their horns. It is an incredible waste of one of the world's beautiful animals, all for an absurd purpose. We were fortunate to be able to spot one.

We stayed on a coffee plantation that night, which was a delight. The next morning, we headed to lake manyara. The lake is home to more than 200 species of birds. We also saw hundreds of baboons, black faced monkeys, blue monkeys, giraffes, and many of the animals we had seen the previous day. At one point, we saw several hundred baboons in a single group, which isn't a common thing to see.

After the lake, we visited Tarangire national park, where we camped for two nights. The park is not very large, but it is home to thousands of elephants. Some of these are very old, very large elephants. On the first night, at sunset, a herd of elephants came to our camp to eat the trees near the site. It was intimidating to be so close to such a large animal. We rose early the next morning for a sunrise game drive. Almost immediately, we saw a cheetah. We watched as it stalked in the grass, looking for prey. Eventually, it ran after a pair of jackals. They got into a bit of a barking match before the cheetah trotted off into the bush. Later that morning we watched a female lion and three cubs laying in the sun on top of a ledge. It was also in Tangarire that we were introduced to the dik dik. These were the cutest animal we saw. They are a deer the size of a small dog. Super cute!

We did a lot of other drives, saw a lot of elephants, impala, waterbucks, and a lot of other animals I'm sure I've left of the list. It was a fantastic experience, and all the staff from the safari company were great. A very special thanks to out terrific driver, Aimi.

Now we are on Zanzibar, relaxing for a few days.

African air

We arrived at 2am after a long day of travel. The first thing that struck us was the smell in the air. When you arrive somewhere for the first time, you notice the change in smell right away. You will never notice it as much as that first moment when you get off the plane. It smelled just how you would expect Africa to smell. Fresh air, with flowers and grass and clean jungle.

Luckily, we were greeted by our friendly driver and Ben's brother. (Ben is a friend from Madison who owns the safari company we are using.) After a short land rover trip, we were at our hotel, where we crashed for the night.

This morning, we were greeted by the music of goats, roosters and children playing nearby. Today is a chill day, with a trip to Arusha and dinner with Ben's brother tonight.

Fall Colors

This was an especially gorgeous fall. The combination of reasonable moisture and moderate temperatures meant that the trees achieved their maximum color and it lasted a long time. My street, lined with sugar maples, was beautiful. My annuals and summer blubs didn't die until the end of October, a couple weeks after typical frost here in Madison.

I planted a new kind of bulb in our terrace this fall - Colchicum cilicicum, sometimes called (inaccurately) 'Fall crocus.' I planted them in September and within a few weeks they were blooming. It's pretty cool to see this pink, crocus-type plant in fall. Unexpected.

Peak of Summer

I realize it's no longer the peak of summer, but with all the craziness that is my job in September, I'm just now getting around to posting some September pictures. This is the sci-fi garden that I planted for Adam. The purple leafy plant is an elder, Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace', that died nearly to the ground last winter. While the plant survived just fine, it never flowered. I take that to mean it flowers on old wood? Either way, the foliage is lovely. I also have some dahlias, grasses, calamintha, and coneflowers.

This is my back bed. It's a mixture of perennials, woodies, and annuals. I get a lot of self-seeding coreopsis (the parent plants died a long time ago, but it makes plenty of babies), and I noticed that my smooth asters - the tiny blue flowers - made some babies as well this year. That's ok with me because it's a nice, native plant, attractive to bees, and the rabbits usually eat their share.The larger-leafed plant in front is Stachys byzantina) 'Helen Von Stein' and it's a really nice foliage plant. Other lamb's ears have unattractive flowers, but this cultivar hasn't bloomed yet.

Here's another picture of my favorite Benary's Giant zinnias, just because I can't get enough of them. They finally died last weekend (late October).

Here are some pictures of my tropical garden. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I finally cleared it out this past weekend, and it took a garden saw to cut down the castor bean plants. I'm planning to try to save the canna and dahlia tubers. They died this past weekend and I'm giving them a week to store up their energy for winter. I'll give an update in the spring as to how they fared.

Summer is Flying By

This is one of the best times of year. The butterflies are in full force, the garden is producing, and just about every day is gorgeous. It's days like today that make that long, cold winter tolerable.

I don't normally plant squash, simply because i don't have enough room. I do, however, eat a lot of squash. Which means that squash seeds find their way to the compost bin and since the compost bin is pretty much an ideal growing condition (though it is in the shade), those seeds sprout. So before i knew it this year, i had giant squash plants and tomato plants. So far we've harvested three delicata-like squashes. There's also an acorn squash and just-about-ripe sungold tomatoes. Which is actually quite a fortuitous thing since the sungold plant i purchased has not grown much at all.

The zinnias are in full bloom. These are, if not my favorite flower, very nearly so.

 

Last year i planted a few Lilium asiatica 'Casa Blanca' lilies. The rabbits promptly ate two of them (which ended up surprising me and returning this year, but they weren't very big). The third one escaped the worst damage, but was eaten just before blooming. This year it bloomed and it was everything i had hoped for. Really large, bright white, fragrant flowers.

 

 

The purple coneflowers continue to run away with my prairie garden. But I regularly see monarch and yellow swallowtail butterflies on them as well as tons of bees. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

 

Garden Update

First, I wanted to post a picture of Valparaiso, Chile, since the last post didn't capture how cool the houses are. So much color. It inspired me to paint the basement stairs purple. I just need to get the paint.

Now on to the garden. My tropical garden is doing very well. I'm quite pleased. A few things are too close together, a few things are too widely spaced, and i realized that I don't have enough red and yellow, but overall it looks great. This picture was taken in the morning, so the light is a little strange.

The butterflies like it too.

 

 

Here's the front yard, now that things have filled in.

 

 

 

Valparaíso- Hills, Art, and Dogs

On our last night in Santiago, we met up with some friends of friends for dinner. Peggy and Sam took us to a wonderful local restaurant that is a Santiago institution. It was fun to meet some new people and we had a great time.

The next morning, we hopped on a bus to Valparaíso. It's a city on the ocean, not far from Santiago. The city was built into the surrounding hillsides. Each hill has a name. Our hotel is on Cerro Alegre. It's in an older, more historic part of town. The view from our room is fantastic!

The city is full of colorful houses nestled on the hillsides. Because of the colors, local graffiti artists decided the houses would look even better with pictures painted on them. Not all the paintings are artistic, but many are. It's fun to walk down alleys and staircases to find murals hidden in a narrow spaces. There are a few pictures below of some of the art.

Since most of the people live in the hills, there are funiculars that take you up the incline. Some are quite old, and not all of them still operate, but it's a fun way to explore the town. At 20 cents per trip, they are cheap too!

We took a walking tour of the city witha group called tours for tips. The tour is free, but you can tip the guide if you like it. The guides call themselves Wally, and dress like Waldo. Our guide, Priscilla was awesome!

The other thing you notice here is the number of stray dogs. It's common to walk down the street and have a dog start to walk with you. They are all friendly and well behaved. One dog followed us for a long walk. We called him lumpy, because he was a little lumpy. The dogs are OK, but at night, they do bark a lot.

Well, today, we head to the airport to come home. The road to the airport goes through a wine valley, so we plan to stop at a few wineries on the way.

It's been a great trip!

Cerros, Lomitos, y Pisco Sours

We have been in Santiago for a few days now. It's been a lot of fun exploring the city. On Sunday, we visited the zoo in the park. It was fun seeing them list animals like "Mallard Duck" as Exotic. But I guess that's how it works when you're in a different continent. We expecially enjoyed the monkeys and other primates, and got to watch some swimming penguins.

After that, we rode the funicular up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal. It's a big hill in the middle of the city, in a giant park. At the top, there is a large statue of Mary overlooking the city. We walked down the hill from there, passing through a few gardens on the way. It was a great day, with a lot of walking. We were very tired at the end of the day.

Monday, we climbed the Cerro Santa Lucia, another hill in the city, this one topped by a fortress. We got some great views of the city from the perch at the top. We joined a bike tour with La Bicycleta Verde after lunch. They took us around the city, seeing different parks and civic buildings by bike. It was an interesting perspective on the history of Santiago and Chile. Our guides, Nacha and Fabian were great!

Today, we went to a small artisan market near the edge of the city. It had a bunch of tiny shops where artists and craftspeople sold their things. There was a lot of copper and lapis lazuli jewelry and art. There were also a lot of weavers selling llama and alpaca crafts. It was a lot of fun.

The food in Santiago has been excelent across the board. We ate at a restaurant called Galindo that is considered one of the best authentic Chilean restaurants in the city. Emily had a great pork sausage with beans and lentils, while I enjoyed a stewed beef dish. We tried a Lomito at the legendary Fuente Alemana, which is a tender, sliced pork sandwich with mayo, sourkraut, and tomato sauce. We've had corn pie, empanadas, mote con huesillas, parillada (a giant pile of grilled meats), Conger Eel, Mariscal seafood stew, tender roast pork with rice, and the list goes on.

We've also enjoyed some great Chilean wines and the local favorite drink, Pisco Sour - a concoction of pisco brandy, egg white, lemon juice, and probably some other things.

Tomorrow, we head to Valparaiso to enjoy a few days on the ocean before heading home.