The Mombasa Spice Market

This weekend I met up with some Canadian and a New Zealand volunteer/study-abroad friends and today (Monday) we went around Mombasa seeing the sites, me playing tour guide. I really need a little flag a la tour guides in Rome. The group mentioned they wanted to go to the Spice Market, and honestly, despite having lived here over a year now, I had never been. We changed that.

The Spice Market is a nice blend between the traditional open-air markets common in Kenyan villages, and the more restricted indoor-markets you sometimes see in the States (think of the original Quincy Market in Boston before it became the city’s food court). There are stalls all around, selling mostly the same vegetables I can buy from any little stall in Mtongwe, but sometimes having special things like custard-apples (a most delicious fruit), or passion fruit or gigantic carrots (village carrots tend to be smaller). The real treat however comes in your ability to buy fresh spices: black pepper, cinnamon (bark, not ground), saffron, cardomom, pilau, masala, and many others. Scoop them up, smell them, bargain over their prices, all in a trip to the Spice Market. Click on the pictures to seem them full size.

Spices at the Spice Market

A view of the Spice Market

This little girl was too afraid to tell me her name

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