August 3, 2007
It started with the "scent tour." We stopped by Ralia's shop on Nosy Nato to buy a tea cake and he started opening up various bottles for us to sniff, pounding the ends of dried sticks to smell and crumpling leaves in his hand to inhale. The essential coconut oil made me hungry, the cinnamon intoxicated David and we both exclaimed over the dried olive leaves used for tea before being enraptured by the vanilla midway through its drying process. By the time we continued on our way to the beach we were both a little giddy from the scent overload.
After that experience we didn't think our noses could be any more delighted, but they have been. On a walk across Sainte Marie, Martial pulled fresh versions from trees and bushes of the dried concoctions we'd inhaled at Ralia's. Dried cinnamon smells pleasant and cosy, but with a small branch of fresh cinnamon you can't breathe deeply enough to satisfy the urge to suck up all of the scent. David tried but ended up somewhat lightheaded. The fresh lemongrass, olive leaves and cloves leaves were similarly intoxicating. But it was the sweet, heavy perfume from the pointed white flowers of the arabica coffee plant that made me wish I could fill a bathtub with them and soak for hours. I'm sorry that the Internet is so thoughtlessly deficient as to not have a mechanism to share scents, or we'd intoxicate you, too.
