Friday, September 17, 2010

Has the whole world gone nuts?

While on the subject of coconuts, I am sure you must have heard of the famous Coco de mer? For those that can’t speak Arabic, it means “nut from the sea”. This was what they were named when these very peculiar nuts washed ashore on the northeast African coast some 1000 plus years ago. No one had any idea were the nuts came from except that they were from the sea, and highly sought after. Trading in these nuts was a lucrative business. Sometime later a few Arab traders must have decided to try and trace the source of them and followed the trail “up current”. It is believed these traders were the first to discover and set foot on Seychelles. Of course because the traders were secretive about their sources, they kept no record of it. However, it is pretty official that they traded in fresh Coco de mer’s , indicating that they must have discovered its source. That they discovered Seychelles perhaps as early as 500AD remains the unofficial version. This is a pic of a few Coco de mers in their natural habitat.

Wish you were here!
:)

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