Our first primary destination was the quintessential “spice island”,
In eastern Indonesia’s North Maluku province, Ternate is small in area, but handsomely that province’s most populous island.
Its active volcano – Mt Gamalama, which rises 1,715 metres ASL – has long been Ternate’s key benefactor and destroyer.
The Maluku Islands are also known as “the Moluccas”, or “the Spice Islands”.
In pre-colonial times the Sultanate of Ternate was wealthy and powerful, thanks to it then having a global monopoly over a highly prized commodity.
You are looking at cloves.
This post’s featured image shows them drying in the open air, soon after the aromatic flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum had been harvested from trees growing on the volcano’s rainforested flanks.
Future multi-image posts will show and tell much more about Ternate’s cloves…and its nutmeg and mace.
(all photos are copyright Doug Spencer)
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