Lush plains of both uncultivated and cultivated virgin land in the horizon, along the Iseyin-Ibadan road
The nature of my work recently has had me moving around a lot. I engage in Public Health research work at my current place of work and the majority of our work has been on implementation research.
In essence, we do quite a lot of moving around to underserved communities where we do most of our work.
With moving around comes, exploration no matter how little.
There is a small town on the outskirts of the city of Ibadan called Ijaye. It's a town that is sandwiched between Iseyin and Ibadan in Oyo State of Nigeria.
Ijaye, Sandwiched between Iseyin and Ibadan
Source - Google
There isn't so much as special about the town that makes it unique. It doesn't really have any special sights or tourists attractions as such except for the endless forests untouched forests that surround the town.
But today I found one thing that perhaps makes this place somewhat special - Palm Wine.
Palm wine is an alcoholic drink found in quite a number of places in Africa.
It is widespread in the Southwestern and Eastern parts of Nigeria.
It is called "Emu" in my indigenous language (Yoruba).
It is obtained by tapping the sap that makes the drink from palm trees by skilled palm wine tappers. It is tapped in a non-alcoholic state but becomes alcoholic after fermenting.
Source
A Palm wine tapper tapping palm wine
It has quite a lot of cultural and traditional significance in many cultures. Some people add medicinal herbs to it to make medicinal drinks too.
It is however also a recreational drink, usually consumed by the population of local villages in SouthWest and Eastern Nigeria as a drink to while away time and relax after a stressful day.
And indeed I had a stressful day today!
Despite it's natural occurence, it is usually a bit difficult to find freshly tapped undiluted palm wine in the city. The majority of palm wine spots in the city tend to dilute their palm wine and some even add some additives and sweeteners which sometimes changes the taste and true essence.
But voila! As we were returning from our journey to Iseyin today, we found a TRUE PALM WINE SPOT, with freshly tapped palm wine waiting to be dispensed.
The Palm Wine seller spotted in the distance from our car preparing the drinks for customers
We could not resist but to try it. After all travel is all about adventure.
The palmwine was so fresh that we could perceive the strong stench from a distance.
We tried a few cups and confirmed from the strong taste that it was really the undiluted one.
After settling in with a few cups, we got some more in plastic bottles to savour our appetites when we got back to Ibadan.
The Palm Wine is first sieved to get rid of dirt, insects and particles
It is then dispensed
A cup of palm wine
Apparently the palm wine spot we visited is a regular one with good patronage and new palm wine everyday.
Perhaps we had just found a good stop over to relish a true taste of palm wine for subsequent journeys through this place.
Palm trees in the horizon in and around Ijaye
You can check the place out if you happen to pass through here sometime soon.
All unsourced images are mine.