Zanzibar: Stone Town

The beach outside of Stone Town

I just had my first R&R in Zanzibar, Tanzania.  Zanzibar is an archipelago off of the coast of East Africa.  In the 1960’s, it combined with Tanganyika to form the current country of Tanzania.  Quite honestly, I chose to go to Zanzibar because of how fun it was to say the name… 

“ZANZIBAR!”

…  It just made me think of sultans and spices, decoration and decadence, intrigue and imagination.

So, how was my trip?  It was mysterious, exotic, beautiful, relaxing and decadent. In a word: it was perfect.

Why was it mysterious?

Confession time: Hiding somewhere deep underneath my cool expat-aid-worker-façade-- somewhere underneath the foodie and just in front of the Buffy fan is a very dorky history nerd.  So, to spend time in a place that witnessed Omani, Portuguese and English colonialism, was home to the last open slave market in the world, and was the birthplace of an Arabian Princess who scandalized her family by converting and marrying a German merchant was so freakin’ cool.

Stone town is a curving hodgepodge of narrow streets, funny shops, intricately carved doors, mosques, churches, temples, palaces, crumbling tenements, sweet smelling spice shops, foul smelling fish markets, cloth merchants, hostels, 5-star hotels, tourist traps and undiscovered corners of Zanzibar culture.  Every turning of a corner in Stone Town (a UNESCO World Heritage site and where I stayed while in Zanzibar) brought with it a new mystery.  What is that smell?  Who is behind that veil?  What is that woman selling?  Who lives behind that beautiful door?  Why was this mansion allowed to fall into such disrepair?  I spent my time in Stone town getting lost again and again in the tangle of streets, just wandering up and down alleyways.  My sense of direction isn’t much to brag about… the confusion of Stone town was totally disorientating.  However, there are scores of young men, willing to escort you wherever you need to go for about 1000 Tanzanian schillings (about 75 cents).

OK…  I have just revisited that last sentence and the phrases “scores of young men” and “willing to escort” might imply something completely different than the reality.  Think of these people as operating a kind of pedestrian taxi service, helping lost tourists find a restaurant, souvenir shop or their hotel.

Anyway, indulging the history nerd inside of me, I took a historical and architectural tour of the town. Zanzibar is famous for its intricately carved doors, and I couldn’t resist taking about a million photos of them.

These, of course contribute to the "mystery" of Zanzibar. What's behind them?

They also make Zanzibar all the more exotic.
Which brings me to my second point.
Zanzibar is exotic.
Check out these photos for an idea of what I mean.

View of the rooftops of Stone town from the roof of my hotel. Every morning they served breakfast here that included freshly roasted and ground Zanzibari coffee, homemade mango preserves and papayas. YUM! (by the way, the Zanzibar Coffee House Hotel is high on my list of reccommended places to stay)

One of the food stalls at the Forodhami Gardens on the waterfront in Zanzibar, I ate here almost every night. 

These are 2 examples of cane presses. Sugar canes are squeexed through here and the juice is collected in glasses to drink Pretty delicious and very neat.

As for my last 3 points; that Zanzibar is beautiful, relaxing and decedent, read on to the next few posts to see what I mean.