Zanzibar

Typical Zanzibar fishing boat at sunset

To end our trip to Tanzania we wanted to relax on Zanzibar. Zanzibar is an island about 40 km off the coast of Tanzania, about 6 degrees south of the equator and is a typical place for tourists to go after a safari and/or climbing Kilimanjaro. The capital of Zanzibar is Stone Town and it has a lot of history connected to the Spice Trade and the Slave Trade. At one point, the majority of the worlds cloves were exported from Zanzibar. Therefore we thought it was a shame to just arrive there and go straight to the beach without seeing some of it.

We arrived early in the morning and had breakfast in our hotel, The House of Spices, before looking around for the rest of the day. The hotel was recommended to us by two of the volunteers from the hospital in Haydom since it was good value and typical of the traditional style of houses in the town.

The House of Wonders

Ruins in the Arab Fort

Many of the streets in Zanzibar are too narrow for traffic and our hotel was on one of these. The ground floor was a shop selling spices and spice related gifts with a handful of guest rooms above. It was very authentic with its antique furniture, not something that you would experience if you stayed in a standard hotel.

Door with carvings and brass studs

Another elaborately carved door

In the old days, one way to show how important or wealthy you were was to have brass studs and carvings on and/or around the wooden door to your house. Many of these can still be seen when wandering around the old town.

Waiting for our meal at Emerson Spice

View from Emerson Spice

Iren looked on Trip Advisor for a restaurant for dinner and found the highly recommended Emerson Spice. We reserved a table when we walked by. The restaurant is on the roof and commands a good view of most of Stone Town. The review in Trip Advisor was not wrong. The food was excellent and it was the best meal we had on our trip to Tanzania.

View from our hotel, Langi Langi

Zanzibar's various shades of blue sea

The next day we left the House Of Spices and took a taxi to the north of the island to the village of Nungwi where we stayed for 5 nights until the end of our trip to Africa. Life was fairly simple at the beach hotel: Breakfast, a long walk along the beach, sunbathing, reading, swimming, lunch, more sunbathing, reading, swimming and finally dinner.

Traditional fishing boats at low tide

Fixing the mast of a fishing boat

After the first day we thought we might get bored with this routine but it didn’t take long to get used to it!

The local people have a long traditon of fishing and their boats could be seen lying on their side at low tide waiting for the next trip. They sailed into the beach in front of the hotel every morning and left their

Fresh fish every morning

Further along the beach

catch on the steps for the hotel chef to serve for lunch and/or dinner in the evening.

Our stay in on Zanzibar was a great way to end the almost 2 month long trip to Tanzania.
We got to see several sides of Tanzania which made our visit very worthwhile. We experienced the rich variety of the landscape from lovely beaches, flat savannahs and mighty mountains. The wildlife was incredible, so different from back home. We saw the heartbreaking poverty and disease contrasting with the luxury that many of the tourists and so few of the local people can afford. Africa made us appreciate all the things that we take for granted such as clean drinking water and safe food, electricity, good roads and access to health care. We enjoyed our trip and wonder how long it will be before we go back again.

Our next trip is to visit Phil's sister and her family in Granada in Spain and then to England to celebrate Phil's dad's 80th birthday.