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Now this is the thing to do. You should budget at least one day, if not two, for getting lost while wandering through the maze that is Stone Town! Stone Town, as the old central city district of Zanzibar is known, is only about 600 yards wide and 600 yards long. How can you get lost in a "city" that is about 1/2 of a square mile in size? It's amazing...The "streets" are between 5 to 10 feet wide. Hundreds of them. And none of them go in a straight line for more than about 25 yards. You can walk down the same street 10 times and not recognize where you are.
My wife (Liz) and I stayed in a wonderful hotel in the middle of Stone Town, the "Hotel International". For $45/night, we got a spectacular, palatial room overlooking a little square in the middle of Stone Town. It took about 7 days before we could actually find our way back to the hotel without getting lost. But it was so much fun to wander through the streets, with everyone going about their business...doing their thing, in that uniquely "Zanzibari" way. I don't quite know how to explain it, but everyone seemed so busy. Their stride was filled with purpose. It was a big change from what we were used to after 2 months of travelling through some of the poorest areas of Africa, where no one seemed to be doing anything.
What can you do while wandering through Stone Town? There are a ton of antique shops, fabric stores, jewelry stores, african curios, etc. The antique stores were very interesting. Liz and I bought the centerpost from an old Zanzibari door. Zanzibari doors are spectacular works of art. I spent a whole day photographing them. They are intricately carved to tell the life story of the occupant of the house--where they came from, what they did for a living, religion, etc. And most all of them are studded with big, brass spikes "to keep the elephants away", we were told. Our Zanzibari "doorpost" is going to have a place of honor in our home.
Once upon a time, Mitu was a taxi driver in Stone Town. But years ago he invented the "Spice Tour" industry and now he has a million imitators. A Spice Tour has nothing to do with Ginger Spice. Rather, it begins with a history lesson on the origins of Zanzibar's fabled past as the capital of the Sultanate of Oman and the spice heydays of the 18th and 19th centuries.
After your history lesson (often given by Mitu himself), you are crammed into matatus (minibuses) and hurtled through the hills of the interior to a plantation or two, to sample the spices and learn about how they are grown. This is a fascinating tour. Every tree that you are introduced to produces a spice. Frequently, you can smell the spice before you get close enough to recognize what it is. Most of the time, you can pick a sample off the tree and taste it fresh and raw.
A few examples of the things that we sampled during our spice tour: lemongrass, peppercorns, cardamon, anise, nutmeg (very cool!), cloves, cinnamin, coconut, rambutan (like a lychee), and my favorite...the Mangosteen (awesome, exotic fruit from Southeast Asia).
At the end of the tour, you are treated to a typical Zanzibari meal that is prepared with many of the spices that you've just seen on the plantation.
Each evening, as the sunset approaches, every mzungu in Stone Town heads to either the Africa House Hotel or Blues. Most everybody eventually ends up going to the Africa House Hotel. It is an icon of Stone Town. Perched on the far Western edge of Stone Town, overlooking the ocean that separates Zanzibar from the mainland, the bar is a perfect place to watch the sun go down. It's a 1990s version of Rick's "Cafe Americain". Here is the perfect place to mingle with the locals and hear their stories. Despite the fact that Zanzibar is 95% muslim, a surprising group of them show up every night. Some of the local "tour operators" (i.e. hustlers) come here after "work" to meet and greet their clients. Our hustler was an 18 year old kid named Manyara from Arusha. He was plugged into just about every racket from Stone Town to the mainland, and we were happy to do business with him, because saying "I'm working with Manyara" clears paths in Zanzibar.
Blues, on the other hand is very, very touristy. You will not find any locals there, so I would only recommend it if you are the cruise-ship type. My wife and I went to there once with some of the folks from our Encounter Overland trip. I was not too impressed with the 1200 TSH (about $1.80) price of a Kilimanjaro Lager (compared to the 700 TSH price at Africa House). The only thing that I think Blues has going for it, is its proximity to the Farazani.
Food
Farazani
One of the most fascinating meals I've ever had. Farazani is not a restaurant. It is a park along the waterfront, situated between "Blues" and the harbor. Every evening at sundown, 50 or 60 street vendors set up a table in the park and prepare quick snacks and take aways. The most common eats to be found are:
Awesome Indian restaurant in Stone Town. It was an expensive meal, at about $25 for two people (that's about 10 times as expensive as a meal in the Farazani), but it was some of the greatest Indian food I've ever had.
Stone Town is not famous for its amazing beaches. Typically, when you are staying in Stone Town, a day at the beach involves hiring a taxi to drive you 3-5 miles out of the city to the wonderful beaches up north. Having said that, the beaches that you can reach in a quick taxi ride are very good....but nothing near the quality of the beach at Nungwi (see below).
Zanzibar's northern shore is like a different island altogether. Whereas Stone Town is a cosmopolitan cultural mixing pot, Nungwi beach is the ultimate tropical getaway. 5 miles beyond the end of the paved road (30-40 miles north of Stone Town), you come to the little village of Nungwi. Driving through the village, there are turn-offs that will take you to the isolated "resorts" that line the shore. These are not high-rise Sheratons. These are bungalows with minimal acoutrements: electricity and plumbing. For $35 per night, the Amaan bungalows offers a comfortable room within 10 yards of the most spectacular beach that I've ever seen.
At low tide, Nungwi beach is about 250 yards wide. At low tide (about noon), the locals harvest seaweed from the beach in selected areas where they have created artificial reefs. The tourists stroll along the beach, collecting shells, or they set a lounge chair in the shallow water, where their feet can lap in the water as they read.
At high tide, the waves crash against the rocks below the bar. High tide (generally around happy hour) is a good time to relax at the bar and drink a Kilimanjaro lager or go for a swim. The smooth, white sand beach you walked on earlier in the day is 3 meters below you underwater.
I didn't get a chance to go out to the Eastern Shore, but from what I've heard, it is every bit as amazing as the North Shore. Unfortunately (to, me at least), the Eastern Shore is supposedly concentrated with package tours from Italy and Germany. Many of the resorts here will not even book you, if you are not coming from either of these countries. This is a common practice in East African beach resorts...There are entire towns along the coast North of Mombassa, Kenya that are given over totally to one nationality of package tourist, ie. villageX is all German, townY is all British, and cityZ is all Italian.
UPDATE: We returned to Tanzania and Zanzibar in January 2001. In yet another incredible visit to East Africa, we did make a point to spend a few days on the East Coast of Zanzibar. While my mom and her friends lived it up in the Lap Of Luxury at Blue Bay, a 4-Star resort on the southeast coast, Liz and I went to Mtemwe with our great friend Mark. Mtemwe is ideally located for Mnemba Atoll diving, a 30 minute Dhow ride across a channel. Mnemba is one of the best dive spots in the Indian Ocean, and I experienced some of the best diving of my life there. The facilities in Mtemwe are quite limited, although I still hear that the package tourist stops are like Blue Bay...For land-based activities (relaxing beach-side, collecting shells, drinking beer and eating good food), Nungwe is still superior (although some people are complaining that Nungwe is getting too crowded). But for diving, this is definitely the place to go. More on this later...
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