Africa's paradise island

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The exotic island of Zanzibar

After our train journey crossing Tanzania and staying a few days in Dar Es Salaam (see Safari from the train window), we caught the ferry from Dar to Zanzibar,an archipelago made up of Zanzibar and the Pemba Islands. Among other things, its history contains slave trades, wars and bloody revolutions (see here for information).

Stonetown
Stonetown is the older part of the main town called Zanzibar. We spent a few days here, exploring the labyrinth of narrow streets, hidden courtyards, eating fantastic seafood and enjoying the amazing sunset at the Africa House Hotel. Particularly great was the seafood market called Forodhani Gardens. Every night the day's fresh catch of all sorts of fish, including shark, swordfish and kingfish, as well as squid and octopus, plus various meat on skewers, were cooked and served from lots of stalls. Walking from stall to stall, having a little taste at each one, is a great way to explore the local dishes. We also enjoyed very much drinking our ice-cold gin & tonics while the sun set and the kids were playing soccer on the beach.

Apart from eating and drinking, Stonetown offers lots of shopping opportunities. The most common wares were paintings, wooden carvings such as chess boards, sarongs or kangas (cotton wraps to be worn as skirts of headscarfs), and also genuine antiques. There are also spice tours to nearby villages as well as dolphin tours, however, we didn't try any of these and don't know how interesting they really are.

Pongwe
Zanzibar is well renowned for its beaches, and most tourists go to the northern beaches and Nungwi. However, as we weren't interested in clubbing but rather would like to find ourselves a real paradise beach, we went to Pongwe. At Pongwe beach there are two resorts: One that is really expensive and typically accomodates British tourist on charter tours, and the one we stayed in, which was a lot cheaper. Both resorts consist of many bungalows only a stone's throw from the amazing turquoise water. The only drawback of our place was the limited restaurant facilities. The food was definitely ok, but we preferred to get some really tasty dinners at the fancy resort instead. Thus, we ate our lunches at our own resort, but walked over to the other resort next door for our evening dinners.

Over three days, we only read books at the beach, went swimming, and ate great dinners. It was simply perfect relaxation doing nothing apart from one day hiring a local fisherman, with whom we went snorkling and fishing. The water was extremely warm, I guess around 35 degrees, but strong currents due to the tide made the snorkling a little unpleasant. Fishing was hilarious, as fish bit on nearly every throw! They were quite small though, but we kept a few and had our resort hosts cook it and serve it for dinner!

All in all, Zanzibar was the perfect place to calm down after a lot of travelling and get ready for our trip to Northern Tanzania and safari in the Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, and Lake Manyara.

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Photos

House of Wonders
Beit el-Ajaib, or House of Wonders, got its name because it was the first building in East Africa to have electricity and a lift. It was built by the sultan Barghash.

Africa House Hotel
Helene enjoying the sunset.

Helene in the sun
It was extremely hot to be seated in the sun, but we had to secure our seats before the sun went down.

Boys enjoying the sunset
A group of young men gathered, drinking beers and singing along to a guitar player in the sunset.

Lunch in the sun
35 degrees was a killer.