Time to explore Stone Town

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As it was the first time in Stonetown for all of us and the festival doesn’t kick off until the late afternoon, we took the opportunity to expore the city, starting off with the market. Once we found it (got lost so many times until finally a nice Zanzibari woman guided us out of the little side streets), we were quite disappointed. The smell from fish and meat was revolting. I also had pictured spice stalls like on Middle Eastern markets. Zanzibar is called the ‘Spice Island’ and it produces large amounts of clove, lemongrass and so on. But that was for sale were little plastic bags and little souvenir boats filled with five different spices. Then a proper tropical thunderstorm started and transformed the town centre into a second Venice - the little alleys become canals, just without boats or walk ways on the side. There is no drainage system and as the water cannot escape it stands in some places almost knee high in minutes.
Fortunately the rain didn’t last long and the sun did her part to get us and the town dry after very little time. For lunch we met up with some of the others at Livingstone (very beautiful setting on the beach, but food is nothing special and they make you pay for the privilege of sitting in one of the nicest spots in town).
In the afternoon we visited the former slave market, which was very moving. Zanzibar was one of the main hubs for slave trade, with people being taken from the Tanzanian mainland, the Congo and many other countries, who were then made to walk to one of the coastal towns like Bagamoyo or Kilwa and then taken across to Zanzibar, from where they were shipped to their destination. The conditions were so terrible, that so many people died, before they even reached Stonetown. With a short detour via the Persian Bath (nice, but unfortunately not in use anymore these days) we headed back to the seafront and for some cups of Italian ice cream at Amore Mio.
Before sunset we headed back to the Fort for the festival. After some British Council supported hip-hop, it was Biki Dude - a Zanzibari legend. She looks about 200 years old, but she still managed to whale with a strong voice and the crowd cheered ecstatically. My highlight of the evening was Natasha Atlas - I have to admit I didn’t know her by name beforehand, but her sound was familiar. So her performance came across a little ‘routine’, I love her style of Egyptian pop and her amazing voice.
More on the music festival including pictures on http://www.busaramusic.org

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Photos

Stone Town after the rain
The little streets transform into rivers with no sufficient drainage system it's like Venice - just without the walkways and the gondolas.

Coffee break behind bars
We met up in this very well hidden coffee bar - no sign anywhere and not quite where it said on the Lonely Planet map, so it took us an hour to find it...