Stone Town

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Zanzibar has only one town, Zanzibar Town and its old part, Stone Town. Throughout the rest of Zanzibar, or properly Unguja, the largest island of the archipelago comprising Zanzibar, you will only find small villages. Of course we had to go see Stone Town. For USD 50, Rama, the driver of Tamarind Beach Hotel, took us safely the 45 kilometres into town and waited for us to return. Rama drove around the perimeter of Stone Town to give us an idea of where the different attractions were. We decided to be dropped off just outside the House of Wonders which was the palace of Sultan Bargash when it was completed in 1883. We walked along the waterfront to the Old Dispensary, a very beautiful building carefully restored by the Aga Kahn Trust for Culture.

Next we stopped at the Palace Museum. This building was the official residence of the sultan from 1911 until the revolution in 1964. Here we saw the first of the famed doors of Zanzibar. They are indeed extremely elaborate and in this case enormous. The palace doors were black and very difficult to photograph well. We found the place only moderately interesting and moved on to the next large building along the road, the House of Wonders. One of the wonders of that house was the first electric elevator in Zanzibar. But to us it was the many elaborate doors that we found most interesting.

Venturing into Stone Town itself, we found that the main alleyways were occupied by souvenir shops. Everyone tried to get you into their store, but they were all polite. I bought a foldable bao board. Bao is the traditional African game played with a number of seeds that are moved from hole to hole in an intricate system. The asking price was Tsh 60.000 and I felt I got a good deal when I payed 20.000. The seller said it was not a “mzungo” price (white man’s price). But we quickly discovered that it is not easy to come away paying the right price. After walking for a few hours we were definitely ready for lunch.

We headed for the nicest place in town, the Zanzibar Serena Inn. They had a very good selection of vegetarian dishes in one of their restaurants and to our surprise the dishes were not extremely expensive even though it costs a fortune to stay at the hotel. We really enjoyed both the food and the service. The hotel is located literally right on the waterfront and in the restaurant on the ground floor there was the beach directly outside the window and the sea just five or six metres away. The place is really delightful and must be the perfect base for exploring the city if you can afford the USD 280 they want for a room.

After lunch we saw some more of the town and tried to buy some pieces of cloth and photograph some people. We must admit we are not experienced at haggling and went away feeling we paid too much for some of the things we bought. But maybe that is part of the experience. Anyway, we had soon had enough and found Rama waiting for us to bring us back to Uroa.

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