The Africa Trip - Day 4 – The Stone Town in Zanzibar

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Well today we did something different. We organised a tour to go into the city centre of Zanzibar to have a look at the old town. The stone town area of Zanzibar is actually a world heritage site protected by UNESCO in 2000. But I have to say that I thought it was really a bit of a hole. It looked just like any other third world downtrodden place that I have been to, like Amman in Jordan, although to be fair it was a little bit nicer than Amman.

From where we are staying it takes an hour and a half to drive into the city centre over some rather rough and ready roads. You could lose your car in the potholes if you weren’t careful. They also have police checkpoints all along the way which is interesting. If you are carrying tourists you have to stop your car and the police come and have a chat to you, but if you are a local then you just drive straight through. We figured that it must be something to do with proper insurances and to make sure that there aren’t illegal tour operators on the island.

When we got to the city centre we met our guide, Bellah, who took us on a bit of a tour about the town. He was very nice and told us that he actually studied social work in Bath for a couple of years. He took us first of all to the old slave market where we had a look at the place underground where the slaves were kept before they were sold at the market. The slave trade was abolished in Zanzibar in the late 1800’s and on the site of the old slave market they ended up building a church (the church was actually constructed the year after the market was shut down).

From the slave market Bellah took us to the markets where we had a look at where the locals bought their produce. We then walked around the streets a bit more until we came to the Palace of wonders. The palace of wonders is the only remaining part of the old sultans complex that was practically all destroyed when the British opened fire on the usurper to the Sultan’s throne. They completely destroyed the two buildings that were standing beside the palace of wonders. The Palace of Wonders is now a museum and has some interesting information about the history of Zanzibar and the area. Although it isn’t really the quality of museums that we are used to.

That basically ended our tour of the town and while I am glad that we went to have a look in the daytime I can’t say that it was really a place that grabbed my attention and said, wow you have to visit there, it is amazing!

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Photos

The palace of wonders
with the arab fort in the foreground