Home » Tanzania » Zanzibar

Travels in Africa

Zanzibar

Goldenmaggot
2005-09-06 11:45:46

Displayed times (last time: )

Zanzibar, the very name conjures up sights and smells of spices and slavery. Well the spices are still there but thankfully the slavery is long gone.

The airport is lovely, a very small wooden building and the luggage was brought from the plane in wooden carts and put on wooden trestles, Ralph laughed at the luggage "carousel". He got his video camera out and the baggage handler loved it and gave him a beaming smile.

The annals of Zanzibar read like a chapter from The Thousand and One Nights and evoke many exotic images. Otherwise known as the Spice Island, it has lured travellers to its shores, some in search of trade, some in search of plunder, and some like us as tourists.

It was early in the 19th century that the island enjoyed its most recent heyday, following the introduction of the clove tree in 1818. By the middle of the century, Zanzibar had become the world's largest producer of cloves and the largest slaving entrepot in Africa. Nearly 50,000 slaves, drawn from as far away as Lake Tanganyika, passed through its market every year. As a result, Zanzibar became the most important town on the East African coast as virtually all trade passed through it.

We stopped in the middle of Stone Town which if you want to see the real Zanzibar is the place to stay. The hotel, The Serena Inn, was right on the beach but as you walked out of the front entrance of the hotel you were in Stone Town. The hotel is in the perfect position. As you sit in the dining room the beach is 10ft below. As we ate our meal we watched the dhows drifting silently past. The square just in front of the hotel was the site of the original slave market.

Stone Town is Zanzibar's old quarter. It has been called the only functioning historical city in East Africa and is little changed since the 1850's. It is a fascinating place to wander around. We saw lots of crumbled and ...