Zanzibar – the Spice Island

Zanzibar is an archipelago on the coast of Tanzania, a country that lies in Central Africa. This time I visited the most famous of all islands, the island of Zanzibar (Unguja).

Zanzibar can be experienced as a conclusion to the exploration of mainland Tanzania or as an independent visit. I decided to spend the last days on a month-long exploration of Tanzania on the island, arriving on a small plane from the western part of the country, the still non-touristy town of Kigoma. The city of Kigoma is best known for the Gombe National Park, where chimpanzees live. But more about that in my next article. This time let us take a closer look at what Zanzibar has to offer.

Karibu to Zanzibar

“Karibu!” shouted a taxi driver at the Zanzibar Island Airport. Karibu in Swahili means welcome. All I needed was his humorous smile and we had already driven to the old part of the capital, called Stone Town. It’s a mixture of Arab, Indian, European, and African architecture. The city is not nice to see, as the plaster on the houses is very dirty. The houses are also older, built by the Arabs and Indians in the nineteenth century. However, it is an interesting walk through countless narrow streets, where every tourist gets lost at least once, but they quickly find the right path again. The capital of this island is Zanzibar City.

It’s possible to buy everything on the streets, from food and clothes, to various painted pictures. By the way, every painter enthusiastically claims that his paintings are the best and more beautiful than the neighbor’s, but interestingly, all paintings in the city have the same motif. It didn’t matter to me; all pictures were beautiful. And once you get used to the constant “harassment” from traders, a walk around the city is interesting (although every now and then it stinks from the sewer).

Let me quickly explain the meaning of the word Zanzibar. The word is said to be derived from Arabic, meaning “the coast of the blacks”.

Slave Island until 1874

On the island, it’s possible to see the Slave Chambers or cellars where Africans were once locked. These are horrible to look at. Between ten and forty thousand slaves were sold in Zanzibar each year. They were slaves before they were taken to be executed, chained around their necks with heavy metal chains. There was only one small opening in the room, where they were imprisoned, where fresh air could get in, but that didn’t help much, as many slaves died because of the horrible conditions, especially from suffocation and starvation. The slave market lasted until 1874, when it was closed.

A visit to spice plantations

Every tourist, however, should undoubtedly see the spices produced in Zanzibar. On the Spice Tour through the Kizimbani spice plantations, they offer tourists more than fifty different types of spices.

You can see cinnamon tree, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, jack fruit, vanilla, lychee, as well as various body creams and coconut oil. The fruit of the nutmeg is round and yellow, brown inside and covered with a red layer. Nutmeg grows on a tree. Cinnamon is also a tree. Its trunk is carefully cut in thin slices, which are then dried to produce cinnamon powder.

Zanzibar under the evening lights

In the evening, the streets of Stone Town come to life. The dance begins, and the local fishermen prepare all sorts of fish in a thousand and one ways for just a dollar or two. There is also Zanzibar pizza, and the locals offer sugar cane juice. It’s a sin not to try it. As far as alcohol is concerned, it’s possible to get beer, but a local drink, konyagi (though beware: you need to drink the konyagi very carefully because it can quickly happen that the next day, all day, the whole city will spin around you).

I spent two days in the capital, Stone Town, then headed to the northern part of the island, to Nungwi Beach.

Turquoise coastline of Zanzibar

The main beach of Nungwi in the northern part of Zanzibar is beautiful. The sea is turquoise blue, the beaches are sandy white, and the only thing tourists need to worry about is a short encounter with the jellyfish. The view of the sea surrounds you with an incredible feeling and you stop the first moment you see it. The main attraction in this part is the coral reef. The sand is also of coral origin; it’s soft, white and doesn’t heat up in the sun.

Exceptionally beautiful and interesting, the Paje Beach, is perfect for sports enthusiasts. It’s a beautiful beach on the east coast of the island, known mainly for kiting. The water is knee deep and reaches up to the neck when you wade deeper, so it isn’t that deep. The sand is white and even, but you must be careful not to step on a sea urchin when going into the water, and it’s better to use special shoes for that.

If time allows, it’s possible to visit the island of Pemba north of the island, where snorkeling is the main attraction.

There is plenty of excellent food in Zanzibar, lots of fun in the evening, the beaches are incredibly beautiful, and the prices are solid. But more about Tanzania next time. Until then, here’s the Swahili greeting for you: “Kwaheri!”