Stone Town (is awesome!)

Wow, that was a longer hiatus than intended. Regardless, the adventure continues in Stone Town, the main town on the island of Zanzibar.

After a two-hour ferry ride from Dar, we set foot on Zanzibar. Our hotel was approximately a five-minute walk from the port, but it took us, um, much longer to find it the first time, due to the fact that Stone Town is one of the most confusing and difficult-to-navigate places I have ever been. It’s comprised solely of short, narrow, winding streets, with no street names or numbers, and signs for businesses pointing only vaguely toward their actual location. At one point, as we were standing, confused, at an intersection of a few winding streets, a man asked is he could help. After we told him where we were going, he sent his daughter to lead us there.

Upon reaching the Pyramid Hotel, we were immediately excited about the cool architecture and extremely friendly staff. There aren’t a lot of truly budget options on Zanzibar, but the Pyramid – with its Zanzibari bed, hot shower, fan, free Internet, and toast at breakfast – was definitely worth $35/night for a double room.

By the time we were ready to head out to dinner, it was completely dark. We hadn’t noticed any nearby restaurants on our round-about walk to the hotel, so we had to head to a new part of town. We never did find the restaurant we’d been searching for, but ended up eating at another nice place, where I had my first of several vegetable curries, and Ryan had his first of too many seafood dishes.

We spent the following day exploring Stone Town, which is a really interesting and vibrant place. Like in Dar, there are people of all races and ethnicities, dressed in all different styles of clothes. Most Zanzibari women wear long gowns and headscarves, and a minority also wear veils. Some were in Western clothes, but still kept the headscarf. Many Muslim men there dress in long white robes and caps, but lots of others wear Western clothes. There were also groups of adorable schoolchildren everywhere we looked, young girls in headscarves and little boys in robes and caps.

We visited Stone Town’s main market and perused stalls selling dozens of different kinds of spices (Zanzibar is famous for its spices), and fresh fruits and vegetables. We opted to view the raw meat and seafood section from a distance, however.

While wandering around, we found the Zanzbiar Coffee House, where Ryan tried Zanzibar’s staple spiced coffee. We were also thrilled to see that the menu featured both crepes and samosas filled with SPINACH and FETA! They were both delicious, AND came served on banana leaves.

Courtesy of Ryan’s extremely generous mother, I was also able to indulge in a traditional Zanzibari spa treatment at the Mrembo Spa. The Singo body scrub is a popular beauty ritual on Zanzibar, and women normally go to a spa for one everyday in the week leading up to their wedding. It was basically an aromatherapy massage followed by a vigorous scrub – it felt wonderful and left my skin ridiculously soft!

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon shopping, and opportunities for shopping are plentiful in Stone Town. Shops selling jewelry, art, clothes, accessories, bath products, books, and souvenirs are everywhere. Shop owners, by now more than used to the presence of tourists, hassle passersby a bit, trying to entice them to come in, often “just for looking.” But, a pleasant surprise, it really wasn’t excessive, and most of the vendors were quite friendly. In the smaller shops, they were even willing to bargain the prices a bit, which is always nice.

After reading that the Zanzibar Serena had the best Swahili food in town, we decided to head there for dinner. The food was very good, but the real treat was the atmosphere. We ate on the terrace, with a view of the water and the dhows coming in. That evening, there was also a taraab performance, Zanzibar’s most popular traditional music.

The last thing I have to mention about Stone Town is the outdoor night market at Forodhani Gardens, a dinner hotspot catering largely to tourists but attracting some locals as well. The market consists of a few dozen tables offering kebabs of every type of seafood available, as well as snack foods such as samosas. You pick which sticks of seafood you want, and then the chef grills it in front of you. My mahi-mahi was excellent. Ryan’s octopus and mussels were…not – actually, he described them both as rubbery, the only difference being that the octopus was harder. But, at least he’s adventurous! The other main feature of the market is the Zanzibari pizza, which typically includes not only dough, cheese, vegetables, and ground beef, but also a piece of chapatti, an egg, and a dab of mayonnaise. There are also scrumptious dessert pizzas, made of chapatti, mango, banana, and Nutella.

Stone Town is a really neat place with very friendly people, and it reminded me a lot of all the best aspects of Senegal. Despite being a major travel destination, it was also much less overrun with tourists than I was expecting, which was wonderful.

Stay tuned for the excursions we took from Stone Town – a spice tour, a dhow cruise, the fanciest meal I’ve ever had in my life, and, lastly, parasailing!