Arrival to Zanzibar - 15.sept

In the morning the girl we stayed with dropped us off at the ferry terminal that would take us across to Zanzibar, to Unguja island. She helped us get the tickets as well which was quite helpful as we only had 10 minutes till the ferry would leave. We thought ferry departs at 7:30, but came out the departure took place at 7:10. Ferry itself is quite similar to the smaller ones going from Tallinn to Finland for an example. We as foreigners were sent to the VIP area where we found 2 awesomely comfortable bean-bags to lay in :) It took about 2 hours for the ferry to go across. As Zanzibar is autonomous, we needed to go through customs on our arrival which meant filling in another set of forms. Did not take a whole lot of time luckily to get the stamp into the passport, once through the gates we managed to fight through the overly helpful and aggressive 67 taxi drivers and walked across to our hostel just 3 blocks away.

The plan for today was to look around in Stone Town. Here comes a short overview of Stone Town from our guide: the historical part of Zimbabwe's capital. It's Arabian style labyrinth of narrow streets, bustling bazaars and Arabian and Italian style mansions, most of them constructed on the back of the 19th century, during slave trade era.
Here are some highlights we got to see and discover (lot of facts from the travel guide again):

First of all we got lost multiple times in the narrow streets and emerged in a totally wrong side of the city. Maps ar quite useless here :) Found the Old Dispensary which is one of East Africa's finest and most beautiful landmarks, it is very nicely restored and well cared for. Looked around there for a bit, currently it is used as an office building but still got to walk around on the balcony and in the hallways.

House of Wonders was one of the first buildings we discovered - Zanzibar's most distinctive landmark, now housing the Zanzibar National Museum. It was completed as a palace in 1883. For the longest time it was East Africa's tallest structure and was also the first to have running water, electric light and an electric lift. Forodhani Gardens are right in front of the museum, by the waterfront. This was the place where slaves would be landed before taken to the market further south. The gardens are at the best after sunset when street-food market opens and all the people gather towards the busy tables offering local specialties.

Tippu Tip's House we found by accident, it is currently a resident for many families. Tippu Tip was heading slave caravans of more than 4000 men and over the years became king-maker of slave trade. House represents all the wealth and luxury of the time.
In the afternoon found also Anglican Cathedral and the site of Africa's last slave market. Slave market closed in 1873 due to the pressure from the British. Got to go into the tiny slave chambers as well, apparently they would stuff 75 people in each chamber. Just check the photos to see how tiny they were. Inside the cathedral there was a red circle marking the position of a post to which slaves were tied and whipped to show their strength & resilience before being sold. How ironic though - they did that in a church right next to an altar.

It took us couple of tries before we found the Hamamni Persian Baths from the maze of the streets - it is said to be slave-financed luxury commissioned in the early 1870's by Sultan Barghash.

We criss-crossed the Stone Town multiple times, walked by Hurumzi street, stopped at many craft shops, had most wonderful tea at Coffe House, went by the local market where they had lots of spices and then one of the highlights of the day - 1h massage and body scrub at Mrembo spa. Oh that was a treat we both needed badly!! Service was wonderful with welcoming tea and meditative music.

For dinner we picked Monsoon Restaurant and to our pleasant surprise they had a live-music show with local instruments at 7 when they started to serve dinner. It was strongly meditative and highly enjoyable. In Zanzibar one can find a lot of Muslim culture around so quite many restaurants don't offer alcohol. Picked a nice beach restaurant for an evening drink. It was a wonderful and a long day :) So far Zanzibar looks most wonderful. Tomorrow we will try to head to the northern most point of the Unguja Island.