AI thought about coming up with a catchy title for this entry, but I wanted the name to stand alone because if you know anything about this small island, its name can be evocative of narrow alleys winding between stone buildings, elaboratively carved doors, palm fringed white sand beaches and lush spice farms. If these do come to mind you would not be disappointed. Zanzibar has exceeded my high expectations and I wish we had a week more to spend here!
The island is a mix of many different cultures of people who traveled here over history from Mainland Africa, India, Asia, and the Middle East. It was a hub of trade for many exciting things like spices and cloth, and many horrible things like slaves. The island is over 75% Muslim and as we visited during the holiest time in their calendar, Ramadam, we got a neat perspective. Our first day we enjoyed walking around looking at the buildings, and marveling at the doors. We had a big lunch in a beautiful Indian resteraunt. Once the sun set the "night market" opened up right by the sea. Vendors opened stalls piled with fabulous stuff and people poured in from everywhere to break their fast. We had sticks of meat and super fresh seafood. Banana and chocolate pancakes, and the jewel of it all - freshly pressed sugar cane juice with ginger and lime! Yum.
Our next day we went on an informative tour that told us a little history of the slave trade and we were able to see where they were stored before auction and where all of the atrocities happened. After that we went out to a spice planation to learn about spices and herbs and fruit.
We spent the next two nights inthe north part of the island on the beach. We decided to take a boat out to try and swim with the dolphins. The water was so rough that they weren't in the mood to play, so we were chasing them down in a boat only to jump in and have them swim away. A huge highlight of the trip was a drive into the Jozani nature reserve to see mangroves, mahogany and monkeys! Home to the Red Colobus monkey who are very used to and friendly with people we got to share their space and watch them chow down and some members of our trio were brave enough to give them a gentle pat on the back. Incredible!
We had a very rough ferry ride on the way back and are anticipating two days of long driving to get into Malawi.
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