Stone Town

Stone town the historic town of Zanzibar is about half an hour from the spice farm so that is where we head to next. Today is extremely hot again no idea of the temperature but my clothes are sticking to me. Nice. Stone town is the birth place of Farok Balsara or to you & me Freddie Mercury. After a quick lunch (which none of us really wanted) overlooking the west coast, our hotel is on the east, we go to see where the slave trades were carried out.This is really terrible. They were kept in squalid conditions for 2 weeks. If they survived the cholera, dysentery and or typhoid, they were classed as strong and fetched a better price. Another way to get more money for your slave was to whip them. If they did not cry they would fetch a better price. Slavery was abolished in 1864. David Livingstone was a main instigator in this and he is greatly revered on the island.
We go through a colourful market mainly selling fresh fruit & vegetables. Then there is a horrible stomach churning stench as we pass a man selling chicken potions from the back of his flat bed truck. Straight out of a polythene sack onto the weighing scales & into the shopping bag, next customer please, no cleaning or washing of hand. Blistering heat & no refrigeration. Umm poorly tummy for me please. I do not hang around here. But better than that we are taken into the fish market, the place stinks, it is full of flies. There are lots of varieties of fish & octopus laid out on marble slabs, no ice, no refrigeration and covered in flies. I look as though I am interested but really I am looking for the exit. By the time I get into the fresh air I am literally heaving (much to Mr F’s amusement I might add).
We are only slightly hassled through the spice market, the smell is wonderful here. We are shown the old colonial buildings. There is much more poverty here, terrible living conditions in dry dusty, windy streets. We catch a glimpse into a house just a gloomy room and 2 hard wooden beds with the door open to the street to let in some light and some air. The more I write this diary the more I know what an extremely privileged life we lead and how snobbish we are. We have no idea what so ever of any form of hardship and moan about things that these people would never have or even dream of as they do not know it exists. I will try to be better from now on but I know that when I get home it will only be a matter of time before I revert. Shame because I really do hate it.
Ok so now we are very weary and want to go back to the hotel. We have an hours drive back, but no we have to go to a museum. I can laugh about it now but at the time it was tortuous. It was the Palace of the Sultans, very interesting history but the exhibits were very badly painted pictures of the aforementioned Sultans,old cracked & faded photo’s of the Sultans and equally old faded & broken furniture. We are all our knees by this time it is 6 in the evening and we have been walking around in this heat since 8.30 this morning. We have all lost the will to live by now but feel sorry for the man proudly showing us, chair of Sultan, spear of Sultan, bed of Sultan, toilet of Sultan and mirror (cracked) of Sultana (Sultans wife). Too tired even to crack any Sultana jokes. We guiltily but rapidly make our escape back to the mini bus for the drive home, dodging cattle driven carts, pedestrians, cyclists and dalla dalla’s and were only stopped by the police twice.
Dinner that night was rapidly followed by bed at 9.30. We had 6 nights in this hotel and the whole experience of Zanzibar was brilliant. Would we go back? a resounding yes we loved it!


The homeward bound journey was slightly lengthened by a 6 hour delay at Nairobi. We spent up the rest of our dollars by treating ourselves to the diplomat lounge, which was air conditioned and comfy leather sofas to snooze on. Not to mention some food (not good) and as much booze as you want. We had 9 hours to kill and despite the free booze only managed 2 glasses of wine. Rip van Winkle blessed us with his company again and I was very grateful for the iPad from work & the free Wi-Fi. Everybody’s happy. Added bonus – weather in UK brilliant & looks to be set for a couple of weeks Hurrah.