Our 4-year anniversary today!

We met up with Ali, our tour guide from Wednesday, for a full day at Stone Town, aka Zanzibar Town. We started at the central church which was built to commemorate the official ending of the slave trade in Zanzibar, the last slave trading place in the world. It was great to see within the church, many images of Jesus, with Swahili written underneath - here's a great one.

After that, we learned more shocking and depressing information about the slave trade at the time, including a tour into where the slaves were kept prior to being traded (or whipped to demonstrate their strength to potential buyers). The details of their keep is best left for another, more introspective posting I think...

Next we wandered through the local market, which is divided into three areas - fish, vegetables and chicken. This was a lot of fun, the crammed corridors filled with merchants, buyers and some tourists as well. With Ali guiding us we felt very safe, but I reckon we would have felt almost as safe on our own as well.

Throughout our tour, Ali kept telling and showing us the political history of Zanzibar. After the market, our next stop was a Hindu temple. While inside was nothing particularly exciting, it was nice to note how peacefully the various religions and people co-exist in Zanzibar. Here's a photo from inside the temple courtyard.

From here we meandered some more to reach the "House of Wonder", the most technically advanced building in all of East Africa at the time, with running water, electricity and even an indoor elevator. This building was the Sultan's operational palace, as opposed to his residential palace. Again, lots historical, political and cultural info - this building was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. What we enjoyed the most, however, was the hand-patched wooden scaffolding that is being used to repair the clock tower - so here's a photo from the top of the House of Wonder, along with the scaffolding used to fix it.

From there, we explored an old fort site, which has recently been updated to include an ampitheatre inside for nightly performances. Then some more casual walking through the shopping corridors of Stone Town, which was not as exciting - the vendors, while reasonably friendly, are quite persistent in trying to get you to look at their wares and enter their stores. Ali said that while they never get aggressive, had we been alone, some of the walking vendors (those carrying their goods for sale) would have been more persistent.

It was then time for a break, and we went inside a previous British club, now converted into a hotel named House of Africa. We sat on the rooftop and enjoyed the breeze while looking at the various local fishing boats and rustic dive boats. Here's one of the dive boats from Bahari Divers.

We were now quite tired from almost a full day walking and/or in the sun, so it was time to go home. Another bone-rattling drive along the streets, and we bid Ali farewell. I've promised to post his info on this site, since booking an excursion directly through him will save about 25%.

Time for a late lunch, which we enjoyed on the top part of the restaurant/bar; sorry, we can't help but post this photo...

02/24/07 by bryan+elizabeth
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