Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania

What brings up more exotic pictures then the spice markets of Zanzibar? The town is a crazy town of little alleyways that have no rhyme nor reason of how they wind around the town. Alleys just big enough to walk down with shops on each side selling all sorts of items from spices to trinkets to old books. We wandered around the old town to the old site of the biggest slave market in the world that was not shut down until 1873. That was well after our own civil war, which I had always thought stopped the slave trade. Well it seemed like it went on in this area with Oman and other Arab countries for a while longer and Zanzibar was in the middle of it.
Today the country is probably more likely to be known for the magnificent and high priced resorts along it's east coast then for it's trade but Stone Town is still all about local trade although we did see some tourists in the town we were definitely a novelty in the market as we ducked in to get out of the pouring rain. It didn't take long for the smell to send us back out into the rain as we all felt that getting wet was preferable to the smell of meat, fish and body odor that permeated the market. :-)
We wandered through a primarily local area on the way back to the port and can say we felt that we got a good feel of the town. It definitely has a flavor that is different then any other country we have been in but it was pretty dirty and in the areas the tourists frequent the locals are pretty pushy about selling "guide services". We actually had to tell a couple to leave. No amount of "no thank you we don't need a guide" would work, but "we are never going to pay you anything" seemed to get the message across. :-)
The rain drove us back to the boat for lunch and we were completely soaked despite umbrellas so leaving the dirty town for a nice shower and good meal in the restaurant wasn't so bad. :-)Les mer