Sophie Jones

A week spent in the beautiful stone town mostly involved wandering the old streets, trying the street food, and generally taking it "pole pole" (slow in Swahili). It's a sleepy town for most of the day, with the waterfront coming to life just before sunset as the temperature drops and the locals gather on the waterfront and beach to eat and socialise. A highlight and a must for anyone coming here is to watch groups of boys doing dance routines, acrobatics, and cliff jumping.
The locals are super friendly, and yes obviously half of them are trying to get something, but at least half of them just want to have a chat and welcome you to Zanzibar, especially those outside of the tourist areas. One of my favourite places to wander was Darajani Bazaar, a local market where people genuinely wanted to say hello and welcome (jambo/karibu), and I picked up some awesome climate appropriate Swahili dresses - those ladies really know what they're on about wearing these! One evening I sat and had a coffee for 200 shilling (7p) with some locals finishing up work for the day and discussed the football from the night before (no I didn't watch it - but I saw snippets as locals gathered in groups around TVs in the streets).
And of course I had to do some proper tourist stuff too, so I went on a Spice tour and did a Swahili cooking class - damn the food was good! I also went to the Slavery Memorial and learnt about the history of slavery on the island - sobering stuff.Read more