Magharibi

Had breakfast early, collected a street map of stone town from the reception and decided to explore the town on my own. Strolling down the seafront my first point of call was the Palace Museum which was the residence of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Zanzibar was part of Oman in the olden days as such the Sultans ruled Oman & Zanzibar together, at one point one of the Sultan moved his capital to Zanzibar and ruled from the Island. The Palace contained old furniture and personal belongings of previous Sultans who made the palace their home. Also, on the ground of the Palace are graves of members of the royal family.

I continued my sole exploration of Zanzibar by following the outer perimeter road, down narrow streets with sharp corners passed by the 5 star hotels; Hayatt, Double tree and Serena until I eventually came out on the road leading to the Statehouse and high court. The statehouse is a large white building, the fence was shoulder height so I couldn’t see well into the compound. I continued pass the Peace Museum, hoping to walk round the state university of Zanzibar, unfortunately I missed my road, flagged down a bike man who told me I was heading in the direction of the airport and redirected my path. I eventually abandoned the search for the university and flagged down a bike to take me to the slave museum. Interestingly I discovered that most locals in Zanzibar don’t speak English. The bikeman instead of taking me to where I asked took me to a street with lots of restaurants, well it’s a blessing in disguise. I alighted from the bike, paid him Tsh 1,500 for the ride and went into Lakmaan restaurant and ordered Octopus with rice and on 2nd thought added beef and fish just incase I didn’t like the octopus. The octopus tasted crunchy and soft. After lunch I tried to get another bike to the hotel but alas the bike man didn’t understand English. Out of frustration I checked my phone again and still no data signal and then I remembered turning off mobile data the previous night, damn. On putting it on I called on my old reliable and trustworthy friend who would never lead me astray “Google Maps” and discovered I was only 14mins walk from the hotel so I walked back.

Later in the evening I went to the Floating Restaurant and ordered their fried rice which was supplied with fried egg “sunny side up”, no meat or fish? What a strange meal. Luckily I had the foresight of buying BBQ meat at the evening street market when I stopped to buy roasted corn.Read more