We arrive off the ferry in Zanzibar and are transported back in time as we adjust to the Arabian/Indian culture still prevalent in the old Stone Town...not strictly true but certainly what the guide book would have us believe. In truth, Stone Town is actually really pretty and is a fully functional town, as well as tourist destination.
We use Stown Town as our base in Zanzibar and on the three occassions we're there over the next 10 days, we stay in a hostel called Manche Lodge, run by a family - half of which lives in West London most of the year. There are a lot of mosquitoes there but you can't fault the place for friendliness and service.
Stone Town has a couple of really good (and cheap) food spots. Firstly, there's a local's restaurant called Lukman which serves big tasty meals costing between $2 and $3, and then there's the night fish market where you can get Zanzibar Pizza for even less. Zanzibar Pizza is a slightly strange concoction of a dough & egg base, with minced beef, onion, chillies & cream cheese thrown on. It's then cooked a lot like you would an omelette. It tastes lovely and is well worth the inevitable wait you have to go through, as the same guy seems to make pizzas for the whole island! It's easy to see why.
There are lots of souvenir shops with the same cheap crap you see everywhere in Africa. But there are also some really cool authentic Zanzibar workshops with craftsmen who will spend time explaining exactly how and why they've made all the items that decorate their walls and shelves. For example, we met an amazing carpenter who explained that they recycle all the wood on the island. They use it to make new woodcrafts. We bought a couple of wooded picture frames that he made and they could have previously been an old door, table or bed head. Lots of history in their woodwork!
We meet a lot of locals and quickly realize that they don't call me a Mzungu because they think that's my name, but because thats what they call all white people and general foreigners; Mzungus. Apparantly this word is interchangeable, because once they heard Alicia's Amercian accent, she quickly became a Mzungu too. She obviously needs to learn Swahili.
By the time we leave Zanzibar, we've spent quite a few days in Stone Town and I think we've got a good feel for the local lifestyle. You can see from our pictures the mixed-heritage architecture and beautiful seaside scenery that makes it such an attraction. All in all, well worth a visit. Add this to your must see list!
