Stone Town, Tanzania
The name Zanzibar has always conjured images of an exotic Indian Ocean idyll. Also known as the Spice Island, the romantic dream of tropical imagination is tempered, however, by the reality of life on the island, both past and present.
We awake in our hotel, located on the Shangani beach in the heart of the capital's Stone Town district, rested and ready to explore the historic city. Built originally between 1847 and 1850 by Sheikh Salim bin Bushir bin Salim al Harthi, a wealthy tradesman, the main part of the hotel was called Mambo Msiige, a traditional Zanzibari mansion.
After Sheik Salim became involved in a failed coup, the house was confiscated and became home to the British Consul and the temporary resting place for the body of Dr Livingstone (of whom more later), and residence of Henry Stanley, who supposedly uttered those famous words, "Dr Livingstone I presume?". Apparently, the Diplomatic Suite at the top of the hotel was originally his room.
After the island revolution in 1964 it became a Zanzibari government office, finally being remodelled and opened as the Park Hyatt hotel in March 2015. Retaining its mix of Arabic, Persian, Swahili and European styles, it's a super chic contrast to the crumbling buildings of Stone Town that surround it and the evident poverty of its inhabitants.
We spend the morning in its restful surroundings before setting off in the scorching afternoon sun with our guide, Khamis, to explore Stone Town and learn this land's troubled history, starting with its name. Zanzibar means The Black Coast or, more literally, Coast of Black People, and is comprised of two main islands, Unguja the big island we are on (commonly called Zanzibar Island), and Pemba, its close neighbour.
Uninhabited until the 9th century when the mainland Bantu people started to live here, Persians conquered it in the 10th century followed by the Portuguese in the early 16th century, led by Vasco da Gama, as part of their domination of East Africa's Swahili Coast. It was the Portuguese who originally built the stone defences giving the old town its current name.
Siezed by the Sultan of Oman at the end of the 17th century, the later Sultan Said moved his capital here from Muscat, before it became a British protectorate. Zanzibar gained independence from British rule in 1963, joining with Tanganyika a year later to form the modern republic of Tanzania. It's now home to 1.4 million people, of whom 90% are Muslim.
Our brief history lesson over, Khamis leads us less than a minute's walk from the steps of our hotel past the crumbling former British consulate building (before it moved to Mambo Msiige) and the old German consulate. We stop at the remains of the Portuguese stone buildings, turned into a fort in the 1700s by the Omani Arabs, and emerge at Forodhani Gardens, the Victorian-era seafront promenade that at night becomes a bustling nightspot where locals come to buy street food, allegedly the best to be found in Africa.
Towering over Forodhani Gardens is the brilliantly named House of Wonder or Beit Al-Ajab. Built in 1883 as a ceremonial palace by Sultan Seyyid Barghash, it was the first building in East Africa to have electricity, a lift and running tap water. However it, like the whole of Stone Town, is a crumbling, dilapidated wreck in severe need of restoration.
Declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 by UNESCO, reminiscent of the decayed colonial glory of Havana, the UN stopped giving money for renovations ten years ago as corrupt government officials kept stealing all the money and none of it reached the people or buildings of Stone Town. As a result most Zanzibaris now want independence from the mainland.
Khamis doesn't want us to go inside the House of Wonder as the whole structure is unsafe, but we see other tourists sneaking in as it's still functioning somewhat haphazardly as a museum. We disregard his concerns and discover a full-size ship gathering dust in the middle of a huge central room lined by balconies, along with a couple of fading exhibitions, including an old car sat forlornly and without explanation in a side room.
Leaving before the building falls down, we weave on through the narrow winding streets, as confusing as a maze and without Khamis as our guide we'd be hopelessly lost. A colourful, odorous mess of shops, stalls, houses, restaurants, souvenirs, paintings, hotels, graffiti, places of worship, coffee shops, markets, dirt, noise, bikes and squalor... it's enthralling and challenging in equal measure.
From the rooftop viewpoint of the Meru Meru Hotel, with pictures of visitors such as Chelsea Clinton on its wall, Khamis points out the two churches nestling amongst the 50 mosques and then leads us through the backstreets to the one Hindu temple, where children play football in its central courtyard. Over Indian doors hang dried mango leaves to keep African voodoo spirits at bay.
We reach the Swahili House Hotel, one of the tallest buildings in the city and look across the divide of old and new to see the brutalist East German architecture in Ng'ambo, the new town. After independence from the British in the 60s, the newly elected communist government sought assistance from similar powers worldwide, adding to the mishmash of history and styles that make up Zanzibar's history.
But the most potent reminder of its bleak past is soon to come. After visiting the chaotic, claustrophobic throng of Daranjani Market, selling every type of meat, fish, spice and vegetable in the kind of sanitary conditions that prove pretty eye-opening to those of us fortunate enough to live in first world luxury, we turn the corner into Mkunazini, site of the former slave market.
From 1840 - 1872 the Sultan of Oman oversaw one of the most brutal slave trades in the world. Zanzibar became a hub for the East African/Arabic/Indian slave trade built on ivory and cloves - most of it exported with full knowledge by Europe and in particular the US - and it was horrific beyond imagining.
Walking around the exhibition is a sombre, tearful experience; the descriptions of the treatment of slaves and the conditions they were kept in leaving us both profoundly shocked and upset. And we are reminded at the end with a powerful display that slavery is still big business worldwide today, the only difference being that it is not (openly) endorsed by any government.
The exhibition stands above two tiny cramped cells that used to house hundreds of slaves at a time for days with no food and water, ready to be flogged and sold. And in the Anglican cathedral next door the altar is built right next to where the whipping post in the market once stood, its place marked in a slab of red marble, to remember the blood of the slaves.
The cathedral commemorates the role that Dr Livingstone and Sir Edward Steere played in the abolition of the slave trade in East Africa, persuading the British government, whose military support the Sultan of Oman had requested, to intervene and insist the Sultan end the barbaric practice.
He duly closed the market under British pressure, and Steere constructed the church on the site. It houses his tomb and also a crucifix made from the tree under which Livingstone died of malaria in 1873 in the village of Chitambo in Zambia. Livingstone's heart was buried by the tree before his body was taken to Zanzibar, for the journey back to England.
Unlike the rest of Stone Town, which is decaying rapidly, the UK government fully renovated the church two years ago and it stands gleaming next to a large mosque, demonstrating the peaceful integration of all faiths in Zanzibar.
We round off our Stone Town tour with a cocktail at the Africa House Hotel to watch the sunset and a spice-filled dinner at the Silk Route restaurant, enjoying more fabulous Indian vegetarian cooking. It's another chance to reflect on our good fortune to live the lives we do, compared to so many others past and present, and savour the fantastic experiences we have...
And they're not over yet. Tomorrow brings another adventure as our trip draws towards its end.
