Like a Rolling Stone Town

I flew into Zanzibar from Mombasa on a small propeller plane, always a good time. The flight from Mombasa took less than an hour and we had a nice view of the island (and surrounding islands) from the plane. We landed and walked into the small airport -- there was no one in the immigration booths, and most of the people from our plane walked right past them, but we (and a few other people) waited until some government official showed up and had him stamp our passports. Not sure what those other people are going to do when they try to leave the country.

I changed a little money (managed to negotiate the rate) and then we shared a taxi with some people from the plane (actually people I had met on the Nairobi-Mombasa train). The taxi dispatcher wanted to charge us twice the normal rate to stop at two hotels, but we worked it out with the driver. We drove first through Zanzibar City and then into Stone Town.

Figuring it might be hard to get a hotel room, I had emailed a hotel ahead of time, and the taxi took us to it -- well, the taxi took us near it, because the roads inside Stone Town were too narrow to drive through, and then he walked us the rest of the way. The hotel wasn't very nice, but I left my stuff inside the safe and we walked around Stone Town a bit.

The capital of Zanzibar is Zanzibar City, and Stone Town is the oldest part of Zanzibar City. (Technically "Zanzibar" is the whole set of islands, and Unguja is the large island, but I'm going to do what all tourists do and call the island Zanzibar.) Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Stone Town are three centuries old, though they've only been using stone since the mid-nineteenth century. Given Zanzibar's role as a trading center, it's not surprising that there are Arab, Persian, Indian, European, and African architecture styles mixed together. Many of the streets are very narrow, though that doesn't stop people from zooming down them on motorcycles.

Stone Town itself is on the tip of Zanzibar, jutting out into the ocean. The shore is mostly sandy beaches, and the beachfront property is mostly expensive resorts and restaurants with ocean views. Then there's a large road that follows the coast, and then the dense, narrow streets of Stone Town are inside that road. It's a beautiful place.

Unfortunately, much of Stone Town has been taken over by the tourism industry. On every block are stores selling the same mass-produced carvings, jewelry, and t-shirts (although there were also men painting paintings, which surprised me). Outside every store are employees who call to every white person who walks by trying to get them inside. Henna painting, hair braiding, and massage parlors cover the region. The wider roads are filled with taxi drivers, the narrower ones filled with people hawking spice tours, money changing, cashews in bags, sunglasses, and who knows what else.

Still, Stone Town itself is very beautiful, if you keep your eyes above head level, and walking around was amazing. We wandered through the tiny alleys and slightly larger streets for a while (Lonely Planet's map is wrong, big surprise). Eventually we came upon some very nice hotels, and I checked the rates and they weren't very high. We returned to our hotel, I got my bags (and paid a small bit for having stored them in the safe all afternoon) and dragged them to a much nicer hotel, Hotel Shangani.

I like Hotel Shangani -- good mosquito net, air conditioning, nice people. It's run by strict Muslims -- Zanzibar is 98% Islamic -- so they don't allow alcohol on the premises and guests aren't allowed in the rooms at all. Also, it's conveniently located -- about thirty seconds from the beach. The beach is fairly nice -- I hear there are nicer, quieter ones elsewhere on the island, but I was happy with it.

One annoying thing about Zanzibar is that some jerk decreed that foreigners must pay for their hotels in U.S. dollars. That's fine for people coming from the United States, but less so for me -- I arrived with Kenyan shillings, Ugandan shillings, and a few Rwandan francs, but no dollars. And the ATMs here spit out Tanzanian shillings. So I take Tanzanian shillings out of my U.S. dollar account (and pay a commission), buy dollars (and pay another commission), and give them to my hotel, which will then buy Tanzanian shillings with them (and pay another commission). It's basically a complex system for keeping foreign exchange bureaus in business.

Over my five days in Stone Town I became increasingly frustrated with the street touts. It's pretty much the opposite of most of Uganda -- there, people would come up to me on the street just to chat. I have not had a single interaction with a Tanzanian that did not involve some sort of solicitation. I'm sure other parts of Zanzibar are great, but this place isn't for me. I normally love to wander in new cities, but the constant harassment makes it unpleasant.

Yet for all that, Stone Town is a beautiful place. Blocking out the constant calls of "hello my friend" and "yes, mister" and "you are welcome" and "karibu" ("welcome") and "jambo" (pidgin for "hello") and "may I ask you a question?" and "where are you from?" and all that, it's a pleasure just to walk and look at the buildings. Swahili architecture is very distinctive, and Stone Town is apparently some of the best preserved examples of it.

The doors of Zanzibar are especially noteworthy, apparently. I'm told that there are fairly strict rules as to how they can be displayed -- doors made in the sailing era may have a rope motif on the outside, doors from the slave era may have a chain motif (as shown here), and other doors can have any other motif. I didn't see many rope-outlined doors, but there were plenty of chained doors. Also notable are the balconies, which (like those in Mombasa) were built so as to preserve the modesty of the women standing in them, whatever that means.

My next post is about learning to dive in Zanzibar.