Down to Earth in Stone Town

It is just a short flight from Arusha, the end point of our safari, to the capital of the Zanzibar archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Gone are the wide open pastures, the semi-arid deserts, and the forests and scraggy woodlands of Northern Tanzania. Gone too are the multitudinous herds of exotic animals and the packs of predators stalking them. In just one hour we have flown to another planet – a much hotter one - where the meagre thatched huts of the Maasai Boma...

...have been replaced by the masonry buildings of Zanzibar's ancient capital – Stone Town...

Stone Town is just the central part of a much larger Zanzibar City today, but beyond the old city boundaries there is little of significance for tourists. However, the old city is particularly interesting because of its tumultuous heritage. The islands off the east coast of Africa first attracted slave traders and merchants at the beginning of the 16th century and the Portuguese seized control in 1503 and held on until 1698. They erected many European style buildings from the local coral rock...

In 1698 the Sultan of Oman overthrew the Portuguese and brought both Islam and its distinctively Arabian architecturt to the islands. This was the 2nd Sultan's grand palace, the Palace of Wonders, on Stone Town's waterfront...

And this is the excellently maintained waterfront promenade...

Unfortunately, much of the old city is just a labyrinth of crumbling ruins – many held up by makeshift wooden bulwarks. The stonework of the colonial fortress is just about holding on...

The doorways of Stone Town are some of its best features. There are some 200 elaborately carved entranceways like this...

An Arab dhow returning to port after a days fishing made an atmospheric sight in the sepia light of the dying sun...

...But the stench and the chaos at the city's fishermen's wharf was considerably less romantic...

Sheila first came to Zanzibar on an Arab dhow from Dar-es-Salaam almost fifty years ago. The voyage took a day and a night on an open boat. Frequent high-speed ferries now make the journey in two hours and passengers are no longer allowed on the dhows.
The Sultan was overthrown by a revolution in 1964 when 20,000 islanders died. Zanzibar, under a socialist government, then joined forces with the newly independent Tanganyika to create the country of Tanzania. However, the Muslim influence has remained and for the first time in a while we were woken in the early hours by the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer from the mosques' minarets.