Stone Town, Zanzibar: Historical Walking Tour

Walking the markets of Zanzibar

Welcome to the Spice Island

  While walking through the open air bazaars and ancient Persian architecture of Zanzibar's Stone Town we couldn't feel farther away from the dancing Maasai and hunting lions of East Africa. It is like walking through a different continent.

Monument to the slaves

 Known as possibly the most famous of the Spice Islands, Zanzibar's main hub is Stone Town. For years it was the haunt of the ruling Omani class. In 1840 the Sultan of Oman moved his seat from Muscat, Oman to Stone Town. This is when much of the stone work was begun.

 In the late 1800's it was also the site of one of the most prolific slave markets in the Indian Ocean. A lot of Americans think that the slave trade was limited to the Atlantic Ocean, so the group was surprised to hear about a second major trade from the East coast of Africa sending slaves up to the Middle East. However, once the British outlawed slavery the fortunes of the Sultanate collapsed.

Maneuvering narrow alleys

Vertical panorama

  Zanzibar gained its Independence from Oman in 1963, and then joined Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964. Zanzibar would remain a semi-autonomous part of the new nation. We did have to go through a semi-customs on the way in.

  One of my favorite parts of Stone Town is walking through the narrow alleyways and admiring the beautiful wooden doors that mark the entryways to some of the town more prestigious abodes. The doors are decorated with iron spikes, modeled after the doors in India secured against charging elephants.

Local Zanzibar art style

No elephant getting in here

  We walked by beautiful art galleries and even Freddy Mercury's childhood home before jumping into our waiting motorcade which whisked us off to the Zanzibar airport. Our trip had come to an end, but we really packed fun things into every possible moment. Now it's time to sit back on the plane and reflect all that we have experienced. It has been a wild and wonderful ride.