Zanzibar, Tanzania – what to visit

Hey hey! Today’s post will be dedicated to my first exotic trip and yet my favorite one – Zanzibar island in Tanzania and what to visit while there. I get really excited every time I speak about this vacation, so just to be prepared – it will be a long post. It was back in 2015, this means that somethings might have changed.

Before starting with my story, here are some important things you need to know if you are planning a trip to Zanzibar:

• If you go to the island directly and you don’t stop at the main land you don’t need a yellow fever vaccine
• Malaria is a thing there, so better take some pills before you go. We took “Malarone”. And a lot of repellents as well.
• You don’t need a visa (for EU citizens) prior your trip, you fill out some documents upon arrival and pay the tax and that’s it, you are free to go
• You can pay in dollars or in local currency.
• There are many sea urchins and sand worms so you need to have swimming shoes with you.

I’ve mentioned several times already in my previous posts that we organize our trips really carefully. It is always a good mix between being comfortable and also close to the nature and the culture. We spent there 9 days in total – 6 of them in a small village in the south part of the island and 2 in the capital – Stone town. In 2015 the southern part of the island was the less developed one. In Zanzibar they do have luxurious resorts and 5 star hotels. As you can imagine this was not what we were looking for.

So we picked a bungalow resort called “Promised land lodge” near the village Kizimkazi.

And it was truly amazing! I am still following them on Facebook and they have improved even more, stunning place. It is not close to the airport so we requested airport pick up.

The owner Shabi was so helpful and nice, he arranged every trip we asked for and gave us amazing experience! The bungalows are located right next to the water, but the place itself doesn’t have a sand beach.

You can still swim, but there are so many sea urchins, that it is a bit dangerous. Apart from that – you are in the middle of the nowhere, in the jungle.

The area is really isolated, at night there is not a single light, you can see thousands of stars on the sky and it is absolutely magical!

The water that we were using was salty, coming directly from the sea. I hadn’t had a shower with normal water up until we got to Stone town! It was weird the first day, but then you get used to it. And the funniest thing was the bathroom, every bungalow has a private one, of course,but it is outside of it. And it doesn’t have a roof. In case it is raining and you need to use the toilet, you will have quite an experience. 😀

We had everything we needed in the resort – restaurant, bar, sunbathing area,volleyball playground, etc.

And thanks God! It would have been impossible to find where to eat if we wouldn’t have this restaurant.

Our sensitive European stomach needs to eat only things cooked at at least 200 degrees for safety reasons.

This is always the hardest part of the trips for me, when you cannot eat fresh vegetables and fruits. I mean you can eat them, especially fruits that you peel yourself, but if you want to avoid spending your vacation in the toilet or the hospital, you better be careful. Once we went to the local store and all we could buy were cookies, water and bananas. So our restaurant saved us! And to be honest the food was amazing.

The garden is decorated with a lot of bones of whales and Shabi explained to us that this area is the area where whales come when it is time to die. Powerful!

During the day we were sunbathing or going to different places and at night after dinner some local people were coming to chill with us, playing music and singing around the fire.

Our group was quite big – 10 people, so we were a walking party ourselves.

Here is a list of some of the places we’ve visited:

• Jozani Chwaka bay National park (a.k.a. Jozani forest)

It is the only national park in Zanzibar.

The forest is habituated by hundreds of animals, but the most famous one is the red colobus – a monkey that exists only there.

Monkeys there are quite sneaky. Their favorite activity was to wait for the tourists to come under the tree and to pee on them. Super funny!

Our tour guide showed us many different species – micro frog,lizards, gigantic grasshopper, centipedes, huge ants, etc.

There are leopards and snakes living in the jungle, but hopefully we didn’t see them! The flora is also quite impressive!

You can also visit sea turtles and feed them. Other inhabitants of the forest are few gigantic turtles. They were brought as a gift from the Seychelles. Insane!

Funny fact – in the end of our tour our tour guide asked me if I want to be his girlfriend 😀

• Spice farm tour

Zanzibar is also known as the Island of the spices. As you can imagine there are a lot of different spice farms where you can go and see how everything is produced. The tour was super interesting! You can try, smell and touch so many incredible plants and trees.

I still remember some fun facts I learnt during this tour,such as:

• Zanzibar’s oranges are actually green. As they are not competitive enough because everyone expects oranges to be…well, orange, they are using another orange plant to color them.
• There are 3 types of bananas growing in Zanzibar: big ones, used for cooking, mid sized red ones and small yellow ones. Local people call the big ones – elephant bananas,I won’t specify why. The red ones they call with the local word for white people because exposed to the sun they become red. And the small yellow ones they call with the local word for Asian people, because they are small and yellow. Pretty funny and a bit racist, but we laughed a lot! 😀
• Pineapples don’t grow on a tree.
• Jack fruits grow on a gigantic tree and they are quite huge themselves.
• There is a whole tradition of picking up coconuts. Locals are climbing the trees using only their hands and legs, they stop in the middle, sing a song and then continue. Super impressive!

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In the end of the tour we received fresh coconuts and handmade jewelry – palm trees leaves can be used for many things!

• Nakupenda island

This one is my absolutely favorite place on Earth! It is a small sand island in the middle of the ocean, 25m long, 10m wide.

Only sand, nothing else. The island disappears when the water is high. We were lucky because we were the only people there and had this private paradise experience.

Soft white sand, crystal blue water, hundreds of hardworking crabs, seashells and corals… Heaven on Earth! The meaning of Nakupenda in Swahili is “I love you”. I really did love the place!

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• Blue lagoon beach

Another amazing beach located in the east part of the island. We saw few big luxurious hotels located there but no one at the beach.

I am so surprised when people prefer to stay around the pool when they have such an amazing white beach right next in front of them?! The view reminded me of the Maldives – blue water, white sand,wooden houses in the water. PARADISE!

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• Local school

We took a private tour around Kizimkazi in order to see the real life there. It is a really poor area.

The houses don’t have any furniture or windows (the glass I mean), kids are running around all dirty, but so so happy. They use all they can find in order to entertain themselves – one kid was running around chasing a tyre. We barely saw grown ups, they work during the day while older kids are taking care of the babies. By older I mean 8-years old raising 2-years old.

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We visited the local school, they usually take tourists there to make a donation for the school. It was a heart-melting experience. The kids were so cute and pure. All they wanted was to touch us, hug us, they jumped around all curious to see people so different than them. It was the end of the school day so they chased us around for the rest of the tour.

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• Swimming with dolphins

I didn’t visit this tour, but the rest of the group went. They were not really impressed by it, because first – it was full of boats, second – they couldn’t really swim with the dolphins. Another tourist trap I guess…

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Stone town

Our last stop was Stone town – the capital of the island. To be completely honest after these few days in paradise I was not really enjoying being there at first. But when we started walking around I found its charm.

In the city you can really see and feel the poverty and it made me sad. But besides that, there are several really interesting places to visit. My advice is to book a guided tour,because the history of the island is mesmerizing.

Here is a list of places that I recommend visiting:

• Slave market. This place is so powerful! When I heard the story I literally cried. We all know how African people were sold as slaves and transported to America, but to see and hear the story from them…I was heart-broken.. I will tell you small part of the story.

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People were held in chains around their necks and exposed as products. When they were selected by the invaders they were hanged on a tree. They were hanged by their hands, supporting the whole weight of their body. They stayed there for hours! Every time they cried their price dropped. Until someone buys them.When they were sold they were put in a cage in the basement of the cathedral next to it. Sometimes they stayed there up to 3 days while waiting for the next ship to arrive.

As Zanzibar was on the sea level, when the water came the basements were flooded, leaving only small part of free space for the slaves to breath. The rest was under water. They were held there chained, receiving almost no food or water, just enough not to die. When the ships arrived they were put on different layers, lying down for days until they reach North America.

There was only one stop on the way – at the most southern part of Africa where some of the slaves sometimes managed to escape and suicide themselves jumping from a cliff. Can’t hold your tears, can you?

• Darajani Food market – one of the biggest markets in the town. It is divided in different parts – fruits and veggies, meat, fish, spices. As you can imagine, they don’t use fridges or ice to maintain the fish and the smell…OMG, this smell…
• Freddie Mercury’s house. You didn’t know that? Yes, it is true. He was born in Zanzibar and grew up there and after that moved to India, before going to England.
• Forodhani Gardens food market -located right next to the sea, it is a nice place where locals gather to eat and dance. As I told you before, we were not that brave to taste street food in Tanzania.
• Jaws corner – In the center of the small square there is a pillar with a phone on it inviting people to make free international calls
• Walking around the city is also really impressive, the doors are decorated and every symbol means something and shows where the family stands in the society. You can also spot their religion based on the door decoration. In the souvenir shops you need to negotiate a lot as they don’t put prices. But it is really nice experience, people are super friendly and genuine and they enjoy bargaining.  
• There are some museums that you can visit in the town, not my favorite part if you remember, so I cannot suggest any.
• Prison island – it is a day trip that you can book from Stone town. Our flight was really early so we couldn’t go,but small part of our group went and they recommend visiting. On Prison Island there is an old colonial hospital / quarantine space. It was originally designated as a prison but repurposed to contain the cholera and bubonic plague epidemics that authorities fear would spread to Zanzibar on ships sailing in from Bombay and Egypt.

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Well, this is it. Our small paradise tour is about to end. If you are thinking about visiting Zanzibar, do it! It is still my favorite place on Earth and one day I would definitely go back again…

More exotic destinations you can find in my travel section.

See you soon when Travelista goes to…