Zanzibar wraps its reality around you like a lingering
fairytale. This tiny archipelago of Indian Ocean islands that once lured
sailors, Sultans and slavers to its far-distant shores is so charismatic that
it sweeps you into its shadowy romantic past and sunlit present all at once,
and finally sets you down, all sun-bronzed and laden with spices and island
art, and memories of an exceptionally sparkling and colourfully abundant sea.
The main island is small and easy to explore, with glorious
white sand, palm-fringed beaches rewarding you for just a couple of hours’
drive to the North coast and the same to the East, along mainly hopeless but
endlessly fascinating roads flanked by simple homesteads, roads worn more by
foot or bicycle and frequented by chickens. There is a time warp here, this
place where the past is so responsible for the present, where mobile phones, internet
connections and television are all relatively recent, and where the history and
culture is so imbued that you can simply stretch out beneath the dappled shade
of the coconut palms and soak it up. Welcome to Zanzibar, and a world apart.
Sailors and traders from the first century AD came to the
lands of ‘Zinj el Barr’, the Black Coast, bringing beads, porcelain and silks
to trade for gold, slaves and spices, ebony, ivory, indigo and tortoiseshell.
They waited for annual monsoon winds to fill their dhow sails and bear them
across the Indian Ocean; today’s visitors usually arrive in a small ‘plane or
ferry from Dar es Salaam. But these still afford a measured approach, allowing
a breathtaking vision of sparkling cerulean waters over sandbanks and reefs,
and then into Stone Town, the ancient island capital, still more of a town than
a city, a maze of winding pedestrian streets in a hotchpotch of rooftops, a
mass of corrugated iron overwhelming the historic stonework beneath.
Helplessly entwined in its own history, the people of
Zanzibar are the Swahili, evolving from the influx of mainly Arabian and
Persian immigrants who settled on the East African coast and islands to trade
and escape the political upheavals of the Gulf two thousand years ago. Their cultural
history was founded in sailing dhows, similar to those that glide by its shores
today, boats that brought people, language and cultures and long centuries of
power wrangling.
The Arab immigrants were overthrown by the Portuguese in the
15th century, until the Sultan of Oman finally saw them off for good in 1698
and started building the Stone Town of today; the Old Fort on the harbour was
built on the remains of a Portuguese church dating back to 1600. Visitors to
Stone Town still encounter the grandiose vision and dominant architectural
style of a confident young Sultan who transferred the seat of his sultanate
from the contentious capital of Muscat to the breezier climes of Zanzibar in
1832, and then began palace building in earnest, and seeding the coconut palms
and clove plantations which soon defined Zanzibar as the ‘Spice Island’.
Driving through the island centre now, it is worth stopping
to explore the spice plantations, where a guided walk for passing tourists is
likely to be more lucrative than vast crops to export, but it is a fine sensual
pleasure to crumble cinnamon bark straight from the tree, to breathe the scent
of cloves drying in the sun, to taste and guess the spice from a handful of
pods and powders. These are well used by the chefs and kitchens in beach
hotels, where fishermen daily bring the catch of the day to be grilled, baked,
battered or blanched with assorted Zanzibar spice.
The coast is dotted with hotels, self-contained beach
hideaways that relish their privacy and provide various levels of style and
comfort. I have been to most and head north by choice, to the northernmost
peninsula which is occupied by Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel. The name is a very
literal Swahili translation, but it says nothing of how this beach is secluded
and the coral sands are blanched very, very pale. It does not tell how the
wonderfully translucent and clear the sea is here, where a coral reef surrounds
the shore creating a shallow wide expanse to explore until the tide rises high
and then turquoise waves crash onto the beach It is a naturally beautiful
place.
Turtles come ashore to lay their eggs when the moon is full,
and the surrounding reefs are a thriving colourful world to snorkel and dive.
Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel is essentially respectful of its place, each room
constructed from local wood and coral rag to create a number of thatched round
houses along the beach, with lodge rooms in gardens behind. Soft sand pathways
link the central thatched and open-sided restaurant to the rooms, pool and dive
centre, providing the comforts of a fine hotel with a rustic, beach hideaway
style. This is a fine place to lie back and soak up Zanzibar, crack open a
coconut, watch the dhows on the far horizon and look forward to spice-scented,
star filled African night.
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We travelled with Tanzania Odyssey (www.tanzaniaodyssey.com)
– one of the first tour operators to specialise in solely in Tanzania
