Stone Town

Saturday, 15th January

We arrived in Stone Town at about 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon.

It required some fast readjustments of our ideas to see past the apparent squalor and filth of this warren of narrow alleys and ancient buildings.  Our driver parked the car by one of these alleys and unloaded our luggage.  It wasn’t until this moment that we realized that we have waaay too much!  To get to our accommodation at the Zanzibar Coffee House in the middle of the labyrinth, we had to tow all our stuff through the refuse and puddles for several blocks.  I thanked our lucky stars that there seem to be no dogs around.  Perhaps they aren’t allowed here.  The carved doors of the coffee house open from a tiny lobby onto the alley.  Once inside, a man proceeded to load the heaviest suitcase onto a smallish woman’s head and she picked up another with her free hand, the porter carried the other two suitcases and we all proceeded up a couple of flights of stairs to our room.  The inside of the building is as much of a maze as the outside of the buildings and alleys.  Rooms, complete with bathrooms, are created higgelty piggelty in all sorts of interesting and creative shapes and sizes from these houses dating from medieval and earlier times.   The plumbing and wiring is a recent afterthought.  I doubt if any of these habitations would pass inspection either for structural integrity or by the fire marshal if they were in Canada.  Which would be a pity.  

Rooftop hovel

street level hovel

Roof top lux

Swahili House luxury hotel with rooftop restaurant and even a pool.

After we recovered from our trek, we explored the building and, on climbing the stairs to the roof top, found what at first sight is a ghastly mixture of ruins, rubble and intact buildings, with filthy, cracked, once white or pastel coloured walls with traces of decorative friezes painted around some of them, wooden shuttered windows.  The horrible jumble of rusty corrugated iron roofs is punctuated by all kinds of satellite dishes and aerials, the domain of jackdaws rather than the ravens of home.  On closer inspection this hodge podge is actually occupied by hotels and apartments of every kind, from the poorest hovel to the fanciest hotel.  The money is spent on the insides of the buildings while the outside walls and roofs remain in a dreadful state of filth and disrepair.  Mixed in amongst the residential buildings are places of worship of every religion.  Though predominantly Moslem, with mosques outnumbering the others, there are also Christian cathedrals and Jewish and Hindu temples.  Apparently all religions are tolerated and coexist in harmony.

Supper on the roof under the stars

Breakfast was served using antique silver

The rooftops of most of the buildings have raised roofs, with low walls open all around to catch the breeze.  We ate our supper of a delicious bouillabaise last night on the roof of the Swahili House Hotel, under the stars, with a paraffin lamp on our table, listening to the muezzins in all directions reciting the adjan or ‘call to prayer’ amplified from the minarets of the mosques.  This went on for a long time, followed by singing and what sounded like sermons.  Probably because it was Friday.  This morning we breakfasted on the roof of our own building with the other guests of this 8 room hotel.  Naturally there are no elevators.  One has to climb floor after floor of steep wooden staircases to get there.

Carved wooden door

Portuguese Fort

Fishing Dhows

Motorized dhow

We set off after breakfast and spent the day exploring Stone Town on foot - the only option.  We went to a museum occupying what used to be the Sultan's Palace, an ancient Portuguese Fort, 

We had lunch beside the sea, watching the dhows and larger ships go by while enjoying the luxury of the Serena Hotel.  We spent much of the day getting lost in the narrow alleys in search of an ATM that wasn't empty.  

By the end of the afternoon, even Helmut who loves the heat, confessed to being overheated and in need of serious rehydration.  

Anglican Cathedral built on the site of the slave market

Sculpture of slaves wearing the chains that w

Later, Helmut went out again to continue the quest for cash and returned successful in a short time.  By then it was cooling down, so we went to look at the cathedral which was built on the site of the old slave market.  Our guide took us under the building by the gate to the cathedral grounds to see the ghastly cellar where the slaves were kept before being sold.  In the cathedral the choir was practicing for tomorrow’s service.  I’d like to have listened to them, but our guide insisted on interrupting them to give us his spiel and then moved us hurriedly out again to see a sculpture outside the cathedral of slaves in chains, before the gates were closed for the day.  I found it quite disturbing to see the evidence of this dark period of history.

Stone Town harbour

Loading freigh

We ate supper on the deck of the Livingstone Hotel by the harbour beach while watching coast freighters being loaded with goods bound for Dar es Salaam, then returned to our hotel once more through the dark and rather scary narrow alleys.  In the morning we depart early for the airport to fly to Arusha.