The wonders of Zanzibar’s Stone Town

Zanzibar has become a honeypot for honeymooners — with good reason. This exotic island is a mere six degrees south of the equator and is roughly 60 miles long and 25 miles wide. That means it’s toasty all year round, while being big enough for some exploration if you want it.

Its white beaches are stupendous, its people desperately poor but rich in spirit. The sea is a glorious turquoise, with plenty of coral reef for divers, and when the tide is out on the eastern side of the island, the horizon is dotted with women in bright kangas (wraps) wading through the water, scooping up chunks of seaweed that are later weighed and shipped off elsewhere, often to pharmaceutical companies in China.

What I especially love about the beaches around Jambiani, a small fishing village in the south-east — where, incidentally, the British charity Zanzibar Action Project (ZAP) is doing a wonderful job helping to educate the young and retrain the not so young — is that the hardened sand is really a busy thoroughfare. Men cycle up and down on their rusty steeds, children play hide and seek, tourists walk or jog, fishermen attend to their nets.

But what many visitors miss out altogether is Stone Town, the old part of the capital, Zanzibar Town, which has such a rich but haunting history that it warrants at least a night’s stay and, ideally, a full day in the company of a knowledgeable guide.

Sadly, some people have been put off by the horrific acid attack a couple of years ago on two gap-year students working as volunteers in a school, who were apparently guilty of little more than singing during Ramadan. But I have always found the locals friendly if not naturally effusive.