Oh my! I have arrived in Africa, the 5th continent I have touched since I started my trip! I remember back in 2013 I was so excited about my African adventure and this time it is exciting but also a little bit frightening. 

I came to Zanzibar with no plans, I came here because it was the cheapest airfare I could find out of Georgia so now I’m here! When I get to a new country by flight I always like to have a place booked and while doing some research on Zanzibar I found out that there are hotels all over the island but since I am not a beach lover I decided to stay in Stone Town. There,  I would be able to see a little bit more of the Zanzibar culture and not just be another tourist laying down at the beach.

The first step after landing was to get a visa which turned out to be super easy! I filled out a form, paid $50 with my credit card, moved to the next window, got my visa printed and… Hello Tanzania!!!

The second I walked out of the immigration booth there were many man asking to exchange my money but I didn’t know if I should trust them so I just exchanged $5 to be able to get to Stone Town. I am a firm believer that there is always public transport available so I said no to all the taxi drivers that charge $10-$15 and instead walked out of the airport with my backpack and found the dala dala (mini bus) station and got to stone town for 500Tanzanian Shillings, which equals twenty U.S cents! 

I arrived at 7am so it was great to see all the streets of stone town empty and calm; I found the city to be so charming!

I arrived at the hostel and room wasn’t ready so I sat in the common area and within an hour of my arrival I was sitting at a cafe with 3 other girls having breakfast. 

So often I get asked if I get lonely or tired of being alone but I almost never am, I always find people to join in and to be honest the people I meet make this journey better!

After breakfast they left for a tour so I decided to go to the beach and walk around. 






From the moment I left the hostel the cat calling started, men called me “beautiful”, “my lady”, followed me, walked next to me, one even said “you look good in black” and another even asked me out! The last straw was when I was at the beach and a teenager approached me and said “Jambo” (hello) so I responded with “Jambo", he started talking in Swahili and I said I didn't understand and then he proceeded to show me his privates!!!!!!!! WTF?!?!?! Really? Why would he do that? I was in shock! I could barely believe what just happened! I was disgusted by this kid’s behavior! And couldn’t help but wonder… Is this how women are treated in this island? Is every woman in here being harassed and cat called by the locals? It felt disgusting to me. 
I didn’t know this before coming but Zanzibar is mainly Muslim and all the women are covered like in any muslim country, they wear hijab and long sleeve shirts and long skirts. I walked around with a knee length dress and my shoulders covered and still got a lot of attention. It seems like I always come to the same conclusion… This islamic rule of being covered does nothing but repress people and make men think that because somebody is showing a knee they feel they have the right to harass them! Unbelievable!

I almost ran back to the hostel wanting to erase all that had happened in the last hour. As I sat in the common area at the hostel I saw the girls come back from their excursion and I decided to stick with more people. As I no longer walked by myself the cat calling stopped, my walks became more enjoyable although now the calm and charming streets of Stone town were filled with open shops and owners that asked us to enter their stores and give you prices for useless stuff at least five times of what they should be!

After a couple of days in Zanzibar I went out for a sunset walk with my new friend Julia and the harassment conversation came up. She shared that she was being harassed by all these men around town and I shared my stories and we were both very disappointed on our experience. As we were sitting, chatting, and minding our own business I noticed a guy looking at us and putting his hands near his junk, then he stood up and moved closer, I said to Julia that I didn’t like this guy, after a couple of minutes he had come over and started talking to me and asked if he could practice his english with us.  I didn’t get a good vibe from his body language  from the beginning so I really didn’t want to talk to him so we quickly excused ourselves and left the beach. We then walked to a restaurant for a smoothie and we were greeted by the smoothie guy with a “Come closer, I want to check you out”… Really? Well, I wasn't that shocked because one of those guys two days earlier was calling my friend Feli “baby” and even asked her if she had a boyfriend. I find it so sad that our experience in such a beautiful place is being overshadowed by harassment and making women feel uncomfortable.

Sunset by the beach was always really pretty!

Sunset soccer

The famous Zanzibar Dhow boats:

Zanzibar wasn’t all bad, on the contrary I actually really enjoyed seeing the locals and I was so excited to be back in a country with such a different culture than mine, with people that look different, have a different environment and of course have new and exciting food!

Stone town is beyond charming, the hundreds of alleys take you through people's houses, neighborhoods, and shops. The African life happens on the street, children are free to roam the streets on their own, people gather for a chat or to play a game of chess, you can find food and souvenirs and pretty much anything you want while walking around those little streets.




One morning we went out with Feli and got caught on the rain!

Lots of cute little restaurants and bars to stop by and grab a drink!

 There is always space for people walking, food stands, bicycles, chickens, and even motorcycles!

Locals making crafts

Long (and heavy) necklaces!

Zanzibar is full of artists painting on the street!

Stone Town is well known for its beautiful doors!

Flip flops made out of tires!

Even buying a Sim card is an experience! You have to go to the side of the street to one of the many vendors and try not to get ripped off. Before I went I asked how much a Sim card was at the hostel and I knew how much it should be. When I arrived a guy told me it would be 10,000 shillings for a sim card plus a package but I knew it wouldn't be more than 2,000shillings for the sim card but he said I had to pay a registration fee. I said no, he said 7,000; I kept saying no, he said 5,000; I walked away and found another person and got my sim and data package for 5,000 shillings ($2.20)



 One of my favorite things in stone town was seeing a group of 4 kids playing school. The oldest girl was a teacher and she had a ruler and would scream and hit the kids with ruler. I found it entertaining to watch but very telling of what these kids are exposed to in school. Children learn by observing and what this girl was imitating is probably the behavior or her teacher who screams and hits them. Her teaching method was to say a word and the other three had to repeat after her, I guess this is the African way of teaching, by repeating!

For sure one of my favorite shots!

I simply loved watching the kids in town...

They are so resourceful, they make toys out of anything!

I met a lot of people while in Zanzibar and with some we decided to hire a private guide to take us around the town and explain a little bit more about the Zanzibar people and lifestyle. We went through the tourist info and got a tour for 40,000Tsh which came down to $3 per person (a 6 person group) and it was amazing.

Our group during the tour

The guide walked us through town, the market, and the former slave market. 

I wasn’t aware about all the history of Zanzibar and the fact that right there in stone town was probably the biggest slave market in East Africa. People would get to the market and auction people as slaves… so sad!

Slave trade ended in 1973 and in 1974 the British started the construction of a church on top of the market so when you visit the former market now all you see is a church.

We were able to visit 2 of the rooms where they kept the slaves. The rooms were tiny and with almost no ventilation. So heart breaking.

Can you imagine 75 people in here?

The worst part of all is that one thinks that slavery is a thing of the past when in reality there are more slaves now than they were back in the day when slavery was actually allowed.

I explored quite a bit of stone town with people from the hostel, the market was crazy but beautiful, seeing the locals and taking photos was my favorite part about this small town.

The ferry port

Local busses!

 The crazy market where Mzungus (white people) have to be very careful not to get ripped off!

In this shop a hand fan was 3,000 shilling, in the shops 10,000 shillings!!!!

Where the locals eat at the market:


Zanzibar is well known for their spices so they have many many shops selling spices for the tourist at prices for white people. In all honesty I don't really know how good they are, they seemed a little bit off color, the red curry was bright pink! super weird!

Dry fish anyone?

How they sell cooking oil!

 During our tour we entered the fish market... very stinky!





 We also went to the meat part of the market:

Not very busy! haha

 And the chicken part! This one was crazy! There were literally thousands of chickens! Some guys would go inside the cage and grab chickens by their legs and move them from cage to cage! It was crazy!

Its amongst the chickens!

Zanzibar not only had amazing and cheap produce, food was also very nice! 
Everyday I went with people to Lukmaan's, a local restaurant selling good food at cheap prices! The restaurant is buffet style so you can go and point at what you want and they pay for your meal, usually less than $2 for a nice vegetarian meal and $1.30 for a smoothie!

The guys making the smoothies! haha

Green banana curry.

Every night Stone town had a night market selling mostly barbecue and "zanzibar pizza" which was pretty much a crepe! 
My favorite stand was the one and only stand selling a mango soup for 2,000 shillings ($0.70!)

Walking to the night market

The soup lady!

The view you get from the market while eating your dinner!

Harassment aside Stone Town was a great stop and introduction for my next 4 months in Africa!