Private Jozani Forest, Spice Farm and Stone Town Tour

Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park

Jozani is the only national park on Zanzibar, protecting around fifty square kilometres of groundwater forest, coral-rag scrub and mangrove in the south-east of the island, about forty-five minutes from Stone Town. The forest is the stronghold of the Zanzibar red colobus, a monkey with a red back, pale belly and black face that lives nowhere else on earth and is the reason most people make the Jozani Forest day trip.

On this private Jozani Forest tour a park ranger walks with you for around an hour along shaded trails where the colobus troops feed close to the ground, often within a few metres, along with Sykes monkeys, birds and butterflies. Because the vehicle is yours, you can arrive early when the forest is cool and the monkeys most active. Keep your distance and do not feed them; sightings are very likely but, as with all wildlife, never guaranteed.

The mangrove boardwalk

Included in the park visit is a raised wooden boardwalk through the mangroves at the edge of Chwaka Bay. It is a flat, easy walk of about twenty minutes, shaded by the canopy, where your guide explains how mangroves live in salt water with stilt roots and breathing roots and why they protect the coast and nurse young fish.

At low tide the mud below the boards is busy with fiddler crabs and mudskippers; at high tide the water comes right up under the walkway. It is a good spot for photographs and a cool pause before the drive inland. From the boardwalk the private vehicle heads for the spice farms in the centre of the island, about forty minutes away through villages and coconut groves.

A spice farm in the heart of the island

The spice farms around Kizimbani and Dole are the living reason for Zanzibar's name as the Spice Island. Cloves planted under the Omani sultans in the nineteenth century still grow here beside cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, cardamom, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, lemongrass and ylang-ylang, mixed together under coconut palms in smallholdings rather than estates.

A farm guide takes you from plant to plant, crushing leaves and bark for you to smell and guess, and the visit ends with fresh fruit cut open to try, often jackfruit, mango, pineapple and coconut by season, and a chance to buy spices, oils and soaps directly from the farm. Allow about an hour and a half. Lunch is not included; your guide can stop at a local restaurant near the farm or in Stone Town if you wish.

Stone Town and the former slave market

Stone Town is the old core of Zanzibar City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built largely in the nineteenth century from coral stone when the island was the seat of the Omani sultanate and the hub of the Indian Ocean trade. Your guide leads you through the narrow lanes past the Old Fort, the Forodhani seafront, the former sultan's palace, the façade of the House of Wonders and the carved wooden doors that are the town's signature, with time to shop in the market and the souvenir lanes.

The default option includes the ticket to the former slave market site, where a memorial and the cathedral built over the old market tell the story of the East African slave trade that Zanzibar once controlled and that was abolished here in 1873. It is a sobering but important visit. Plan around two hours in Stone Town, ideally in the late afternoon when the alleys cool down, before our driver takes you back to your hotel.