Private Stone Town, Spice Farm and Prison Island Tour

Stone Town, the historic heart of Zanzibar

Stone Town is the old quarter of Zanzibar City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built largely in the nineteenth century from coral stone and mangrove timber when the island was the seat of the Omani sultanate and the centre of the Indian Ocean spice and ivory trade. Its maze of narrow lanes, balconies and heavy carved wooden doors, studded with brass in the Indian style or framed with Quranic inscriptions in the Arab style, is best understood with a guide, which is what a private Stone Town tour gives you.

With your guide you pass the Old Fort, built by Omani Arabs around 1700, the seafront Forodhani Gardens, the former sultan's palace and the House of Wonders, now under restoration. Darajani Market shows daily life: fish, fruit, spices and fabric under one roof. The former slave market site, with its memorial and the cathedral built over it, can be entered for a small ticket paid on the spot if you wish. Allow around two hours on foot.

Prison Island (Changuu) and its giant tortoises

Prison Island, known locally as Changuu, lies a short boat ride north-west of Stone Town; the crossing takes twenty to thirty minutes and the island comes into view almost as soon as you leave the harbour. The stone buildings were put up in the 1890s as a prison for the Zanzibar mainland but were never used for that purpose; instead the island became a quarantine station for the region in the early twentieth century, and the old quarantine blocks still stand among the trees.

The reason most people make the Prison Island day trip from Stone Town today is the tortoise sanctuary. Aldabra giant tortoises first arrived here as a gift from the Seychelles in 1919 and have bred ever since; some of the oldest are believed to be well past a hundred years old. You can feed them leaves under the keepers' supervision and take photographs. There is also a small beach for a swim before the boat returns, and entry fees are included in this private tour.

A working spice farm in central Zanzibar

Zanzibar earned its name as the Spice Island in the nineteenth century, when clove plantations covered the fertile centre of the island and the port shipped cloves across the world. On the Zanzibar spice tour you walk through a working farm around Kizimbani or Dole, about half an hour inland from Stone Town, where the plants grow mixed together under coconut palms rather than in neat rows.

The farm guide cuts, crushes and hands you the spices to smell and guess: cinnamon bark, nutmeg in its red mace, vanilla pods on the vine, cardamom, turmeric root, black pepper, lemongrass, ylang-ylang and the lipstick tree whose seeds stain your palm red. Fresh fruit is cut for you to try, and a farmer usually climbs a coconut palm barefoot to bring down a drinking coconut. Spices and oils can be bought directly from the farm before lunch, which is included.

Lunch and the private day

Lunch is included and is normally a Swahili-style meal, either at the spice farm or at a local restaurant on the route: rice, grilled fish or chicken, coconut sauces, chapati and fruit, with vegetarian plates available if you tell us in advance. Halal food is the norm in Zanzibar, where most of the population is Muslim.

Because the tour is private, your guide can run the day in the order that suits the tide, the heat and your family. Many guests prefer Prison Island in the morning when the sea is calm, the spice farm after lunch in the shade of the plantation and Stone Town late in the afternoon when the alleys cool down. With a private vehicle there is no waiting for other travellers, and the driver can add a stop at a viewpoint or a shop on the way back to your hotel.