We drove down to Stone Town mid-morning and were immediately introduced to the maze of alleys that characterize this ancient seaport. Even in the short walk to the Safari Lodge (http://www.tripadvisor.ca/LocationPhotos-g488129-d1891080-Safari_Lodge-Stone_Town_Zanzibar_Zanzibar_Archipelago.html), our Arabic style hotel, most of us were completely confused by the myriad of twists and turns.

Stone Town alley.

Eron and Anna in Stone Town.

After lunch, we went to Stone Town’s Darajani Market. Eron haggled with a local vendor. She must have made his day because she loaded up on spices.

Eron buying spices.

We had our, by now traditional, sundowner on the roof top terrace of the Africa House (http://africahousehotel.com/), a restored colonial era hotel overlooking the harbour. It features the typical Zanzibarian melding of colonial English, Arabic, and African styles. Predictably, our sundowner was served complete with power outage.

Africa House – Hookah Parlour.

Africa House power outage sundowner.

We tried the street food at the local night market for dinner. Our group settled on shwarma (grilled meat rolled in a pita and topped with sauce) from one of the kiosks. It was one of the best shwarmas we ever had, however getting it proved to be a monumental challenge to our patience. The vendor would start to assemble a few shwarma, then a local person would come to the stall, and the vendor would then sell the food he was making for us to them. This happened more than a few times. After waiting 45 minutes for our seven shwarma, Hamill Corp took action and we finally received our food. We would have loved another one, but 90 minutes for two shwarma was more than we could bear.

Dessert almost made up for the shwarma-waits: Zanzibar dessert pizzas. These are thin-crust “pizzas” that are folded over to encase bananas (or mangos) drizzled in chocolate syrup. The pizza is then pan-fried until it’s a hot, crispy, gooey, delicious mess!