Jul 22 2010 Zanzibar: explorers home, slave nightmare

• Balandro

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Balandro.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Beach School

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Escolares-playa.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Mercado Zanzibar

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Mercado-Zanzibar.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Dhow Zanzibar

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Dhow-Zanzibar.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Livingstone House

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Livingstone-House.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Mirada infantil Zanzibar

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Mirada-infantil-Zanzibar.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

• Beach Games

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Juegos-playa.jpg

  Zanzibar, the pearl of the Indian, essence of odor and taste, is a mask with two faces disparate. Starting point of the great explorers of the nineteenth century was also, for centuries, one of the nerve centers of the slave trade, the most terrible wound in the heart of Africa.

[tab:Travel]
Zanzibar cloves and vanilla smells, cinnamon and nutmeg. The Spice Island intoxicates the traveler with its indigo waters; with their lateen boats Swahili swayed by the history, the characteristic dhows; with its intricate streets struggle to see the light; with its striking brass studded doors; with the noise of their market Darajani.

The Tanzanian Indian pearl is a dream destination, but its recent past carries a stigma atrocious. Until just over a century, Zanzibar was a major slave markets in Africa. Only during the nineteenth century, estimated 50.000 human beings were sold each year on the island. Tears and tears of despair. At least that many died during the long journey from the inner regions of the continent where they were captured, enlisted force in the caravans of Arab traders.

But to know the story of misery and suffering must visit Stone Town.

As if to give back to this reality, top hotels, resorts in exotic cocktails and hammocks paradise, mark the east coast, just on the opposite side of where Stone Town, capital. But to know the story of misery and suffering must visit the City of Stone, where memories of the slave auctions are mixed with those of who was the chief crusader against human trafficking in the second half of the nineteenth: the explorer David Livingstone.

Livingstone's house

A city tour should start at the gates of the same, where metal roofs are twinned with the first stone buildings. In a white house and blue wooden shutters aphthous, ahora sede del Zanzibar Tourist Corporation, stayed the British missionary 1866 before embarking on his last trip. The story is well known. Without giving news for five years, sent a relief expedition led by the ambitious Henry Morton Stanley, also started from Zanzibar, which he defined as "the most beautiful ocean pearl". Finally, Stanley came up with the doctor in Ujiji, a Orillas del Lago Tanganika. Stanley's greeting - "Doctor Livingstone, I guess?”- is an icon of African exploration. But Livingstone refused to return with him to the coast. His fate was to die in Africa, exhausted in his anti-slavery struggle and in their efforts to find the source of the Nile.
The room that used to occupy the Anglican missionary in this mansion built by order of Sultan Majid in 1860 can be visited from Monday to Friday (the 8:00 a 17:00 hours) Saturday and Sunday (the 9:00 a 15:00). Pay tribute to this tenacious and humble traveler who got, posthumously, it closed the slave market in Zanzibar, well worth paying a few Tanzanian shillings.

The former slave market

Another inescapable visit us closer to Anglican Cathedral, built through the efforts of Bishop Edward Steere, which began work a year after it closed the slave market in 1873 and is located in the same spot once occupied by one. The prelate turned to what he had at hand, coral stone and cement, to raise this timeless tribute to all Africans who seized their freedom. Now, the only merchants who frequent the place are zanzibareños selling his paintings to tourists of African landscapes.

The humanist Richard Burton, another famous explorer, left in their journals a description of the market in Zanzibar 1856 that leaves no one indifferent. "Black people were waiting in line, like animals, says Burton, the first Westerner to enter Mecca- (…) Everyone was terribly thin, I stuck out like the ribs of barrel hoops and not a few had to crouch, sick, in soil. Most interesting were the children, who smiled as if pleased them degrading and indecent examination were subjected to both sexes and all ages. Women made up a show impoverished and miserable ".

Blacks were waiting in line, and animal. Everyone was terribly thin, I stuck out like the ribs of barrel hoops and not a few had to crouch, sick, in soil.

Next to the temple, multiple slaves attached stone with iron chains around their necks to remind the world of horror not so distant in time and now revived in the West, somewhat, with the lucrative prostitution mafias, slavery than expected Dr. Livingstone that end.

The memory of an epic

But the cathedral keeps another relic of the British explorer: a cross carved in the wood of the tree that shades the grave of Livingstone in the village of Chitambo, Zambia in the current. But, ¿Livingstone is buried in Westminster Cathedral?, wonder more than a traveler who has visited London. So. However, his heart remained forever in Africa, where he still rests. The transfer of his body from the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where he died in 1873, hasta Bagamoyo, on the shores of the Indian, that could be embarked for England, is an epic unfortunately scarcely valued. The servants of Dr., led by his faithful Chouma, traveled 1.600 miles with the body in tow (embalmed with salt and alcohol) avoiding the wrath of the native villages, for whom a body unburied was the embodiment of all the misfortunes. On his last trip, paradoxically, Livingstone was also escorted by a caravan of Arab slave, of which, moreover, had benefited in their own explorations both Livingstone and Stanley, Burton course. The procession reached the beaches of Bagamoyo, in the current Tanzania, on February 1874, nine months after beginning the journey. A ship of the British fleet, he "Vulture", anchored waiting to transport the body of Livingstone Zanzibar, that would rest at last in Westminster Abbey. But his heart remained in a tin box in Chitambo as a tribute to her African passion.

The crucifix hangs on a pillar in the cathedral, to the left of the nave, next to the presbytery. Beside the rude cross, perpetuates a plaque to thank all the scouts who fought against slavery in Africa. Although it was, sometimes, thanks to the help of slave trader most of the time, Tippu Tib, whose mansion in Zanzibar, built on the suffering of thousands of Africans, surprised all and sundry. Ironies of history.

[tab:the way]
From Spain, it is customary to fly scale (Amsterdam in our case) a Nairobi, la capital de Kenia. From there the flight to Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, In Zanzibar, are common. The traveler flew from Arusha, in Tanzania, Zanzibar after a tour of the Masailand.

[tab:a table set]
Besides the traditional recommendations (Tower Top, s Hurunzi St., or floating restaurant the Blues, within walking distance of Old Fort), the traveler opts for a more indigenous and certainly less burdensome to the pockets. One step from the Forodhani Gardens, the fault zone where the festive beats of Stone Town, is the Mooson Restaurant. The terrace, Harbour View, only three tables and the toilet is required remove their shoes, but try here a vegetarian crepes and a very spicy meatballs washed down with a Kili, the local cerveza, is a pleasure that allows diners to soak up the smell of salt and rogue port.

[tab:a nap]
For those who prefer lying to the paunch, any of the luxury hotels along the coast it. Travel back in time, however, recommended to stay in Stone Town (public buses that bring passengers to the beaches). A good choice, and not too expensive, is the Narrow Street Hotel, a Kokoni St..

[tab:highly recommended]
Brujulear born between the lanes behind the market Darajani, after visiting their places of spices, Step into the soul of this unique city. Merchants will offer their wares loudly, children will yell "faranji!” (the name under which refer to the Swahili language to Westerners) and the gates studded (built by Europeans to protect themselves from a fierce nonexistent) your breath away. The tour concludes in the shadow of the House of Wonders (Beit el Ajaib), in the gardens of Forodhani, flooded by the light of Indian and, and in all ports of the world, by a large detachment of Hustler. Beware of portfolios.

For fans of Freddie Mercury, Queen leader who died in 1991, approach is required Shangani Road, near the port, to visit the birthplace of Farouk Bulsara as in 1947 when his father, of Indian origin, worked at the British Embassy. It is now a hotel and no plaque that remembers the anniversary. It is, especially, an act of faith, a tribute to one of the great.

Two books highly desirable: Javier Reverte's classic "The dream of Africa" and "The last day of Dr. Livingstone", the David Livingstone. The latter to get an idea of ​​what was supposed to Zanzibar nineteenth explorers venturing into the dark continent to which he referred Stanley, another major.
[tab:END]