Journey 02 · Tanzania
Zanzibar Runs on the Tide
Ten days, no plan that survived
Published 12 Dec 2025 · Travelled 12–22 Oct 2025
- 7 moments
- 11 days
- 142 km
- Autumn
- Tanzania
- 6.1622° S, 39.1875° E
- Stone Town
- 16:20
- 31°C, humid, bright
The alleys are one moped wide and they fork every twenty metres, so I stopped using the map on the first afternoon. You navigate by bakery smell and by which cat you have seen before. Every wrong turn is somebody's front step, and they mostly say karibu anyway.
- 6.1626° S, 39.1888° E
- Hurumzi Street, Stone Town
- 09:15
The carved doors are the famous thing, brass studs and Quranic script and all. What the postcards leave out is that every second one has a cat in front of it, holding the pose better than any of us. This one did not move for the whole time it took me to drink a coffee across the lane.
the cat is the real doorkeeper
03 · Things the tide decided this week
- 6.2660° S, 39.5410° E
- 6.2660° S, 39.5410° E
- Paje
- 11:50
- 32°C, hot, huge sky
Twice a day the sea walks out about a kilometre and leaves everything stranded, boats included. People go out with it, after octopus and seaweed, and from the beach they shrink to brushstrokes. Then it all comes quietly back and pretends nothing happened.
- 6.2270° S, 39.5080° E
- Pingwe, Michamvi
- 15:40
- 30°C
At high tide you go by boat, at low tide you walk, and the building just sits there on its knuckle of coral being photographed. I didn't eat there — the fish on the beach was a fifth of the price — but I did stand in the shallows with everyone else, giving it the attention it was built for.
- 6.1610° S, 39.1860° E
- Forodhani Gardens, Stone Town
- 18:20
- 29°C, still, gold
Around six the dhows start crossing the sun like they have rehearsed it. On the sea wall the smell of grilled fish gets going, and everyone with a phone becomes a photographer for about twenty minutes. I am not better than anyone. Here is my sunset dhow.
- Nungwi
- 18:35
- 28°C, calm
- Last frame
On the final evening I did nothing at all, on purpose. Sat under a palm with my feet in the cooling sand and watched an outrigger swing on its line while the sky went through every shade of mango. Ten days and the sea never once looked the same twice.
- 5.7260° S, 39.2970° E
The route
7 stops
Journey completed
Eleven days, seven stories
- Frames exposed
- 530
- Times I got lost in Stone Town
- 9
- Times it mattered
- 0
- Mangoes
- 14
- Favourite moment
- The tide coming back in at Jambiani, watched from a plastic chair for two hours
- Best food
- Grilled changu with lime, eaten on a wall in Forodhani while the cats negotiated
