Zanzibar

I’m having good luck this hour with the internet connection here, though that is always subject to change. To make up for lost time, I’m going to post some pictures from my recent visit to Zanzibar.

Zanzibar has to be one of the strangest places I’ve ever been. In addition to its intensely long history and deep cultural flavor (or flavors, one of its main exports is spice), it is notably the birthplace of Queen’s Freddy Mercury. Freddy lived here until the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, when his Iranian parents had to flee what turned into a bloody genocide of Arabs and Asians. Without that violent chapter in Zanzibar’s history, Queen would have never come to be.

Regardless, it’s an amazing place and potentially the only place in all of Africa where women and children are free to walk around unaccompanied at all hours of the night. It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever seen families in African out on the town, enjoying great food by the water.