Host: Hisdory Jumane When: Anytime Length of stay: Anything from a couple of hours to a week or two! Most of my tours, though, are day trips. Minimum number of guests: One Fee: For a full day driving around the spice plantations by motorbike, I'll charge you $25. For a jeep, fuel is more expensive, so the price goes up to $35. Walking tours of the city are $10. For other, more flexible tours, the price can be agreed between us. I rarely make more than $3 or $4 from each tour for myself, as I have to hire the vehicle and pay for the fuel, plus buying the food for my mum to cook. Description: Here are the main service I provide: Personalised guided tours of the village of Kizimbani in Zanzibar and the surrounding spice plantations. This includes a detailed explanation of the many spices grown in the plantation, their culinary uses and use in local medicine. You can take home samples of many of them, from vanilla to quinine! Walking tours of the historic old city of Stone Town, with lunch at a local restaurant. Tours take in the Sultan's Palace, the House of Wonders, the Anglican cathedral and the colourful food markets. Trips by jeep or motorbike to beautiful Mangapwani beach, with its historic slave cave. Here, in the nineteenth century and before, slaves were stored before being taken by boat to the mainland en route to Europe and the Middle East. Tours of the village, beach and countryside can be done either on foot (for serious hikers only as the distances are quite long and the climate very hot), by jeep, or by motorbike. I think motorbike (or piki-piki as we locals call them) is one of the nicest ways of seeing the island of Zanzibar - it means we can go to places where cars can't get, they use less fuel and are less sealed-off from the outside world than a car. All my tours are personalised, I don't take tour groups or have a fixed itinerary. If you've had a good time on a spice tour, I might take you to the local bush disco in the evenings to party, African-style! All spice tours include a slap-up Zanzibari lunch, cooked by my mum! Karibuni... That means welcome to Zanzibar! ABOUT ZANZIBAR Zanzibar consists of two small islands, Unguja (also known as Zanzibar Island) and Pemba, together with a few other smaller islands around their coasts. The main town on Unguja is Stone Town, so-called because of the old stone buildings there. The soil on Zanzibar is very fertile, being formed from the remains of ancient coral reefs. The islands have a monsoon climate, bringing long periods of heavy rain in April and May, and shorter rains in November. The combination of fertile soil, warmth and frequent rainfall means that all kinds of plants can be grown successfully here, particularly spices such as cloves, ginger, vanilla, pepper and chilli. Spices were once valued in Europe as much as gold. For many centuries, merchant caravans, sailing dhows and trade ships carried spices from the tropics of India and Asia to the markets of the Mediterranean and beyond. The spice trade arrived in Zanzibar at the time of the Arabs, who carried seeds from India and Asia in their sailing vessels and put their slaves to work on the spice plantations of East Africa. Zanzibar became one of the world's main providers of spice, which gave it the nickname of the Spice Island. Today spices are still grown on Zanzibar, mostly by the government for domestic use or export. Smallholders in the farms, - known as shambas - also grow spices and medicinal plants for their own use.