One of Zanzibar's biggest foreign-exchange earners is seaweed (mwani), of which over ten thousand tons are exported annually to East Asia. The seaweed cultivation was introduced two decades ago as an income-generating project for local women. The seaweed is "planted" by tying it to ropes in the shallow intertidal zone of the lagoons. It is not an easy job, as the sacks of wet seaweed weight tens of kilos which have to be moved a few hundred meters before the seaweed is laid out on the sand to dry.

Known locally as Mji Mkongwe ("Old Town"), Stone Town is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar. The first stone houses in Stone Town were probably built in the 1830s, gradually replacing an earlier fishing village and trading post established by the Portuguese in 1503. At the time, the Zanzibar Archipelago was controlled by the Sultanate of Oman, that in 1841 moved the Omani capital from Muscat to Zanzibar. With its labyrinth of narrow twisting streets, bustling bazaars and grand Arab and Indian mansions, the center in many ways resembles the medinas of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula -- a place where the time seems to go on its own slow pace.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was a cold and sunny day. Torino / Turin, Piemonte /Piedmont, Italia / Italy

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Seen from the harbor of Stone Town (Mji Mkongwe), Zanzibar

near Zanzibar. One of those crazy-weather days at the beginning of the monsoon season.

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BTW, between 1893-1894 the British built a prison on this island --thus the other name The Prison island-- that fortunately never was used for this purpose.

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