If you walk through a Zanzibar spice farm, you can smell cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla and black pepper all in one place. Cloves grow in little buds on a tree. Cinnamon is the inner bark of a different tree, rolled up like a scroll. Nutmeg is the seed inside a fruit that splits open. Most of the spices in Zanzibar are still picked by hand.
The oldest part of the main town is called Stone Town. Its narrow streets twist and turn so much that even people who live there sometimes get lost. The doors of the old houses are huge, carved out of dark wood, with brass spikes and patterns of fruit and flowers. Each door tells you a little about the family that lived inside.
Around the islands, the water is so clear you can see fish swimming several metres below you. Coral reefs grow just offshore, full of clownfish, parrotfish and sea turtles. Local fishermen still sail in traditional wooden boats called dhows, with triangular sails - a design that hasn't changed for hundreds of years.
Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, but it has its own flavour. The food mixes African, Arab and Indian cooking. A favourite snack is 'Zanzibar pizza' - which is nothing like an Italian pizza. It is a thin piece of dough wrapped around meat, vegetables or banana and chocolate, then fried on a hot pan at the night market by the sea.