FURAHA: ZURI ZANZIBAR

Furaha (fuh-ra-haa) describes feelings of joy and happiness and that is exactly how we felt during our entire stay at Zuri Zanzibar during our 5 day stay there.

“Zuri” means “beautiful” in Swahili, which is the language of the island of Zanzibar. And that is precisely the feeling we want you to experience in our 32-acre micro-universe. When thinking how best to evoke the beauty of Zuri to you sensually. The Zuri Zanzibar resort is in Kendwa village, which sits on the west-facing shores of Unguja, just 50 km from stone town and its international airport.

The north coast of Zanzibar boasts the largest number of hotels and lodges, so it can get rather busy in parts – especially in Nungwi. However, this is the only beach location on the island that’s unaffected by the tides, so it’s a popular region for many. The North really is a great area for travellers seeking a vibe beach location.

Note: This trip was taken in with government compliance covid-19 travel healthy & safety measures.

This amazing resort provides visitors with a stunning white-sandy beach, turquoise waters, and unforgettable sunsets. The beaches around here (in area) are gorgeous and unaffected by the tides. The area isn’t as ‘wild’ as the east and south coast, and where palm tree forests once flanked the pearly white sands, you can now expect to see an array of restaurants and bars, beach stalls, and water sports centers.

Facing west, most of the bungalows, suites and villas offer stunning views over the Indian Ocean, whilst a few of the bungalows offer a partial ocean view or are located amongst the tranquil tropical gardens.

The Zuri Zanzibar offers a fusion of European, African, Arabic, and Indian cuisine, creating a rainbow of sensational flavours and bringing the very best of the Indian ocean’s cuisine. Decorated in a chic African style, Maischa has a casually upbeat setting with an easy African vibe and is the perfect venue for enjoying the ocean views.

The resort also offers a private spice garden, private pods ideal for relaxation, meditation, yoga classes and a stunning spa package.

As you’d expect of a member of the Design Hotels group, style is key at Zuri. Under the guidance of designers Jestico + Whiles, the architecture carefully balances modern design with local, natural materials; this slick island retreat features lots of cool concrete, mahogany, and limestone.

Zuri balances modern design with local, natural materials.

Guest rooms – suites, bungalows and villas – are scattered between cottages in a series of spice ‘villages’ dotted around the leafy 32-acre resort and connected by a network of pebbled paths. As you wind your way between cottage and beach, you’ll find little alcoves to relax in, shaded by baobab trees and with just the swish of palm trees for company. A private sandy beach, strung with hammocks, is licked by the emerald waves of the Indian Ocean. Or, if you’d rather get active, do laps of the infinity pool, or push-ups at the outdoor jungle gym.

The beach location is superb, on one of the least tidal and most deliciously soft sandy stretches of this northern coast. The beach is a little bit busy, with quirky Zanzibari football or meandering Maasai, but the hotel extends the sandy stretch back to allow for a vast, peaceful, hammock slung beach experience. Then, further back and up the hill, the gardens are a delight, with huge baobabs and well-established palms and flowering shrubs, all laced with pathways linking the villas and suites. The central swimming pool is impressively long and luxuriant, with funky beats pulsing out from the shades at the back.
Zuri is bigger than the 12 room hotels and way smaller than the 200 room hotels; smart, glamorous, with 55 suites in various configurations; with private pools, plunge pools or simple bungalows, deluxe suites and double or triple room villas. There are currently three restaurants, the main restaurant, Maisha and the pool bar and grill, and a cocktail bar, with a new beach bar/ restaurant due to open soon. The spa and the yoga and exercise salon are particularly lovely, with a glorious polished sprung floor open on all sides for optimum breeze enjoyment and sunset viewing.

The reception area has been stocked with one of the most impressive hotel libraries we have ever encountered; properly sourced literary fiction and fact, picture books and quirky print material all superbly selected for the hotel. This curls around a popular, airy pool table, in reach of sofas, the cocktail/ sunset area and, should you need one, the resident doctor.

All in all, Zuri provides a blissful playground for honeymooners or families, and enough space and attitude to house both side by side. The location on Kendwa Beach is superb, for local swimming and water sports and also the option to explore the coast a little on foot.

Self-Sufficiency

With the goal of being as ecologically responsible as possible, Zuri is implementing a desalination plant that uses reverse osmosis and ozone technology to supply its own water and not use the water resources of the local Kendwa village. Eventually, the property will bottle its own water in reusable glass bottles.

The waste management system will follow suit, turning the hotel's standard sewage into usable water for irrigation. Also, the unique Evening Breeze cooling system — a sleek, space-age canopy that discreetly hides under the beds' mosquito nets — reduces electricity usage. Falling asleep to the discreet hum is strangely hypnotic. The rooms are also outfitted with fans.

Rooms

Zuri Bungalows is the new kid on the block as such and is one of the most exciting new properties to hit Zanzibar for a long time. It’s located on one of the most picturesque stretches of beach, and although this area can get busy the operators have cordoned off a private area. Room categories range from bungalows to villas on the beach (read, affordable to hugely expensive), but regardless of the room category you will be blown away by the funky design, landscaped gardens, and great service. A modern and edgy property that’s injected quite a trendy breath of fresh air.

Whether you’re in a bungalow, suite or villa you’re guaranteed luxury. An indoor-outdoor approach gives a real sense of outdoor living with private plant-shaded terraces and open-air showers. We opted for one of the Garden Bungalows. When it’s time to sleep, however, modern luxuries come into play. Not least the Evening Breeze system built into each bed, offering cold, cool and fresh temperatures that you can control with a remote.

An indoor-outdoor approach gives a real sense of outdoor living with private plant-shaded terraces

Thoughtful touches include kangas (traditional dresses worn by the women of the Swahili coast) waiting in your room on arrival in place of standard hotel gowns, and chewy coconut cookies left as part of the turndown service on your first night.

All rooms feature side tables carved from tree trunks and natural toiletries made with Zanzibar seaweed but if you want to spend a little more, the ocean-front villas also have private living areas, jacuzzis and their own, secluded stretch of beach.

Food

Choose from three restaurants dotted around the resort. Maisha (‘life’) is a little fancier (worth washing the salt out of your hair for), with a central, rope-decorated bar and lots of woven lamps and breezy poolside spot serving light snacks and local seafood. Take a seat on the terrace and tuck into prawn tacos, crayfish linguine or mezze platters of olive tapenade, pickled vegetables and pittas.

Tuck into mezze platters at the breezy poolside restaurant. In the evening the tasty set menu comes to life offering some of the best food from around the world.

If you’re after something more low-key, the buzzy Bahari (‘sea’) beach bar serves lunch throughout the day. Sink into squidgy sofas and sip on fiery ginger lassis, or perch at the bar and try juicy king prawn skewers with chimichurri sauce and seared tuna salads. Don’t miss out on dessert; peanut cookies sandwiching a scoop of sweet banana ice cream make an ideal mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

Sip on fiery ginger lassis on the private sandy beach

Breakfast and dinner are served in the resort’s main restaurant, Ubudo (‘love’). The menu changes each night but typical dishes range from a buffet of Mediterranean classics to fancy five-course set menus. Zanzibar grew up as a major hub on the spice-trading routes, so its cuisine is a blend of African, Indian and Middle Eastern flavours, and the Swahili dinners are where the kitchen really shines. Help yourself from pots filled with fragrant chicken pilau, made-to-order chapattis, fried green bananas, smoky aubergine slithers and jammy mango chutney. If you’ve room, make yourself a concoction of vanilla cream with dates, halva, cardamom syrup, coconut and sesame brittle for dessert.

Breakfast

A buffet-style spread of cold options can be beefed up with made-to-order hot options. Help yourself to bowls brimming with fresh-from-the-tree mango and passion fruit, or the dozen or so homemade varieties, made with local fruits, on the jam station (try tangy pineapple on slices of Madeira cake or sweet, sticky date on squidgy banana bread).

Join the queue for a frilly crêpe or a fluffy waffle then top it with caramelised banana, grated coconut and local honey. After something savoury? Chilli-spiked omelettes with spring onion and tomato pack a punch, with slices of chargrilled aubergine and courgette to pile on the side.

Try frilly crêpes, fruit jams and punchy juices at breakfast

There’s a smoothie counter too, with a different choice every day; think avocado and soursop, banana and papaya or even bungo juice (this orange fruit tastes a little like orange, pineapple and mango mixed together and gives a refreshingly sharp start to your day).

The Staff

With 90 percent of the staff from Tanzania — and 65 percent from Zanzibar — Zuri's long-term initiatives are focused on people.

The hotel has implemented a tourism and hospitality training program directed at young adults from the local villages, as well an environmental education program where students from nearby schools are taught about ecotourism via excursions to the Chumbe Island Coral Park. Zuri also works with HIPZ (Health Improvement Project Zanzibar), a charity aimed at providing medical care to those in rural areas and Blackwell's, a British book supplier, with the goal of establishing a library in Kendwa's Kilindi Primary School.

Throughout the grounds, this community spirit is on display. The staff — from the bands of gardeners to the Maasai Mara security detail — are nothing short of sunny and welcoming. You'll hear "hakuna matata,” the Swahili phrase meaning “no worries” (and made famous in The Lion King) more times than you can count.

Activities & Experiences

If there’s anywhere made for the fly-and-flop holiday, it’s probably most of the islands in the Indian Ocean. But Zanzibar, with its spice-trade past and Unesco-protected Stone Town, has plenty to coax you from coconut-sipping in a cabana – after you’ve enjoyed a spa treatment at Maua Wellness and tried out everything on offer over at the Wimbi Watersports Centre, of course.

Cooking Class: Try the Swahili dinner, then cook some of its components yourself with the help of chef John & Veronica. Hidden away in the spice garden is an outdoor kitchen where you can prepare the likes of pweza ya nazi (octopus in coconut), sambusa ya nyama (beef samosas), Chutney ya Nazi (Coconut Chutney) along with pilau ya kuku (spice rice with chicken) and mchicha ya nazi (Spinach in coconut) and some Swahili chapati. Don an apron and learn how to fold samosas, fry chapattis and grate coconut the traditional way. After the two-hour session, feast on rich spinach and coconut curry, fluffy turmeric-fried potato croquettes and a zingy tomato, red onion and lime salad.

Garden Tour: Guided tours of the spice garden take place every day, too. Let Mohammed explain to you the different types of plant and what they’re used for. Taste bitter cinnamon bark, freshly peeled from the tree, or take in the perfumed scent of fresh jasmine. From mango and custard apple to cardamom, baobab, black pepper and vanilla, everything seems to grow in abundance.

Free for Zuri Guest: Beach activities and games including – pentaquin, racquets, sand games, volleyball. The resort also provides Kayaks, stand-up paddle boarding and snorkeling sets.

Zuri Signature Sunset Cruise: We opted for this evening cruise and would highly recommend it. The beautiful LaPorte Dhow built exclusively for Zuri with Sundowners served on board this is the perfect ending to a perfect day.

The resort offers variety of offshore tours and visits to stone town and private island.

Overall

Good Vibes Meet Good Intentions at Zuri Zanzibar. Zuri Zanzibar's African-cool atmosphere is more than just cosmetic: It's also considered. Both ecologically and socially responsible, there's more to this hotel hotspot than its very pretty façade. The romantic touches and careful attention to detail make this place attractive to honeymooners and couples, many who appreciate the more relaxed, intimate vibe, especially when compared to other nearby chains.