Kilwa and Surrounding Islands

Situated as it is down 300 kilometres of atrocious road from Dar es Salaam, the island of Kilwa Kisiwani is rarely visited except by hardy backpackers and comitted archeologists. Once, however, this forgotten town was a bustling metropolis swarming with visitors from all over the ancient world. The island town of Kilwa Kisiwani was the principal city in the loose conglomeration of sultanates known as the Swahili civilisation, a centre of the trade in gold that was mined near Sofala in present-day Mozambique. Kilwa’s glory days came to an ignominious end when the town was sacked by the Portuguese, and subsequently fell into decline, leaving it as it is today – a faded collection of crumbling ruins with the echos of ghostly voices in the whispers of the wind in the palm trees.