Flora Zanzibar - The Swahili Culture &Culinary Experience.

Fantastic Tour ….you must go!

Flora Zanzibar and Cooking With the Mamas cultural tour. Wow wow wow! This and safari were the highlights of our vacation to Zanzibar. We booked through our travel agent TUI and were guided by Shaaban (Mira Tours) and Afida. We were collected from our hotel by our driver and enroute collected Shaaban who immediately put us at our ease. After around 25mins we arrived at our destination, a village where Afida joined us and together they dressed us in traditional African clothing explaining that on each Khanga is a phase in Swahili with a meaning. We walked into the village where we were shown and actually ourselves made bamboo leaf roofs for dwellings, bracelets and woven basket materials with the ladies of the village. We were shown into a home and the various customs explained and our every question answered plus attempts to educate us in the wonderful Swahili language. We were shown the incredible range of fruit grown and were fortunate to see preparations for a wedding happening that day and the excitement of the villagers …,beautiful to see. Then we walked into Flora where we experienced making food and an explanation of how food is served and eaten. It was inspirational and guided by Afida made coconut milk and chapatis from scratch! Everyone was so welcoming and kind and we truly admire Flora who are creating a unique opportunity for visitors to see the real Zanzibar and prove much needed sustainable employment for local people. Our thanks to Mohamed at Flora for his work and considerable investment to preserve and protect this wonderful place and traditions. These experiences are private tours for couples or very small groups, designed to feel intimate and give every opportunity to ask questions. We cannot recommend enough to others….please go!

via Tripadvisor

My Floral Zanzibar experience

Flora Zanzibar is professional and an expert at curating masterpiece holiday experience in Zanzibar. Their place was beautiful and had a welcoming natural ambience that was refreshing. Every member of the team was warm, friendly and delivered a delightful experience throughout my stay. I highly recommend them if you are visiting.

via Tripadvisor

Immersive Cultural Experience! I recommend

From the moment we met her, Afida was gracious, cheerful and accommodating. She patiently dorned all of us in our group in the Kangas, took us on a tour of one of oldest villages and we finally settled in to the culinary session…The meals were sumptuous and the radiant energy of the hosts lasted all though the session. We left very satisfied.

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Local cooking experience

The experience is extremely nice, especially if you interact with the local people and your guide. Ours was Afida, who guided us along a village and to buy vegetables to a local market. After that we went to a more touristic place, but suddenly the experience became again authentic. We started to cook our launch in the local way starting from the basic ingredients and producing the coconut milk. That time was very relaxing and gave us the opportunity to know more about local people. After that we had lunch together with Afida and Ali, a guy working at the place. I recommend the experience!

Response from the operator: Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful feedback! We are truly happy to hear that you enjoyed the authentic village experience and the time spent interacting with local people. Afida and Ali will be very proud to know they made your day special. Cooking together using local ingredients and traditional methods is something we love to share, and we’re glad it gave you a deeper connection with our culture. Thank you for recommending the experience — you are always welcome back to The Flora Zanzibar

via Tripadvisor

A backdoor to true Zanzibar

We almost accidentally found the place on Google Maps and thanks to its good reviews we visited Flora. Still we were positively surprised! One can visit Flora for a stay, for cooking classes, for local tours, and even to dress like locals and go shopping at a local market. All these with an honest intention to dive into Zanzibar's mix of African, Arabic and Indian cultures. And some people visit Flora for all of that together. Us, we wanted to have lunch, which accidentally turned into two hours of storytelling over a bao board game, walk through a fruits garden and - obviously - snacks and lunch. While we were talking we asked for a typical Zanzibari rice (we heard about it on another occasion and it is rarely served in restaurants) so they made for us two of these from outside their typical menu. Afida, who was our guide told us not only about the cuisine and local customs, but we also chatted about the culture and history of the Zanzibar islands (there are two, but until the visit we thought the Unguja was the Zanzibar, while it is one of a few).

Response from the operator: Wow. We are so excited to hear this from you. We believe we reached beyond your expectations, and you had a very good memory and experience. As we told you, we do not serve only food but a full experience of Zanzibar life. You are welcome back.

via Tripadvisor