I think I wasn't there long enough to be enchanted. Its a small island surrounded by blue water with mangrove swamps on the horizon towards the mainland, and has a half-decayed half-restored town with a lazy feel to it. An 18th century fortress dominates one side of the town, dazzling in its just-restored whiteness and housing a collection of artisans and silversmiths hamering away at the metal while crouching on the floor. In the heart of the town is the "Central Electrica", but there is no electricty and no bank.
David and I stayed at the Miti Miwire (two trees) hostel which has a beautiful garden complete with lie-down swings and rabbits, and my best memories of the island were from the long, slow conversations with Elder and Joerg, the French-German ex-backpacker pair who ran it. Our first night there was Eid, the celebration of the end of Ramadan, and I went with them to a dance club, where young people were dirty dancing to slow music and then boogying to club stuff I was a little more familiar with.
The cliche is that the path is the destination, and getting to the island and back from it were the real enchantment, in different ways. Getting there was with a diving dhow safari: a South African outfit Findemundo Safaris which is based there were returning from Pemba, so the trip had about 30 hours on the water, including a couple of dives, dolphins, pods of humpback whales smacking their tails onto the water surface.
The trip back to Pemba was much shorter but beautiful in a different way: an island-hopping flight with a Cessna Caravan which provided views of the archipelago from the air. Some of the islands (like Mejumbe) are private, little larger than an air strip and a desalination plant, and have lodges of the $500+ per night category on them.
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