The Baixa is the old commercial quarter that runs down to the harbour on the western side of the headland. Faded Portuguese colonial shopfronts line the streets — many of them with carved wooden balconies above arched arcades — and the market square is one of the busiest places in town.
A walk through here in the cooler morning hours gives a real sense of Pemba's history as a Swahili-Portuguese trading port. The buildings are crumbling but the rhythm of street life is intact.