Friday night, Kelly and I headed to Glacier bar for an adult beverage and some socializing. While we were there, a group of Tanzanian boys performed acrobatics tricks that were unlike anything I have ever seen.
Today, we hiked 45 minutes to the Materuni waterfall. The waterfall is approx 90m high and located in the village of Marangu (40 min outside Moshi on Mt Kilimanjaro) which is inhabited by the Chagga tribe. Our tour guide, Richard, was a young guy from Marangu and the Chagga tribe, so he was extremely knowledgable about the area and the wildlife. Along the hike he identified various fruits, herbs and medicines. We saw passion fruit, avocado, sandpaper leaves, lemon leaves, eucalyptus, coffee trees, and mango, just to name a few. When we arrived at the waterfall I was in awe! It was magnificent, tall, and the surrounding area was beautiful!
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| Sandpaper leaf |
After the waterfall, we headed back to Richards house in Marangu to learn the process of making coffee, starting with the coffee seed and ending with the cup of coffee. It was definitely a PROCESS but extremely interesting to see where our coffee comes from. Richard and his family, as well has his village, specifically grow Arabica coffee.
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| The coffee seed w/ shell drying out in the hot sun. |
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| Pounding the coffee seed to remove the shell. |
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| Roasting and stirring the seed over the fire |
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| The roasted seed |
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| Pounding the roasted beans to make a fine powder. |
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| Sifting the powder |
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| The final product . . . Coffee! |
Before we headed home we stopped at a local store to try banana beer and banana wine which are alcoholic beverages made only by people of the Chagga tribe. Kelly and I have been hearing about this and decided we needed to give it a try. Banana beer is made of banana (of course) and millet flour. The millet tends to float on the top of the beer making it an unusual texture and slightly hard to swallow :/
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| Can't say we loved it but . . . When in Tanzania! |
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| Our guide Richard |
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Straining the millet off the top
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Poa kichizi kama ndizi (cool, crazy like a banana),
Krista
What a week you've had! Amazing experiences - so glad the two of you are taking it all in. Not so sure how I feel about the beer out of a plastic pail. Enjoy church tomorrow. Maybe someone will invite you to their home for lunch?!
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