One day, I arranged a waterfall tour for me and the boys. The wife of one of Paul's classmates joined us as well. There were various things we were to have seen and we did, in a fashion, see most of them. Overall, though, it was a very different day than expected. We saw a really beautiful area and hiked along the countryside, through banana, bean, coffee, and various other small farms. We saw a Chagga cave and several waterfalls (one involving a ridiculous amount of very steep, slippery stairs.) We walked along and over a river and and saw wild chameleons (we had to stop and try to hold each one.) It was stunning and so very, very nice to be away from the noise, heat and dust of the city. The end point of the tour was to go see a coffee farm with a Chagga coffee farmer.
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| A photo of the tour of one of the caves the Chagga used when they were hiding from the Maasai (we were also told some disturbingly bloody stories about that). This was been a long, long time ago, and of course then they didn't have electricity then. As it was, this single bulb, suspended from a long cord patched along the walk, was running on a generator that cut out during our time on the tour. |
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| One of the waterfalls. It was SO nice to get out of the dust,y noisy city and hike. Incredibly beautiful area. Here you see O with our guide, PDD (short for Puff Daddy). |
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| ONE of the wild chameleons we saw. Of course I FREAKED out with excitement over them and we stopped to hold each one. The locals found that rather amusing. Apparently Tanzanian women do not touch them, I forget exactly why. There was something specific they were supposedly afraid of happening. Just let me reiterate how EXCITED I was to see them in the wild. Seriously so, so, so excited and we saw SEVEN. Which means we missed many, many more. Did I make it clear how much I LOVED seeing them? Never really grew tired of it. |
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| Land Snail |
The farm we toured was very small and the farmer was proud of the diversity of things he grew. What I thought was a sort of barn, was his house. A wooden structure of two rooms, not connected, with doors open to the "yard". Connected to them, were his goats in enclosures that were up off the ground. That way he could collect the droppings to fertilize with.
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| One of the goats. |
We decided not to drink a cup of coffee. Several reasons why, and I felt guilty about not- since then you "donate" for the coffee and he was showing us other things we could buy. I then (guilt) bought a bag of coffee beans from him. The only issue was that he had a 2 1/2 foot tall mortar and pestle they use to 'grind' the coffee (it's really pounded by hand with a long wooden stick that reaches deep into the wood structure) and the beans I bought were whole. No one in town had a grinder except the one coffee shop in town that roasted and sold their own beans. I did ask if they'd grind it for me and they said no.
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| The coffee farmer with the boys. |
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| Here he shows us how he grinds his beans, the little boy in the background, he said, was one of his grandchildren. |
