Tanzania: Materuni Waterfall and Coffee

After a day of hoisting planks of wood and pulling nails from said planks, a bit of a walk was in order.  We loaded up students into the mini-bus and made our way across winding dirt roads to the trail entrance to Materuni Waterfall. 

A sloping, sweaty walk through the woods (jungle? there were spiders and banana trees) yielded a stunning view of the waterfall and the pond that caught its spring-fed remains.

We walked for maybe an hour before plunging into the ice-cold, waist-high pond at the other end.

There was lots of yoga balancing on the rocks and nice moments of calm. Pictures don't do it justice, perhaps because the school camera did lots of the picture taking and sharing those pictures on a public forum is just not kosher.

From there, we made our way back to the trailhead and over to a local coffee experience. Tanzania happens to be located in the African part of the Bean Belt, a world region between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Tanzanian coffee is some of the best in the world and we learned about the process from growth to cup. Students were privy to a production, from roasting the beans to grinding them using a gigantic mortar and pestle to taking slow sips. The sales pitch at the end was almost non-essential. We bought coffee by the tens of bags.