Materuni waterfalls and coffee tour

Not far from Moshi town, right next to mount Kilimanjaro, lies the beautiful village of Materuni. Known from its aromatic, rich and organic Arabica coffee and a home for a local Chagga people. After 40 minutes of hiking from the village you find the magnificent Materuni waterfalls.

We did a trip to the Materuni waterfalls along with a coffee tour a few days ago. The weather was sunny and hot. We drove to the Materuni village which took about half an hour from Moshi town. We parked the car and started our hike to the waterfalls through a rainforest zone, passing coffee, avocado and banana plantations, up and down mini-valleys, across ridges and through narrow splashing rivulets. It rained in the morning so the route to the waterfalls was slippery and sweaty. Actually we had a little bet who will fall due to the slippery road, luckily no-one did.

Materuni waterfalls are approximately 2,500m above sealevel and the cliffs towers to 60m overhead.  The water falls straight down into a rippling pool where we could take a swim. Many people warned us that the water will be cold but we think they didn’t remember where we come from. The water was chilly but refreshing after the hike. Due to the rain the water splashed so hard that even only standing beside the pool made you all soaked.

After the refreshing dip we hiked back to the village and learned a few secrets about perfect coffee from local Chagga people. The territory has the perfect mixture of soil and climate to produce coffee. They told us about the grown, harvest and process. We peeled off a shell of a coffee bean by pounding it with a wooden stick, roasted it, grinded it and then boiled it into a delicious coffee. Eszter, who’s not a big fan of coffee (read: never drinks it) did it black and actually liked it (after adding a little sugar into it).

What a great day outdoors!