traveled in 3 countries Read more
  • Day 25

    Is the a lake? Is it a sea?

    June 21, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    A few hours and 2 buses after leaving Kitabi, I got out in a totally different climate zone. It's hard to believe in the first moment - I'm still in Rwanda, an east African country without access to the sea. Dry air, Mediterranean-like plants, smell of fresh water, maybe I just teleported to Croatia? This really shows how incredible this country is, combining so much biodiversity in such a small area! One thing that remained unchanged is the quality of service, yet again I had an amazing guide, who brought me for a boat trip with picturesque islands. Two of them had very special fauna on them, as you can see on the pictures ;)

    After enjoyable day, it's time to move again - next coastal town Gysenyi it's waiting for me!
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  • Day 23

    Follow that monkey!

    June 19, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Early morning in Uwinka station and first disappointing message - "Colobus monkeys are very far, on the hard trail, maybe do something else". But then, after me insisting to go and other guide endorsing my "physical shape", we departed quickly, to catch the tribe before they move again. Which went well as long as we stayed on the trail. After 40 min we meet the trackers, inviting us to follow them on the very steep hill into the jungle, lucky cleared a bit with the machete. 700m up. More than one hour struggling, sweating, swearing and embracing the jungle. How great felt the moment of the first monkey staring at us from the tree above! And then the second one, the third one, they were everywhere :) very beautiful, peaceful animals, not easy to catch in the eye of a camera with all their jumps between branches. Seeing them in their natural habitat was definitely worth the effort and once in a lifetime experience. To say goodbye to the Forest, I could still get some nice shot of other monkey species, that preferred to stay on the road ;)

    Time to say goodbye to the jungle for now, the next one comes on Friday in the Volcanos National Park. In the meantime, I'm going to move to the next station tomorrow, Karongi on the Kivu lake.
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  • Day 22

    Rumble in the Jungle, part 1

    June 18, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    The day started with a very scenic but safe, 50 mom long motobike ride through the National Park, with a couple of military checkpoints and animals on the way. Then I went to discover Imbaraga Trail - very steep and quite long (almost 5 hours walking) trail in the jungle. Stunning views on every step, all possible shades of green, hunderts of different sounds in the background. I was lucky enough to also get a very well prepared guide, who not only could spot different primates on the way, but also explain to me their behaviour. It turned out to be a very interesting biology class :) unfortunately the primates we met were a bit shy, so no great photos, but nothing is lost - tomorrow I will have a second round with dedicated Colobus monkey tracking!Read more

  • Day 21

    Let's go for a tea then

    June 17, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Finally departed! As sad as the last goodbye to all the amazing people that I had an honor to work with, I couldn't wait to start the "traveling part" of the trip. First stop was only 2h bis ride outside of Huye: Kitabi and charming Nziza Ecologe. Recommended and prepared by Eric, nothing could go wrong - the place is truly heaven on earth. Surrounded by tea plantations, on the border of Nyungwe NP, you can almost smell fresh air coming from the primary forest, hear the birds and water streams.

    Just before I go for a long hike tomorrow, I had a chance to learn more about tea and the forest itself on a short but very informative tour. It turned into a very fun coffee vs tea discussion with the guide, bringing yet another nice tourist business idea for the future ;)

    Being that close to the high altitude jungle and having such comfortable living conditions is really magic - I'm enjoying every minute of just looking into the lush green of the forest. Next step tomorrow, a motorbike taxi to the center of the forest and a 6h long hike :)
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  • Day 20

    It's all about people!

    June 16, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    My time in Huye is slowly going to an end. Everything that I experienced here, all upd and downs, happy and sad stories will probably find a place in some bigger piece of writing.
    But in the last post from here I would like to honor all the people that made this stay so special, cause in the end it's ALL about the people :)

    In a very random order, as the pictures are:

    - Eric, my guardian angel from the first to the last day, who became a friend for life and maybe even a business partner in the future. I could write the whole post about this guy, but I would rather link you there, to our fundraising action, please donate: https://gofund.me/f035d2bc

    - Aaron, who spent so much time with me roasting, packaging and grinding coffee and was first enthusiast of Aeropress in HMC

    - Rachel, who let me get deeper into the cupping and profile roasting, so I could really understand these last stages of coffee production. So many patience for my bad roasts ;)

    - Monique and Damascene, people doing so important work in data collection, bringing me so much inspiration for future projects. Plus pushing me to speak Kinyarwanda;)

    - Jonatan, unexpected bus buddy and the source of my social life in Huye, including long discussions about politics and future of the world

    - Mami, the one and only local friend, that helped me to get around in the town and brought so much insides about the present and past Rwanda

    -Jaques, the best, kindest and safest Mototaxi driver in whole country

    - last but not least ( and without the picture) : David , who made all of this possible in the first place!

    Of course there were way more people involved - workers, helpful folks in village, inspiring tourists on the tours - I'm not able to write about everyone without writing a book!

    If you missed it reading - donate to Eric ;)

    Stay tuned for the next adventure, on Saturday I'm on the way to Kitabi!
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  • Day 15

    Few days of the live of a tour guide

    June 11, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Finally the time has come, we started to get more and more tourists, one of the last activities I haven't yet taken part in. And having a blast, sharing the knowledge and experience with people from all over the world. Knowing that my stay here is slowly going to an end, I'm also trying to bring new ideas and implement some small improvements already, feeling proud of my new family but also sad that I am going to leave them soon. More details soon :)Read more

  • Day 11

    Why is it called washing station?

    June 7, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    After multiple corrections finally I have enough material to answer a very common mistake: no, I'm neither working on the coffee plantation nor the coffee farm. It's a washing station, so the place that gathers, process and evaluates the coffee from different farmers. Washing is one of the processing methods and I was super lucky to be able to actually take part in it :) winning not only knowledge, but also respect of another group of workers. With some bonus muscle pain ;)Read more

  • Day 10

    Dry jobs and wet jobs

    June 6, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Days full of different jobs: dry ones ( roasting, packaging and dealing coffee for the local market) and very wet ones (depulping coffee cherries and placing them in the fermentation tanks). Lesson of the day - all the sorting I was doing till now was only for natural processed coffee, the washed one is sorted AFTER depulping and washing so without the fruit. Every day I see more and more complexity in this process and multiple levels of filtering / grading the product, that is "just a cup of coffee" in Europe. So much knowledge that the consumers have no idea about!Read more

  • Day 8

    City that's hard to leave...

    June 4, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    ... but not for the reasons you can think of ;) Weekend trip to the capital sounded very nice in theory and it's something what most of the students are doing on a weekly basis, so I wanted to try that do. Mission accomplished - I got the coffee equipment for my future students in the office, strolled for hours in the charming Muslim part of the city, tried some good coffee and met dancer friend from Berlin for dinner. "You shouldn't leave Kigali without the Genocide Memorial experience" everyone told me, so I included also that part today. Not an easy digest, but a needed one to fully reflect about the past and the future of this fascinating but complicated country. Talking about complicated -leaving this place was a pure nightmare, random buses coming and going, screaming and pushing crowds, everything on top of classical African Bus Station chaos. I'm happy to be back home, in Huye :)Read more

  • Day 6

    Deep diving

    June 2, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Today was the longest Friday I had since a while, an 11h long day full of new experiences. New stages of the coffee production : floating and washing (workers freaked out seeing me at 7.30 in the morning, they got instructed to let me jump into the water and do the job next time ;) ). Then finally breaking ice with sorting ladies, some learned my name and stopped just calling me muzungu. And last but not least first sample roasting, which will be a big part of my work next week. On top of that - after work beer with colleagues in a local bar in the village. Hard to believe that I live here for only 5 days!Read more

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