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Africa Coffee Tour 2023
  • Bartosz Plotka

Africa Coffee Tour 2023

A 62-day adventure by Bartosz Read more
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  • Trip start
    May 28, 2023
    Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Where the journey started

    May 25, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Office

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Huye Coffee Mountain, day 1

    May 29, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Starting day with a long trip to the southern border of Rwanda, to the small town Huye, where I'm going to spend next 3 weeks. All formalities done, first and last day of being a tourist here :)

    Surprising topic of the day - bikes, bikes everywhere! I never have seen so many of them in a single African country than in the Land of Thousand Hills. Used for everything, they can also transport heavy stuff, like furniture, bricks or ... coffee ;)    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Getting part of the family

    May 30, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    The official name of the company I have an honor to stary with is "Huye Mountain Coffee, Mr. David and family". The family means here whole team working on the coffee, from harvesters to coffee graders. I'm so happy to feel slowly part of this family too ❤️ even if it means traveling twice a day with Mototaxi and embracing the slow montion speed of life ;) So much to learn and to discover yet!Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    From the seed to the cup

    May 31, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    Highest chance to get my hands dirty - finally I got a chance to work with sorting the cherries, a very crucial part of the process to get high quality speciality coffee. "Strange Muzungu" was the description I got from the workers, but after a few hours I also learned that I'm "good at it" ;) It's hard to describe without all the senses - the small or partially fermented coffee, the stickyness of the fruits, never ending chats and laughter in Kinyarwanda. Then afternoon on a very shaky truck to collect the fruits from the farmers, in a very deep province of Rwanda. Every day makes me understand more and more the complex way of coffee until it reaches the cup :)Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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!    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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 :)    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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.    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    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!    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    On the way to the North

    June 23, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Not so much to write this time - to split a very tiring trip to the north I decided to have a stop in Gysenyi, another town on the coast. Way more restaurants and easy nicer beach, but apart of that, still quite sleepy place with few nice postcolonial buildings, having a bit of a charm of vacation town for rich people.

    Not my cup of tea, let's continue to the North ;)    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Musanze in the mist

    June 23, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    After a very pleasant and short drive I arrived at the Northern Province and its capital Musanze. A very vibrant city, with a lot of traffic, feeling like a good balance between Kigali and Huye. And whenever I looked back, I could see more and more of the beautiful Volcanos appearing on the horizon :) Bonus points for first chemex coffee I got on the way, served together with the excellent cinnamon bun in apparently the best coffee place in the town :) To finish the day, I took long walk alone the villages between the town and Red Rocks Camp, such a special quality of Rwanda, being able to experience local live without having any security concern or discomfort!

    Tomorrow is the highlight, gorilla tracking!    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Face to face with the gorilla

    June 24, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    The day has come - 10 years after seeing these marvelous beings in Bwindi Forest in Uganda, again I got the chance to track Mountain Gorillas in their natural environment. As everything in Rwanda, it's organized in maximal backpacker unfriendly way - nothing goes without a car and a driver, the whole briefing process takes ages and getting to the starting point is extremely complicated. Nevertheless - for the first time since I left Berlin I was in the crowd of white people. Was it a tourist trap? Definitely no! The tracking was very professional and Gorillas well habitated, so after a relatively easy and short hike in deep jungle we met our beloved Titus Family. It was such an honor and extraordinary experience to be about to start next to multiple gorillas for a full hour, I'm without disturbing their natural life. It was fascinating, how safe I felt seeing these gentle giants walking in my direction only to stop 0,5 meters before and sit, turning it's back to me.

    As much as Gorillas area being used for the whole tourism business, they are magnificent creatures deserving protection and and Rwanda is offering them the best possible one. Once in a lifetime experience and definitely worth the effort :)    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Mud is the limit

    June 25, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Mustanze is definitely hiking location - so why not to continue with hiking one of the dormant Volcanos after the gorillas? Today's target was Mount Bisoke, 3711 m high, a serious mountain to climb. As usual in Virunga, the weather was very humid and misty, which brings this feeling of mystery and magic around you. Starting with the fields,we quickly entered the jungle on a quite steep, extremely muddy path, between the examples of crazy jungle vegetation. How lucky I was with my driver, strongly sugesting me to rent the "rangers boots"! At some point we were drowning in the mud, but all of this was worth it to reach the beautiful lake in the crater of the volcano. On the way down I realized, that this was probably my last "face to face" with the jungle in Rwanda. This year ;)Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Second chance for the capital

    June 28, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    When did it happen, already month in Rwanda? The last few days I decided to stay in Kigali , first exploring the city more and then going for an intense day trip to Akagera NP.

    To give this city a chance to convince me, after the initial fail, I tried to be more prepared and look for what I was missing in the last few days - art, culture and good non-african food. To my surprise,I found all of them! Stunning and authentic Indian cuisine, very sad and informative Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial, multiple interesting craft shops run by communities. The final part of the day was spent in the modern part of the city, around the Kigali Convention Center. I couldn't imagine the biggest contrast to poor villages in the North of the country... Luckily it's not only about business, there is also a place for true art there - Inema Arts Center, gallery created by the group of excellent local artists.

    Maybe it's still not the city to settle down, bit I'm slowly starting to understand the soul of Kigali :)    Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Looking for an invisible elephant

    June 29, 2023 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Last chance to explore rwandan nature before I move to Kenya, in the famous Akagera National Park. One of the biggest national parks in Africa, unfortunately almost destroyed due to extensive hunting activities until 1994. Now it's still in the reconstruction phase - new animals are being introduced, existing once slowly increase their population. The size of the park wasn't our friend this time - after 7h driving we haven't spotted any single elephant, despite very intense tries. Nevertheless, silne other animals showed up and we got so tired, that coming back to the city was the only option. Summary: interesting experience with the bitter aftertaste of humans made destruction of nature. I hope to see Akagera thriving in the next years!Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Nairobbery? Maybe, but also fun city :)

    July 2, 2023 in Kenya ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Arrived to Kenya! Second country on my way and even if I still stay in East Africa, the differences between Kigali and Nairobi are huge. I have to say goodbye to perfectly clean streets, regulated traffic and safety at night. The first thing I got as part of the briefing were security instructions - where to go, what to do to not get robbed instantly. It's discomfort, it's annoying, but well,I had worse in South America. On the other hand Uber works everywhere, drivers know the city and are so nice, that almost every drive is fun conversation. I haven't met anyone who cannot speak English yet - this makes connecting to people much easier. On top of everything, there is culture - starting with great Jazz Festival on the first data, I could continued with chilled afternoon in K1 Club, listening to various local live music. I didn't forget about the nature of course - within the city there are multiple animal conservatories available. I decided to start with Giraffe Center, where young animals are being saved and prepared to be released into the wild. Allowing tourists to feed them with snacks ensures surviving of the place and let us get more knowledge from the excellent guides. Definitely worth visiting! After that run through huge reptiles center in the National Museum , learning how soft the feet of baby crocodiles are and with the rest of my energy absolved a few walking tour in Nairobi. Tomorrow I'll head to Massai Mara, but already looking forward to come back to this city :)Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    True Safari Experience

    July 4, 2023 in Kenya ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    One picture is worth 1000 words they say - if so, then there is no need to write anything about Massai Mara. I decided to have a budget trip here, but even so I could see plenty of animals every day, especially leopards and cheetahs from such a short distance, that I could almost touch them. The camp, which was supposed to be a budget accommodation, exceeded all expectations - super clean safari tent with bathroom and got shower, very good food served always on time, O couldn't imagine a safari organized better :) All was fun, but I'm done with drive safaris for now, after spending 10h in the car again I can't wait to go for a bike trip to Hells Gate near Naivasha and hike more!Read more

  • Bartosz PlotkaAfrica Coffee Tour 2023Traveler

    Bike & hike in Hell's Gate

    July 7, 2023 in Kenya ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    After the first day in Naivasha and being too tired to even write a word beside the pictures yesterday, today more content :) The plan of the day was to explore Hells Gate NP, the only park in Kenya that can be visited by bike. Conveniently, quite good mountain bikes can be rented near the entrance and the adventure can begin! It was so nice to finally do silne sports and enjoy nature without a car. After around 1 h of biking between zebras, giraffes and baboons I reached the gorge, where I had to leave to bike. From there it was hiking time! It was a big surprise for me that Kenya is hiding such natural wonders like this park, reminding me so much of a few European National Parks. Going back was a little bit tiring but then O got lucky again - a local teacher coming back to the town offered me a ride, with the lovely statement "I'm not a taxi driver, but you are human in need". On the final of the trip, a delicious lunch in the local bar, recommended by my new friend. Until now, Kenyan towns have been treating me well:)Read more

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