Materuni Village Cultural Tourism
Materuni is a small Tanzanian village located on the outskirts of Moshi city. A wonderful particularity about Materuni village is its location on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. With a group of friends, we went to visit and learn about the culture in this Village.
Before starting the adventure, we stayed in an eco-friendly housing in Moshi called Mountain Bikes House. The place was very beautiful and peaceful. We spent two wonderful nights at the house.
For dinner, we drove to a place called Maisha Halisi. A very cozy place, entirely built with wood. Upstairs, the view was wonderful. We could see the peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro while enjoying dinner and music with friends. After dinner, it was time to experience the night life in Moshi city. We went to Red Stone, one of the popular music place in the city. The next day, we had to wake up early to start the adventure.
Materuni Waterfall hiking
Located in the middle of beautiful rainforest and agricultural land, Materuni waterfall is popular for being the highest waterfall on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. The real hiking experience to Materuni waterfall started from Arusha city. The journey started on a 2 hours train to Moshi, then we boarded a mini Bus to Materuni Village.
Once at the village, we dropped from the bus to start hiking through the picturesque agricultural land and deep rain forest to the waterfall.
The hiking to the waterfall took about 45 minutes and the walking has been very pleasant with a breath of fresh air and a very chill environment. We enjoyed every step towards the waterfall and we were quite curious and excited to see what this waterfall has to offer.
After the waterfall, we returned inside the Materuni village to a very typical local house where we had lunch and learned about processing coffee traditionally.
Coffee processing
We were quite ignorant about the coffee process even though some of us drink coffee daily. The coffee tour was a very insightful learning opportunity. The Tanzanian way of doing coffee. The process was quite simple. The coffee beans are ground using local tools and transformed into mud of coffee. Before grinding the coffee beans, the beans have been grilled on fire in a steel vessel. After grinding, the powder has been sifted to collect the soft and fine powder. The fine powder is used as the end product for making coffee. The process was lively with a lot of singing in Swahili. Below are some visual images that will help in understanding how we did it.
These 2 nights in Moshi and the hike to the waterfalls have been an amazing learning and discovery opportunity for all the participants. We enjoyed every moment. The last day was a lazy day. We slept the whole morning before departure to Arusha city.
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Afreeka Yetu 
It was amazing !
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