[Saturday, July 29, 2023]
After long last, today will be the official start of the Trafalgar Safari tour. It was our understanding that we will meet our tour director and the rest of the members of this trek later this afternoon and meet for dinner at The Carnivore restaurant, which is part of the Tamarind Group of companies (and the Hotel we are currently residing in). We have not heard from the tour director yet, so that should tell you that I’m writing this before the end of the day. We have already had a couple amazing adventures and I want to write them down before I forget some of the things we have experienced.
Since our tour does not officially start until later this afternoon/early evening, we had pre-arranged a tour of the Fairview Coffee Estate, a local coffee plantation, for the morning hours. This one started at 9:30 AM, so we had a bit more time to get ready. That does not mean that we slept-in this time. It seems the rather drastic time change of 9 hours different from our home time zone is still wreaking havoc on our sleep pattern (well at least mine). I’m tired at the end of the evening, say 9:30/10:00 PM, but I wake up at 1:30 AM and it’s like my body thinks it’s morning. I struggle to go back to sleep and may get a few more hours, say 3:30 AM, but after that it’s like it’s supposed to be time to get up. I’m not enjoying that part of this. If anyone reading this has some suggestions on how to cope with jet lag, I’m all ears.
Breakfast this morning was not nearly as rushed at the previous days, and I took advantage of noticing the omelette station that I noticed yesterday. The fresh passion fruit, mango juice and Kenyan Tomatoes are to die for. However, we did notice that the place was quite a bit busier than the day before. Yesterday I was asked if I wanted coffee 4 times. Today, I had to ask four times to actually get one. It must be because it’s the weekend. Once we were done, we did a quick check of the clothes we had washed the previous evening and found them to be just slightly damp still – so we decided to put the “Do Not Disturb” sign up on the door and leave the cleverly installed clothesline up while we headed out for the morning.
We then headed down to the lobby to wait for our driver about 15 minutes before our scheduled departure. We had just stepped outside and were chatting with the security guard who had just asked the name of the driver for the tour. Laureen had responded with the name “Fredrick”, just as a man happened to be walking up to the entrance. Sure enough, it was Fredrick. We hopped into his van (quite a bit more comfortable that the cars that we have had thus far) and started off on our 30 Km journey to the coffee estate. Traffic was a little slow for the first while, I guess it’s because it’s the weekend and people were out doing their weekend activities. The driving here is interesting, as was noted in a previous post. Lines on the road are a suggestion only. Cutting in seems to be the norm (and nobody is ever angry about it – whereas back at home you’ be getting the bird left, right and center). And there are surprisingly few accidents.
We arrived at Fairview Coffee Estate at about 10:15 AM and were met right away by Liz, our tour guide for the duration of our stay. She noted that there would be three stages to our tour: out on the farm, a walk through the processing facility and then into the research center where we would be part of a coffee tasting. This beautiful coffee farm with nearly 100 acres under coffee sits at 1,750 meters above sea level. You can almost tell just by looking at the rich red volcanic soil that the coffee would grow exceptionally well. Our timing was poor to experience any harvesting as there are typically two times for picking, April/May and October/November. We could see the October/November crop forming as most of the cherries were still very green.
Liz noted that there were three different kinds of coffee being grown here one of which was SL-34 (which stands for Scottish Labs number 34). It seems the British brought coffee to Kenya in hopes to produce crops for their use. Most of this was done using Kenyan slaves. The main stock of the coffee tree is the original stock that was planted 115 years ago under the British. Just like grapes, the trees are cut down to the main stock every five to six years to keep the plant new and short. Coffee trees can grow up to 30 feet high if left untended. That does not make picking any easier and the older the stocks, the more bitter the taste of the coffee. The main coffee stock will live upwards of 300 years.
They also grow several other items on the estate, including mace (white corn – which they were quick to point out was non-GMO and that our yellow corn was GMO), Plantain, bananas, watermelon, avocado, and they even raise some cattle. It all works together in a closed eco-system. The corn is used for feed for the cattle, the cattle produce manure which is used as fertilizer for the soil (along with the pulp from the coffee harvesting process).
Next, we went through the processing steps from the collecting of the coffee cherries, the separating of them into their respective grades (of which there are 4) through a washing technique (some float and some sink), hand sorting out any abnormal beans, the removing of the husk and drying them on raised beds out in the sunshine. It was amazing to see all the steps it goes through. There was so much more that it is hard to recall all the things that Liz mentioned about the process. Suffice it to say that there is a lot that goes into that cup of coffee you have each morning.
After seeing the entire process, we went into their research area where they poured out four different brews for us to try and it was our task to identify the light, medium, dark and honey (which was a light roast that had gone through a fermentation process). We first had to just smell the coffee after pushing away the froth with a spoon. At that point we had half of them correct. Next was the tasting where you had to slurp a small amount of the coffee from a small cup. The slurping is like aerating a wine and allows for the flavours to be more present. In the end, we guessed them correctly.
The last portion of the tour was back out in the garden of the estate where they had some tables to sit at and some prepared coffee for us to drink. We were lucky enough to have Mr. Michael Warui present, who is the Fairview Estate Director and the son of the founders. We enjoyed their freshly brewed coffee with two small cookies and a chance to chat with the director about the business, family and their future vision for the coffee industry on the estate. He told us that people are moving away from farming coffee because of how much the land value has gone up. An acre of land is 500,000.00 US dollars. When they bought the estate, it was $120.00 and acre. You read that right 120 vs 500,000. So, landowners are selling their land to developers who are building condos over what used to be coffee farmland.
We said goodbye to Mr. Warui and met up with our driver for the trek back to the hotel. Fredrick asked us if we had plans for the afternoon and we told him that we did not. He offered to take us up to the tea plantations which are at an even higher elevation than the coffee farms. We agreed, and off we went, driving for another 25 minutes into the high country. One could feel the air get cooler as we climbed. Fredrick pointed down a road, as we were near the top and indicated that his childhood home was just 2 km down that road where his parents still have a small tea farm. We drove a bit further and he pulled over to the side of the road and we all piled out of the vehicle. The pictures below capture the stunningly beautiful view of the tea fields.
Fredrick described that the tea trees are harvested once a month and that there are two grades of tea leaves. The first grade is the top of the trees 3 or 4 leaves. The second grade is the leaves below that. So, once the leaves are harvested, it takes another month for the new growth to be ready for the next harvest. This cycle continues repeatedly. And, just like coffee trees, the main stock of a tea tree is left and can get very old. It’s cut down approximately every six months to keep it short and to encourage the new growth.
We hopped back into the van and headed back to the hotel. Traffic was a little heavy on the way, so we had plenty of time to chat with Fredrick about a variety of subjects. I have to say, that all the Kenyan people that we have met thus far have been extremely friendly. We said goodbye to Fredrick and had a quick smaller late lunch at the hotel restaurant (where we happened to witness a Kenyan wedding taking place in the courtyard). Then it was back to the room to fold our now dried clothes and start writing the blog until it is time to go for an introductory dinner with the tour director and our travelling companions.
EVENING UPDATE:
The official Trafalgar tour began tonight. Our travel team members met at 6:45 p.m. in the lobby of the hotel for the first time. Our group will be a small group consisting of six travellers and one tour guide, Hemisi, who is a local man and has been leading tour groups for over 15 years. His schooling background in business management was not as fulfilling as his desire to travel, be with people and his love of animals. Being a tour guide allows him to use his vocation and passions. He will be our guide for the Kenya portion of our tour. Then we will be handed over to a Tanzania guide at the border.
We took a few moments to introduce ourselves. One couple is from the Markham, Ontario area. A mom and daughter duo are originally from Puerto Rico, where the mom continues to reside, and the daughter now lives/works in Miami. And then there is Curt and me.
After some conversations about upcoming travelling days, we were ready to walk through the Tamarind Tree Hotel gardens over to The Carnivore restaurant. The restaurant is very well known for its style of serving meat that has been roasted on large traditional Maasai swords. There is a huge charcoal pit where they roast: Leg of Lamb, Beef Sausages, Leg of Pork, Pork Ribs, Beef Ribs, Rump (Beef) Roast, Whole Turkey, a couple of Chicken options AND tonight’s exotic meats were Ox Ball, Ostrich Meatballs and Crocodile. I think we tried almost all the various meats except the Ox Ball. There also was soup, bread, roasted potatoes, four varieties of salad and several tasty sauces to complement the different meats.
As a group of seven we had interesting conversations with our travel mates. We talked about our careers, our families and our love of travel adventures.
G'night all.
Curt & Laureen
