I’m up way early today. Sun is already blazing by 07:00, so I un-cocoon myself and hop out of bed, get some coffee and rusks for the wife (man of the Year, 2009 nominee) and start packing up.
Mr Tea pot (I call him now, since I cannot for the life of me remember his name...) collets us at 09:00 and walks us around the back to the tea plantation. As with the 1st plantation we saw coming into town, this one is every bit as impressive. I later found out the big one we saw was Lipton’s. The other big tea company operating here is Finleys. A few interesting bits:
The trees at this plantation are 60 years old. They were planted in 1965. The trees (because that’s what they are, not bush or shrubbery. The Red bush variety is a bush, of course.) are allowed to grow waist height. This allows for easy picking, since you don’t have to bend too low or reach high. Picking is done by hand, in gangs of up to 60 people. They get paid 7 KSh per KG, and on average a single picker can pick 60 KG’s. The better ones can go up to a 100KG’s. Work starts at 07:00 to 16:00 each day and they rotate plantations every 2 weeks, to give the top leaves time to re-grow. As you can as such gather, they only harvest to top leaves, by hand, with a scissor like motion, and chucks it into a basket on their backs.
At every interval you see a higher growing stem (as opposed to the seemingly perfectly manicured uniform height). The trees look very thick and almost insurmountable but you can actually walk through them with ease. Each picker will return to the same block every 2 weeks, so he picks up where he left off. This is so that they don’t inherit another pickers mess, since it’s in your best interest to pick carefully so you don’t damage the leaves below the top most leaves and that, 2 weeks later, you have a intact, fresh batch to harvest (quite cool, I thought).
Each picker walk around with a little stick, called a picking stick. They place this on top of the tree as a measure. Any part that sticks out above that is plucked. Just like getting a haircut, but using a comb! Quite smart.
Employed workers are given housing on site and their children go to schools on site too. No one younger than 18 can work in the plantation, although during school holidays the kids can help out if they want (more for fun, really. Remember, the trees are waist high, for an adult. So very high for a kid).
Dotted around the plantation are eucalyptus and gum trees. These are used at the factories as fuel to aid the fermentation process. Fermentation is done naturally, no additives. The leaves are chopped finer and finer and left to ferment before being packaged. Flavours may also be added, depending on the end product. No pesticides are used in this particular plantation, and old, inferior tea plants and recycled as compost (the squishy bits we were standing on).
New trees can be cultivated from stems cut off an existing tree. These are cultivated in a lab in a tube with soil for 3 weeks. The new sapling can then be planted outside and allowed to grow for 3 years before it too can be harvested. Tea trees can grow up to 25 meters or more if they’re not pruned or harvested. Pruning takes place every 4 years and new branches grow back in 3 months. Some of the trees here had moss on them! A testament to how old they were.
After the tour, we are invited to the hotel for some tea and biscuits. Delicious! We also pay 200 KSh per person for the tour. Do some quick math on that, and he made a cool 1200 KSh. How much do plucky pluckers pluck in a plucking long day? Was it 60KG’s @ 7Ksh per KG? And that’s for a full day. He worked one hour. Mmmmm. The man clearly has a niche. Whatever. It was worth it. The hotel was quite full as well, so no doubt Mr Teas Pot made a killing.
We’re outta there by 10:30 and Annelie and I stop at the gate, at an old fuel station which now served as a curio shop. Cool stuff, very impressive workmanship. We buy some coasters for that awesome Tanzanian dark wood table I’m gonna buy. One day. When I’m big.
Onward to Kakamega (that WAS the right spelling). By 13:47 exactly we reach the equator! Well, we kinda drive over it, by a few meters, reverse, drive forward, reverse a scotch and stop. Everyone gets out and starts debating where the REAL line is, since the GPS units are all RIGHT, but we’re standing in different locations. We decide what’s a few meters between friends, draw our own lines in the sand and straddle them while we snap some pics. The locals think we are supremely batty. Weird thing is, this aint nothing like Greenwich, with a nice tidy garden and line showing where the equator is. Just little run down shops, only ONE with “Equator” in the name (they sold hardware). This being Africa, I was expecting a boom, with a toll of at least $5 and a shit ton of the same, tired, souvenir shops selling globes cut in two or whatever trinket you’d associate with, I dunno, a line half way through the planet. Whatever, we had fun anyways! I look forward to the toilet water turning the opposite way when I pee-pee.
We reach the forest reserve about 3 hours later and start checking for a spot to deploy. Pretty slim pickings, even if the 2 places we visit weren’t full already. We are also introduced to rain forest conditions: rolling thunder heralding a bit rain storm in exactly 3 minutes. Swell. We decide that camping in this rain is the pits and proceed to another Lodge. But at $50 pp according to the locals, Annelie and I opt for the Savona Isle Resort, which according to my Lonely Planet is not bad. The Savona wasn’t on any of the GPS units, however. We pick up a tour guide who can show us the way.
Rock up at Savona, and it looks quite good. For the price, it’s a steal at 2600 KSh for a room. Big bar area, nice restaurant, pool, steam room (hasn’t worked in 10 years, from the looks of it) and located in the middle of the river (hence the “Isle” bit) surrounded by huge bamboo and trees. We check in and just as I SMS the others they arrive. Apparently the $50 pp Rondo was PARADISE! But they too are fully booked. Everybody checks in and orders dinner (seems a common thing in African lodges, where you have to order in the afternoon already so that they can prepare everything). They have a HUGE menu, even “Chainese”. Yes, that should be Chinese. We gamble on the mutton curry. We get... something. Very chewy, I suspect it was goat. I feed half my plate to the cat begging next to my chair all night. The chips where fantastic! As where the chapattis, a doughy pancake thing.
Tuck in at 21:00. I’m quite tired today, don’t know why. We setup the most useless mosquito net in Kenya and hope for the best. The tour guide we picked up earlier turns out to be an official Kenyan tour operator. Name is Abraham, speaks with a lisp. We’ve singed up for a 3 hour walk in the forest, tomorrow after breakfast. Looking forward to it.
Highlights: The equator! Well, MY equator line was more right. So...
Learning all about tea
[G & A], out
It’s all just a little bit of history repeating
