materunidaytriptour — Attraction in Kilimanjaro

Our first real exposure to Tanzania outside of our hotel room in Moshi was the visit to Materuni Waterfall, and I would recommend this adventure for that reason alone.

Jacob, our awesome guide - and the owner! - from African Wildcats Expeditions (more on that later) got us up to the trailhead, a really cool drive past villages and through the jungle...worth it all just for that experience.

He left us with a couple local lads who kept us informed and safe and we had a truly enjoyable hike up to the falls. We got introduced to a plethora of flora and fauna, and got to meet some of the local kids along the way.

The falls are indeed beautiful; granted, living in British Columbia waterfalls are not unusual, so the falls themselves may have lacked some of the true 'wow' factor for us that they would for others, but still...beautiful. And after all, it is a waterfall in the Tanzanian jungle, pretty sure that makes it special for us.

Part of the gig included a visit to the village, lunch, fresh fruit and learning about coffee, and sampling same, all the while spending time, dancing and singing with the locals...it was an amazing experience and a lot of fun. Food was simple, but excellent. Coffee was amazing.

This day was our first intro to the Tanzanian people and it set the very positive tone for our entire trip...the people, especially the kids - one of the lads is going to grow up to be somebody special, of that I am sure - are truly wonderful, kind and welcoming and genuinely...nice.

One simply cautionary note...if it is dry, it would be an easy WALK to the waterfall...if it is raining, or has rained in the previous 24 hours, it becomes something of a moderately strenuous and even technical HIKE. The route is a simple trail through the jungle without railings or steps. The trail has some steep parts, and the local clay becomes as slippery as ice; some of the green stuff on the ground will give you traction, and some is as treacherous as the ground, and it'll surprise you. If one of your guides offers you advice or his arm, swallow your ego and let him help. Be prepared to slip and fall and get dirty...that is part of the fun, and if you don't come back all muddy, clearly you didn't get the full experience. We took some poor advice and wore some scruffy old runners with worn treads. Again, this would be fine when it is dry, but I do wish we had brought our hiking boots...then maybe we would not have fallen so often. It is indeed a local thing, I am sure, and familiarity with that local, greasy mud. There was group of Nuns making the same trek we were, most dresssed in their habits, white skirts and light slippers, and it seems that none of them came back as muddy as we did or with the sore bottoms; p'raps, being Nuns, they had help...at least our disheveled state provided them with some good-natured amusement.

I would wholeheartedly recommend the Materuni Waterfall trek and most definitely the...

the place is beautiful, of course, but I'd like to write about experience of going there on your own. it's doable, but involve a bit of a hassle, even if it's close to Moshi. cheapest way is to grab a dala dala described with MOSHI - URU - MRUWIA til the end of the route & from there walk a bit to the main waterfall "office". bajaj or boda boda are more convenient option, but the former will have some hard time to go all the way up, as the road is rather bumpy. both options can be negotiated down to ~ 20.000 TZS with waiting time, but it's better to be precise about how long will it last (up to 3-4 hours if one plan to visit both waterfall & home-made coffee workshop).

now - once in the waterfall "office" you have to pay a fee of 10.000 TZS per person + obligatory guide - another 10.000 TZS. seems like this obligatory status has been made up by local youngsters, who are making living out of it. it's hard to discuss whether it's a scam or some entreprenous community action, but it's not a matter of contemplation - if you won't take a guide, they won't let you in. it seems like the only space for negotiation is to lower this fee, while traveling in bigger group.

visiting home-made coffee workshop (let's not call it "plantation") is another 5000 TZS per pax, which is fair enough. it consists of watching the process and sipping a freshly brewed cuppa. of course, selling overpriced coffee packs, roasted by a local aunt is something you can't avoid in the end.

to sum up, what you're paying independently is only a fraction of organised tours in the area, which are priced between 40 and 100 (sic!) USD. going solo, extra...

This is a beautiful waterfall, 45-60 mins from the entry(reception) entrance fee is 10,000tzs but they will ask you to get a local guide, for us 2=40,000tzs but my friend red online that it is not obligated to have.. finally a guy told me friend that he will show the way for free( nothing free in this world) he attracted my friend to go with him even we felt that we must pay for something.. my friend told him that we just want to walk to the waterfall.. he showed us around to his family houses, animals and coffee plantation. Finally he let his team( younger boys) to show us coffee making process and try their fresh coffee(took almost 1H) finally he offered us for coffee roasted seeds for souvenir but we didn't need.. so he told us to support the coffee farmer 30K tzs. We were happy for that.. finally at the end we had to pay his guide 40K tzs with extra tip.. so make it clear and choose one of the team you like to show you the way and pay him(40K) and only take the service you want.. the way to walk to the waterfall is not easy to know..take a suitable shoes, easy to clean and hold you on slippery way or you can rent booths from them about 5-10k tzs. Come a bit early before midday otherwise you won't have local public car back. The local sharing minivan cost 1500-2000 tzs. from Moshi. If you have no transport back may cost for private tuktuk or motorcycle...