The real Kili on horseback
When Eliza first told me I would be riding an ex-racehorse from Kenya, I quickly mapped an escape route from the farmhouse to Moshi. The idea of riding through the 358-acre coffee farm on the back of Speedy sounded more like a death race than a leisurely ride through Klimanjaro’s foothills. Now assured that he is in retirement, I cling to the guide rope with sweaty hands, until we leave the stables and gather along the roadside. Then with a deep breath, I mount Speedy the racehorse.
Only 10km west of Moshi town, between the Makoa and Kikafu rivers, sits Makoa Farm. A short drive from the Machame junction, Makoa boasts some of the most scenic landscapes in the Kilimanjaro region. The two rivers joined at the base of the farm have created a high-traffic wildlife corridor for animals migrating from the mountain forests to the open plains. Resting at the feet of Africa’s tallest mountain with arguably its best view for miles, Makoa farm-rides take you from the stables out into the village and farmlands, where you can see the local life so often missed by weary mountaineers descending from the Machame climb.
Farm managers Eliza and Laszlo first came to Tanzania in 1994. Originally from Germany, they wanted to set up a veterinary practice for livestock and wildlife, but neither of them had ever farmed coffee before. The process was laborious at best. Established in 1901, Makoa was left fallow for many years after Tanzania nationalised its farms in to create provincial cooperative communities. When Eliza and Laszlo arrived, an entire 205 acres of plantation had to be cleared for coffee; a task that once required sticks of dynamite to remove a stubborn tree stump. Laszlo retells the boom with a schoolboy enthusiasm. "It was important to us to leave the rest as natural bush, to keep the habitat here," he says, explaining that so much of Makoa’s acreage is left wild to shelter striped hyena, baboon, servile cats, monkeys and over 85 species of birdlife roaming the Kilimanjaro foothills.
Local villagers benefit directly from Makoa’s operation, as most of the 45 farm staff come from the surrounding Chagga tribe, with an additional 300 employed during the coffee harvest season. Coffee lovers can drink the best of Makoa’s brew, which seems to be on tap at the stunning 1930s colonial farmhouse. Breakfast here is a feast of locally produced food - most of what is served at Makoa is sourced from the farm, including milk collected everyday at dawn from the cows. The garden yields most of contents of the dinner table but whatever can’t be produced is purchased from local farmers. Pigs and other livestock reared for food are cared for with the trained hands of the two vets, who stress the need to respect the animals they eat.
"The rule here is - if it has a name, it doesn’t get eaten, so we’re always careful that guests don’t give any of the livestock pet names," Laszlo says, laughing, as we pass the brush-eared pigs Gin and Tonic.
Eliza and Laszlo both lease and manage the project, which includes the yearly coffee harvest, running the guesthouse and conducting rides through the Machame area. "We wanted a place to run horses," Eliza says, sipping on coffee, "and the terrain here is perfect for riding." The stables house 25 horses including Speedy, free roaming goats and a curious monkey called Bahati who prefers the company of horses and dogs to his own species. The Makoa veterinary practice has extended over the years from treating livestock and pets to the rehabilitation and release of wildlife like storks, serval cats and Bahati himself.
Local superstitions are often what lead animals to be brought to Makoa’s vet clinic. Owls are said to be the source of evil and are hunted or injured in the villages. Admittedly, walking around the farm at night and listening to the cracks and growls in the trees, it’s hard not to become a little superstitious myself.
"[The] locals believe in witchcraft and after a while here, you find yourself going in this direction. Sometimes it’s easier to manage that way," Eliza says, explaining that Makoa’s mysterious events - like the 3000 litre water tank that was filled just hours before it was discovered empty – are the work of a devil or shetani. ‘We had dug up the ground all around this tank, every leak was repaired and every pipe checked. Then the workman came and looked at the pipes and checked the leaks and did exactly what we did with no result. His diagnosis was: it’s a shetani!"
There are no spirits in the plantations now, only farm workers walking through the coffee trees. Laszlo leads the trail through the farm, past the wild jasmine and underneath a canopy of mango trees. Skittish Sykes monkeys jump across branches over our path ahead. Women carrying large burdens of maize on their heads walk along the roadsides. Their children run after us and follow the horses as we ride further from the fields across the stone-bottomed river and small irrigation channels cut by hand from Kilimanjaro’s foothills. At the Machame plantation boundary we pass into the non-irrigated maize fields beyond the Makoa border. Here the landscape changes from the lush green coffee farms to the non-irrigated fields. Withered after the dry season, flaccid stalks of maize are choked in the weeds and wildflowers that cover the fields until planting and the rains begin.
Speedy trots and the trail ends as we enter the open fields on the Makoa riverside, where the peak of Kilimanjaro is revealed. Lit up in the evening sun, the snow-capped peak is lava red and for a moment the mountain looks like it's erupting. The river corridor is darkening quickly and we watch for the movement of baboons in the trees. Speedy whinnies and throws his head back. I sit back into the saddle and look out for shetani.
