Plan-tea-tion

This morning I had to draw on my emergency instant coffee stash, as real life coffee was hard to come by. It made sense; I’m in Mozambique’s main tea-growing area after all.

The tea plantations spreading out from the town of Gurué, blanketing the surrounding rolling hills, create a very pleasant aesthetic. I went walking this afternoon in the direction of an abandoned hilltop house, known as Casa dos Noivos (House of the Newlyweds).

Only a few minutes from the bustle of the town and I was surrounded by tea and stands of woodland that was fragrant to walk through. At first glance the endless bushes appear to be perfectly still. However walking on the curving tracks among them reveal bands of young boys collecting mangoes up trees, women with babies strapped to their backs cultivating patches of farmland within the tea, coy young women bathing in streams and men carting huge baskets of tea leaves that they’re taking to be sorted and processed.

I followed the winding path upwards to reach the overgrown and eerie Casa dos Noivos, with its panoramic views. I sat on a log to admire the view, and a young girl appeared after collecting some fuelwood. She offered me a mango, which are in season and everywhere at the moment. She wanted ten meticais (12p) in return, which felt like a fair deal.

The building in the photo was from the start of the walk and is some sort of old community hall, not the Casa dos Noivos.