Well,
This is my first attempt at writing for the sole purpose of other people reading it. Here goes.
For those of you who don't know me, i won the SA Barista champs in 2013 which allows me to compete in the All African Barista Champs (the reason I am here in Burundi now) and the world champs in June in Italy.
This post will be about the Burundi trip.
For those of you who have never competed in a Barista comp outside your town, you have no idea how much stuff you need to take with. I left Durban with 56kg of luggage, 9 kgs of coffee and a bubble wrapped Malkonig K30 hopper in my hand(which now lives in Kenya somewhere near the airport).
I left Durban in the morning at 7am, Darryl from Illovo, Iain from True North Media and my family(read friends too)were there to wish me well. After paying a small amount in excess luggage fees I was on my way. I spent most of the trip catching up on Game of Thrones on my phone. I tried to get USD at OR Tambo but didn't have a document stating my residential address. After the rigmarole of me getting a bank statement only to realise that It has my postal address on it not my house address.
I boarded the A320 which was the same plane I got to JHB on and left for Nairobi. I occasionally looked out the window when there were no clouds so I could see the ground. Something about African really does resonate deep in me. We (South Africans) often forget that we are Africans. We finally arrived in Kenya a bit early. The same fire at the airport that caused my coffee to arrive late for the nationals is the same reason most of the airport is under re-construction(that my guess anyway). I couldn't draw money in Kenya because my bank card wasn't working, I forgot to tell my bank I was going to Central Africa and I was suspecting that they were blocking it.
We got off the plane and got onto a bus which took us to the immigration desk. You forget how confusing it is being in a country that does not speak your language. My biggest saving grace here was that there was completly free wifi as we arrived in the customs part of the airport. I was able to at least get into contact with home. My biggest fear was that my Coffee that had to go in the cargo hold was ruined, and that they thought my K30 grinder body was some sort of bomb and confiscated it. At OR Tambo they already confiscated my leatherman bit set which I had in my wallet.
I got through the arrivals part of the airport then walked about 400m on and next to a road to get to the international departures terminal. Stood in a queue for quite a while why I put my hand luggage, now including the 9kgs of coffee. It is I must say, very different from South Africa airports.
I had to book my bags in again, this time I paid 75$ extra for the extra 25kg I had. I had to go outside again, through the 50+ queue of people trying to get in the building to the Kenyan Airlines office to pay, I prayed that my card would work, If It didnt I dont know what I would have done. Well, it did work. I rushed back to hand in the slip and proceed to the Plane
I used the 10$ I had on me to buy 2 bananas by some kiosk near my bording gate. I was going to order a coffee, I saw they had a La Marzocco Linea with a Compak K6 grinder. The Barista dosed on command which is always a good-ish sign but when I saw the shot being pulled I turned and ran as fast as I could-well not really. It was a transparent black with my colour skin crema, no thank you.
As I got through the gate to bord the plane I wondered why I was moving between people with such ease, when I realised that I was one k30 hopper short of a happy traveling barista I bowed my head and said something like 'Craig, Dumbass' or something of the like, I knew that here was very little chance that I could get it back because it was an un-marked(my bad) plastic hopper covered in bubble wrap that was probably at the cashier at Kenya Airways. I boarded the plane, It was a much better plane than any of the South African Planes I had flown on, even on such a small plane there was a screen behind every headrest.
I looked out the window much the same as I did coming up to kenya, but Burundi had way more mountains that I was expecting, it looked like an aerial view of the Jurassic Park movie, deep dense forests, super green, I now know why Ben Carlson and his family moved here, this place is surely destined for incredible coffee production.
A short flight to Bujumbura was made a pleasure by drinking some local Lager called 'Tusker'. We landed on the landing strip at the airport, went through customs(one desk) I was greeted by someone from the AFCA conference called Emmery, I was so flipping happy to find someone that knew sort of who I was, or at least that I was coming, I now had 5$ to my name, and no way that I knew of of communicating well enough for someone to take me into town to get to a bank which would most probably be closed at this time of night. But Emmery bought me a local sim card with 1gb of data on it. He then took me to a hotel that had a atm where I could draw cash, I managed to get 100 000 BFU local currency, which was enough to pay him back for the sim card and have some if needed.
He then took me to my hotel, when I finally got there i was so flipping stoked to see that my name was registered and all was done. I had a safe place now. I unpacked my bags, only one broken glass, the rest was fine. so all in all I pretty happy.
Let the coffee adventure continue....
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