August 2025 turned out to be a very busy month for me with lots going on (more than I can post!). Posting these blogs has been a good way to reflect on my time here in Timor-Leste (which is relatively short) and I am already able to look back and recall things I had forgot. In about 3 weeks we will have the 1 year anniversary of when we arrived in Timor-Leste. It feels like, already, the clock is ticking down to when we will leave at the end of November 2026.
Below I show some “choice” recent activities, and let the photographs do the talking.
Family Cultural Event With Maun Marcos
My good friend (and Director of my FJDE disability group) Maun Marcos invited me to his family’s cultural event which was about 35 minutes bicycle ride from Fatuquero, uphill, in a tiny village of Tumelau, Ermera (not on the map). It was an honor to be there and share the time with my good friend Marcos and his big extended family (I think around 200 people).
The event included a ceremony for the “advancement” of some of the family young youths (girls and boys) to adulthood. The family spent the next 4 or 5 days eating, drinking and socializing. This type of cultural family event (known as a “Lia”) happens once every few years and happens during the dry season (tempu bailoron) here in Timor-Leste. Some photos below and also a YouTube video link here. The first photo is me with Maun Marcos at the home he grew up in 😊
Mount Ramelau
Mount Ramelau (also known as Foho Tatamailau in Tetun) is the highest point in the whole of the island of Timor and sits at 9800ft. It’s peak is located in the Ainaro municipality of Timor-Leste. It’s a place that has much cultural significance in Timor-Leste with religious pilgrimages to the statue of Mary at the summit. A small group of us volunteers arranged to go and hike to the top 😁. Not a simple task to arrange or achieve. Our start was to meet up in Maubissi and take an anguna from there to the “base camp” town of Hatu Builico. I took the opportunity to ride my bicycle from my home in Fatuquero to Maunbissi. It was a bit of a brute of a ride with 4695ft of climbing in 34miles which took me a grueling 4hrs 20mins to ride. Along the way I saw Mana Jocelyn (my fellow volunteer and good friend) as my route passed her home near Aileu. Also on the way, I was able to stop and chat with a farmer who’s group had constructed a bunch of fish ponds in one of the valleys and was rearing fish (catfish) for sale locally. Some photos below, including my host Father (Senor) who was very skeptical I would make it to Maubissi 🙄🚴♀️.
Maubissi is a relatively large village in Ainaro municipality and I was able to have a good meal and a good nights sleep there. The next day, before heading to the base camp of Hatu Builico, I took a walk around the town and visited an old Portuguese “Pousada de Maubisse” which was a rest station and “hill house” built by the Portuguese in the early 1900’s. Apparently a “cooler” respite from the heat of the coast. I met one of the guides who is a small coffee farmer in the area. He told me that “Maubissi coffee was the best coffee in Timor!”…. so I had to try….. I ended up buying some to take back home 😂. It was pretty good. Some photos of my time in Maubissi below. The last photo is a monument, in the center of Maubissi, to resistance fighters who fought against the Japanese, in support of the Portuguese colony, during world war 2.
The drive from Maubissi to base camp Hatu Builico was in the back of an Anguna. It started pretty well on paved roads but quickly turned into a “rough, bumpy and steep old ride”, once we turned off the main road, which took about 2.5hrs to reach the base camp. We were able to find a nice guest house and they were able to provide us with dinner. Then an early bedtime with a planned leaving time of 2:30am in order to be able to watch the sunrise on the top of the mountain.
It was a rough morning but we left on time at 2:30am. Our anguna driver took us to base camp and, from there, we had a 2hr climb of just over 3 miles and 2200ft elevation. We used headlamps to see in the dark and I think that helped as we were just concentrating on what was in front of us (rather than looking at the gradient ahead). I did find the climb challenging. It was also cold . When we reached the top it was extremely cold and very windy 🥶. Unfortunately for us, we reached the top about 1hr “before” sunrise, so we had to “hunker down” and keep out of the wind as best we could. As I sat down, I could feel the mountain “vibrate” with the wind.. it felt VERY high and exposed. I wish we had taken the blankets from the guest house 😔. The statue of Mary sat atop the summit and seemed un-phased by the weather 👍🙏.
Once the sun came up, the view was stunning. It was possible to see the north and south coasts of Timor-Leste because it is such an elevated and exposed point of Timor-Leste. It felt REALLY high. The photos I took don’t do it justice (they rarely do). Almost all the visitors that we saw that day were Timorese (or Indonesians) and it was nice to see that this was a tourism and pilgrimage site which Timorese wanted to visit.
The walk back down was relatively relaxing. I had a couple of “falling spills”😲 as I walked down, to the amusement of my compadres and the Timorese who had the insight to climb in the warmer sunshine. On our way down we stopped for coffee at a lady vendor who makes the trek up every Friday and Saturday night to serve coffee and noodles to climbers in the early hours of the morning. A tough job, and she is one of about 8 that we saw.
Our return trip was uneventful and an anticlimax from the climb. Because it was generally downhill, I managed to make the Maubissi to Fatuquero (home) bicycle ride in just under 3hrs (1hr20min faster than on the way there).
Coffee Production (my Fatuquero Neighbour)
I plan, for a future post, to show some local high volume coffee production which is here in Ermera. But for the moment let’s talk low volume production…..Below are photographs showing a machine that I helped my neighbour bring up from Gleno (our nearest big town). It is a manual wooden machine which has a hand operated grinding wheel which is designed to remove the “husk” (the outer soft shell) of the coffee “fruit” from the central coffee “bean”. Afterwards the beans are then dried (in the sun), roasted and ground into the coffee we use to make the drink. I have not a clue how old this machine is, but it worked surprisingly well and suited my neighbor for what he needed. The waste “husks” are often made into fertilizer.
Coffee, Doughnuts & English Conversation
This week I have started a new activity with the Turizmu Ecologia group who built the local Fatin Turizmu above Fatuquero. Their members have some English skills and want to improve. I came up with the idea of a “Coffee & Doughnuts” morning (every Tuesday morning for 2hrs). I bring a news article which we read and practice English pronunciation. We then discuss the news article in English. Maun Flory (Director) makes the coffee and I bring doughnuts made by my host Mother Mana Berta. I also get a workout bicycle ride up to the Fatin Turizmu. It is a win-win 😁! The first session was last Tuesday and it went really well. I am looking forward to the next. Some photos below:
And finally, I leave you with “another” photo of Mana Rosa who completed the hand sewing of the table cloth which the disability group (FJDTL / FJDE) will use for events at their building. She is an extremely patient person…
Thanks for reading and being enthusiastic about my activities here in Timor-Leste 😀! Until next time! Take care.
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