Maubisse

Maubisse is a mountain town at fourteen hundred metres two hours south of Dili, where the temperature drops enough for a jacket and the mornings start with cloud filling the valleys below. A Portuguese pousada sits on the hilltop above the market, once the colonial governor's rest house and still the place people stay. The slopes around the town grow arabica coffee introduced by the Portuguese, now the country's main export, and the harvest runs from May. The Sunday market brings people down from the surrounding villages. The road from Dili is paved but slow, with two hours for eighty kilometres.