An old hill town, Ermera is southwest of Dili. A prime coffee-growing area, where the country’s principal export – around 10,000 tonnes of beans each year, mostly a high grade organic hybrid of arabica/robusta (sold at Starbucks globally under the Verona label) is grown. Timorese are great coffee drinkers (black, very strong) and harvest season is from June-August. Coffee plantations and forests of fruit trees (mangostines, pineapples, plums) abound. In Petilete, a tiny village with gorgeous views down the coast and a sacred site where monthly ‘Meeting the Sun’ rituals take place at sunrise amid much singing and drumming. The town is dominated by a brand new church with a steeple shaped like a pair of praying hands. Massive though it is, it overflows on Sundays with its congregation. In the typically Timorese way, the very same congregations also pay respect to their traditional animist beliefs in ancestor/spirit worship: sacred sites in Letefoho include trees, springs and totems, which are particularly busy at coffee harvest time and at the onset of the rainy season in October.