Chocolate, Chocolate, and more Chocolate!

I have been off work for the past week, enjoying some down time while the boys I work with are on a surf vacation in Nicaragua. We spent one week doing renovations at the bar and restaurant, Tasty Waves, giving the place a much needed make over. Since Wednesday, while the rest of the Tasty Waves front of house staff have been surfing and enjoying some Nicaraguan beach time in San Juan de Sur, I have been reveling in my free time. I have slept a lot, like, a lot a lot. Most days I've been sleeping about 11 hours, which has been fabulous! I love to sleep, and I love to wake up whenever I want, not to the sound of a little phone beeping at me. But, I did decide to take a break from all my sleeping and enjoy one of the activies of the Southern Caribbean, The Caribeans Chocolate Tour.

Caribeans is a bean-to-bar chocolate and coffee lounge. It's where Jahsiah and I sell the focaccia bread that we make. The owner, our friend Paul, had invited us a while back to join him on the tour so we could learn more about his operation. The chocolate at Caribeans comes from their farm, which is behind the coffee shop, about a 30 minute walk up the road, into the jungle. We decided the Saturday, 2pm tour would work best for our schedule and we meet at Caribeans, ready to taste some chocolate. Jeff, co-owner of the Caribeans operation, was our tour guide, and the other tour members consisted of a family from Texas, Mom, Dad, and daughter Chloe. We began our walk up the hill, a bit of a hill but still nothing compared to our driveway, and we quickly came upon our first cacao tree. The fruit of the tree is about the size of a mango, but looks a bit more like a sqaush, with a ridged surface. The fruit doesn't grow in the tops of the tress like most fruit, but rather sticks out oddly from different parts of the trunk. It doesn't look at all like chocolate.

Jeff pointed out the cacao tress and also taught us about other trees we were encountering, pointed out a few poison dart frogs that we passed, and showed us where we could probably locate sloths, based on which leaves they like to eat. As we ascended to the top of the hill,with howlers monkeys serenading our ascent,  we learned about the history of cacao. It originated in South America, most likely Venezula, and was transported by way of trade up through Central America and into Southern Mexico. Cacao used to be currency and was valued higher than gold. It became the drink of the gods and the Aztecs drank it ceremoniously. It dates back to 1,500 B.C.E. and remains of it have been founded in pottery DNA in Guatemala and other locations. Based on the origins of chocolate and the likely trade routes of pre-Colombian people, the Southern Caribbean was a probable stop on the chocolate road. When we reached the summit of the hill, with a view of the Caribbean Sea (the best view I've seen since we arrived here 5 months ago), I felt a little bit like Aztec nobility, ready to drink my beverage of the gods.

The beans inside the fruit. Photo courtesy of someoneone

 else, because I forgot my camera.

Jeff showed us how the beans, found inside the fruit, are removed, by hand, no fancy machines at this farm, and placed in a hole in the ground. The hole, with the beans inside, is covered and left for 2 days to begin the fermenting process. After 2 days, the beans are stirred and moved to another hole for 2 more days. This process is repeated one more time and then the beans are moved to trays to dry. The fermenting process takes 6 days, and the drying process takes 5 days, after which you have a dried chocolate bean, which looks something like a coffee bean, but much bigger. We learned that chocolate, in it's pure form, before Hersey gets a hold of it and ruins it, is so high in anti-oxidants that just two chocolate beans is comparable to 4 cups of blueberries. That's right, I said it, chocolate is good for you!

We then moved over to the tasting deck where the real fun began. Sitting on a wooden porch, over looking the panoramic sea view, we began our chocolate experience. Caribeans grows and harvests their own chocolate, but they also purchase beans from other farms in the area that don't have their own workshop to turn the chocolate from a bean into a bar. And since the trees only fruit about every 4 months, having several sources of beans helps them keep up with demand. We sampled chocolate from Bananito, Cocles, Hone Creek, and the Kekoldi  Indigenous Reserve. Each piece of chocolate was 72% cacao and 28% local sugar cane. Each one tasted so different! Jeff had us break the piece of chocolate to listen for the different "Snaps!" that the chocolate made. Then we smelled them, took small bites, savoring each piece and describing the different, unique tastes that each chocolate had. The different tastes could be from the soil where the trees are grown, the about of humidity in the air, or differences in the fermenting and drying processes. After we sampled the 4 chocolates on their own, we were given the Caribean's version of the Aztec ceremonial chocolate drink. Pure cacao, hot water, cayenne, vanilla, and honey all mixed together, served warm in little glasses. The heat of the cayenne plus the strong chocolate instantly made me feel powerful and ready to take on the world. No wonder it was the drink of the gods and consumed regularly by those wealthy enough to afford it.

We chased our chocolate shooters with, you guessed it, more chocolate! The same 4 chocolates we had tried before, were brought again, this time in smaller pieces, along with 2 trays of herbs and spices. One tray had cinamon, cayenne, curry, sea salt, black pepper, and ground coffee while the other had peppermint, ginger, lemongrass, cilantro, oregano, vanilla, and garlic. Yes folks, that right, raw, minced garlic. We were told to take pieces of the chocolate and make our own flavor combinations. One of my favorite was the garlic and curry powder combined. The ginger and lemongrass was also really good. And I liked the vanilla and cayenne. Ok, I liked all the combinations I tried. Who isn't going to like chocolate, plus amazing spices and herbs? And, the herbs all came from the little herb garden right next to the tasting deck.

So, hoped up on chocolate, we proceeded down to the workshop to see where the magic happens. Paul built the workshop himself with the intention of doing everything as low-tech as possible so that the process can be taught and replicated to other small cacao farmers. In the workshop, the beans are roasted, just like coffee beans and then the outer shells are removed in a grinder of sorts. Once the chocolate has been sifted from the shell, it gets put in what is called a melanger. This is sort of like a huge mortar and pestle, which grinds the coffee for about 72 hours until the natural oils begin to heat up and the roasted chocolate bean litteraly turns to liquid. That's it, nothing added, no water, no milk, no other liquid, just the dried bean, ground for 3 days, and BAM! Liquid gold! At this point in the process, you can add other flavors if you like, and this is usually when the 28% sugar gets up in the mix. We got to dip spoons straight into the melanger and lick off pure, fresh, warm chocolate, a la liking the cookie dough out of the bowl, or cleaning the brownie residue off the spoon, but let me tell you Toll House doesn't have diddly sqaut on Caribeans!

Roasted beans, also not my photo, because I suck at remembering to take my camera anywhere!

With one last treat, a sneak peak at a new flavor Paul is working on, we sampled a chai chocolate bar, which was delicious, and began our descent from chocolate heaven. Empowered by all that chocolate, the walk back was quick and we made it down the hill just before it started raining. The family from Texas had a great time and the little girl got her fill of chocolate. Jahsiah, who never liked chocolate before coming here and trying real chocolate, was excited to have learned more about the history of where we are, and I was simply content to have done something other than make drinks on a Saturday afternoon. We thanked Paul and Jeff and headed to the car, wanting to get home and feed the dogs.

It was a great experience to finally go on the chocolate tour. So much fun to learn about the history of cacao, the history of the area, explore a different part of this rich land, and taste so many delicious things. If you ever find yourself in the Puerto Viejo area, you have to do the Caribeans Chocolate Tour. You'll leave feeling god-like and with a suitcase filled with chocolate bars for your friends and family back home. That is if you can manage to not eat all the chocolate before you do, in fact, return home.


**Caribeans offers tours Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10am and 2pm
                                  Saturday at 2pm
The price is $26 per person. Reservations not required but recommended for large groups or for times other than listed.

More Trees Than People

Well, our journey as come to an end. Sort of. As I write this, I am sitting in the house that Jahsiah, Timmy, and I have rented for at least one month. It is a two bedroom, two bath, jungle mansion, more or less, about 2 kilometers into the jungle, off a dirt road, just outside of Puerto Veijo, Limon, Costa Rica. Manzanillo, our desired destination, sits 13 kilometers south down the main road. Mission accomplished. Now for the hard part.

We crossed into Costa Rica after spending a few days on Lake Nicaragua, La Dulce Mar, the largest fresh water lake in Central America, with two huge volcanoes, one still active, jutting out of the middle. (Pictures will soon be up, but alas, my computer has gone on the fritz and the last round of photos uploaded are on said computer, so I am writing on Jahsiah's, as such, please forgive the lack of visuals this post provides.) San Jorge, just outside of Rivas, which was the city known for William Walker's failed attempt at becoming president of Nicaragua (check out the movie Walker, staring Ed Harris, in one of his lesser roles for more information on that little side step in history) is the tiny little town that we stayed in. Because of the lake, there is always constant, very heavy wind blowing in San Jorge, and since most people only visit San Jorge as it is the location to catch the ferry to cross over to the volcano island in the middle of the lake, that does have a little community living on it, the town of San Jorge is windy and desolate. We, due to the dogs and the car, did not take the ferry to the volcano island, but stayed instead in the windswept town for two nights, getting ready for our last border crossing. San Jorge was only about 30 minutes from the Penas Blancas border crossing, the only land route from Nicaragua into Costa Rica, and as such, a very busy border. We got up early, wanting to make sure we had plenty of time to not only cross the border, bueracracy and all, but to arrive in La Fortuna, Costa Rica early enough that evening to find accomodations and then go treat ourselves to the hot springs of Volcan Arenal, as a sort of celebration that we had finally arrived in Costa Rica.

Everything we had read prepared us for Penas Blancas to be the worst bordering crossing in terms of the go here, go there, get this stamped, come back, go back over there, get this stamped, now get this photocopied game, but we found this border crossing to be much less troublesome than either the entering or exiting of Honduras. After a few hours, and one last silly round of having our car fumagated, we were driving in our destination land. Since we wanted to start crossing the country, considerably north of San Jose, we had to stray from the Pan American Highway 1 and enter into lesser traveled roads, which at times were not paved, but after our experience driving to the end of the world in Guatemala, the roads seemed just fine to us. After a few short hours, with a stop for lunch and our first serving of Costa Rican beans and rice, gallo pinto, we found ourselves in the shadow of Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with it's last erruption in 2010. I had visited Arenal on a previous trip and had spoiled myself then with a trip to Baldi Hotsprings. The area around Arenal is filled with hot springs, some of them free and only known to locals, still in their natural state, others like Baldi, are natuarlly hot but their apperances are very far from what they once were. Built up with swim up bars, rocks that glow different shades of green and blue, water slides (a new addition since I had last been there) and full spa services, Baldi was our one moment of decadance on this trip.We spent several hours soaking in the warm waters, hoping to catch a glimpse of lava flowing down the side of the 5,000 foot monster looming above us. After relishing in our success, we took a taxi back to the hotel and prepared for our last leg, crossing to the Caribbean.

We enjoyed a good cup of coffee, our first in quite some time since the rest of Mexico and Central America exports all the good stuff back to the states and are left with Nescafe, ate gallo pinto con huevos fritos and hit the road, with our eyes set on landing in Cahuita, a town just north of Manzanillo. We didn't quite make it. Round two of car troubles, which all things considered is amazing how few car complications we had driving a 1999 Yukon with 200,000 miles on it! We ended up staying for two nights in the town of Guapiles. If you're thinking to yourself, "Hmmm, I've had some friends visit Costa Rica but no one has ever been to Guapiles", well, that's because there is no reason to ever go to Guapiles. A city on the Caribbean truck route, Guapiles had only two hotels to chose from, one would be considered a crack motel in the states, and the other was a hotel casino with rooms for over $100 per night. We chose the crack motel. It wasn't so bad, but one night was enough, we hit the mechanic first thing in the morning. Hoping it was going to be a quick fix like in Mexico, where we only had a loose shock mount, we sat in the mechanics, dogs and all, and waited. We soon learned that we needed a part, a part that had to come from San Jose so wouldn't be there till the next morning, and would cost over $200, a bocina delantera, which I still, even after having it replaced, still don't know what it is. But, when the going gets tough, we get another hostel, and a Costa Rican cell phone.

Wendy, the manager of the mechanics, adopted us. She found us a nicer place to stay, so we wouldn't need to return to the crack motel or spend $100 at the casino. She hooked us up with a taxi driver with a pick up so we could get the dogs to the cabinas with us for the night, and on day two of hanging out with the mechanics, she walked me all around town helping me get a local phone so we would be able to get housing once we arrived in Puerto Viejo. Joseu, our mechanic, even bought us each a shot glass as a gift. Again, the hospitality of Central America was more than we bargained for. After two nights in the odd little town of Guapiles, we were finally on the home stretch.

We hit the Caribbean coast and suddenly our objectives changed. Rather trying to get somewhere, we were here. But that brought on the new tasks of looking for housing, linking up with our friend Sergio Ferguson who owns the hostel we are here to help finish, and figuring out what the hell we are doing living in the jungle!

So, we have a house, we've talked with Ferguson, who in addition to working on the hostel, is now also offering tours through his company Manzanillo Adventure Tours, and we've meet some friends in this new home away from home, mission accomplished. We have arrived in a land with more trees than people, and more snakes and spiders, and mosquitos, and monkeys, and birds, well, you get the idea. Now the real journey begins!