Chocolate Farms, Drumming, and a long bus ride….oh my!

Last Monday, 13 of us and Dr. C left San Pedro for Punta Gorda, which is in Southern Belize. This trip involved a water taxi and 6.5 hours on a bus. Not just any bus, but a beyond crowded school bus. Some people sat 5 to a seat, others were crowded in from people in the aisle way. Some of us shared their seats with handcuffed prisoners on their way to court. The bus was not "express" by any means - it stopped basically anywhere people needed. There was one family who bought what looked like half their house with them! Finally, at around 6, we arrived in Punta Gorda.

The following day we experienced the Garifuna culture and learned how to drum! It was a lot of  fun, even for those of us who (ahem) may not have the best sense of rhythm. Those of us who did enjoyed showing off when we got to drum individually with our teacher whose name was, I kid you not, Ronald Mc Donald. That afternoon we went to lunch at a tiny place on the water, and I tried Lion Fish! It tasted like any white fish, and made me wonder why we aren't selling that in the States because they need to get rid of it anyway, rather than selling fish which are on their way to being endangered.

Wednesday was the day we had all been waiting for - chocolate farm! We started with a Mayan cultural experience at one of the archeological sites nearby the farm. Then our guide took us to his farm, which is a Mayan Chocolate Farm. It turns out, his farm was literally in the jungle. His chocolate is grown 100% organically. We saw what the beans look like directly from the fruit, and even tasted them. They taste more like fruit than chocolate! After that we had the most amazing lunch ever, with chocolate of course. Finally, we made our own chocolate using an ancient grinding stone. It was amazing to see how much sugar it took to make the pure chocolate even slightly sweet (65% is the lowest they sold), and definitely made me reevaluate chocolate candy bars we buy at home.

Jordan, Lexi and I petting Chocolate Pork, resident pig

Our chocolate lunch!