The Night the Lights Went out in Guayaquil

Guayaquil, Ecuador

The last several days we've seen how cacao is grown, harvested, fermented and dried. Today was all about how it is brought to market and the logistics of preparing it for worldwide shipment. We visited the Transmar Group, one of the world's leading suppliers of cocoa products.

This plant was located in the industrial section of Guayaquil and was quite an eye opening experience. Nadia Rosales was our guide for the day. She gave us a great overview of the entire process and didn't hold back on anything. We saw truckloads of cacao beans being delivered from middlemen of small farmers. We were able to see how the beans were received and checked for moisture, quality, etc. I must admit I was a bit shocked to see jute bags ripped open and bags of beans being dumped onto the asphalt which was covered with diesel fuel, tar, oil and other heavy trucking material. Dang! I sure do appreciate that we work with quality growers like Vicente. Because of his reputation his beans are handled specially and are not subjected to this treatment. At the plant, we saw beans being dried, sorted, rebagged, fumigated for infestation (the organic beans being in the same facility!), and stored in their warehouse on pallets ready for shipment.

Ned and I are not big fans of the whole "raw" chocolate movement, simply because we know first hand how unsafe raw beans can be. They are exposed to animals, birds flying overhead (and often times unloading on them), and contaminants such as we saw today. Let's just say I feel a whole lot better about our roasted beans and the growers we work with.

My favorite part of the tour was the chocolate liquor tasting experience. (Liquor is the term used for ground roasted cocoa nibs, without the sugar added). It was so fun to blind taste cacao from different regions in Ecuador. We did this tasting in Transmar's lab lead by their official quality taster. We were all given sheets with different flavor identifiers such as cocoa, floral, fruit, nut, astringency, bitter, mould, spices, metalic, etc. We spent quite a lot of time going around the room and each individually sharing their flavor and aroma descriptions and ratings. We tasted about 7 or 8 different liquors. So fascinating!!!

It was mid afternoon by the time we left the plant. With chocolate liquor running through all our veins we were more than ready for lunch. Our group of 12 shared a last fun meal together over typical Ecuadorian food. I had chiva (goat) with plantains, and Ned had a spicy chicken dish. Others ordered such things as fried cheese balls, seafood soup, and a plantain and raisin pie - which tasted like a Mexican fruitcake. This was washed down with Sangria, of course!

Vicente took us to his office located in downtown Guayaquil, and Maria Fernandes, a chocolate maker from Venezuela, did a presentation to us about Venezuelan chocolaate. Let's just say that with the current political climate it is incredibly challenging to nearly impossible for local farmers to sell to the outside world. Mmmm - I wonder if Ned and I will be able to continue to receive Venezuelan cocoa beans. Stay tuned on that one.

Ned and I were still stuffed from lunch and wanted to get in some last minute shopping. We opted out of attending the continuing meeting at Camino Verde headquarters and hit one of the local "mercados" or marketplaces before they closed at 7. We had about a good half hour and thought that would give us enough time to pick up a couple of little momentos. The mercado is in a huge indoor building and is jammed packed - stuffed to the gills - with about a hundred little tiny vendors sharing their wares. No sooner had we begun our shopping and bargaining then "KABOOM" lightening and thunder hit and then a torrential downpour. And I mean a torrential downpour. A flash flood soon transpired, the streets were quickly becoming flooded and then the marketplace itself began to flood. Vendors were scrambling to get their precious merchandise off the floor or hung higher up before the water ruined their wares. Ned and I just pitched in and started moving lots and lots of alpaca blankets. We felt so sorry for these vendors! People's attempts at using push brooms to hold back the water seemed pretty futile.

After awhile we began to think about our own exit strategy. Every time we looked out of the building and into the street we could just see the water rising higher way past the high mark on some tires. Yikes! Suddenly after an especially loud thunder clap, all the electricity went out!! Babies started crying, women were screaming, car alarms were going off and chaos ensued. Ned and I (with the use of Ned's cell phone flashlight) made our way up to a second story floor that was for the most part vacant. I got a little nervous about being so isolated (I thought we were too easy a mark to get robbed) and decided we were better off with all the families in the flood zone. We eventually made it out of the building, stood under an overhang and continued to watch the water rise. Eventually the lights came back on and we decided that our best bet was to just brave the water and rain and walk back to the hotel. (Thank you google maps for working even though we didn't have any cell or internet connection!!!)

Sitting in our cozy little room now, showered and dried, I can look back now and see how silly we must have looked holding onto each other for dear life as we waded through the streets. The water was so high that we couldn't see pot holes, gutters, planter boxes, etc. After a few stumbles, (I don't even want to know what kind of stuff was floating in that water. Let's just say I'm so glad we got our typhoid and other shots) with our clothes drenched, we finally made it back to the hotel. At one point we thought about catching a taxi, but traffic was completely stopped. I think we would still be sitting in a taxi if we went that route!

What a way to end our South America adventures! We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Getting up before 4 am and hopefully arriving in SFO around 8 pm. This has been such a wonderful educational trip and I'm so glad we went. We so enjoyed spending time with the growers, researchers and scientists, brokers, fellow chocolate makers and distributors. It'll be so fun to share everything we've learned with our community back home - and, of course, we hope to continue to improve and make the best chocolate for Nevada County!