Location: Arosemena Tola, Ecuador
The people here are incredibly sweet, almost ridiculously nice. It's not uncommon for a stranger to see us and extend their hand for a greeting or acknowledge us with huge smiles. This morning the plan was to walk about 15 min. from our hostel into town for breakfast. As is typical of most mornings in the Amazon, it was raining. We were appropriately suited up and ready to do the walk when a pick-up truck pulled up and Jorge Luis greeted us. He came to pick us up and take us to his hostel called Oro y Luna for breakfast. Last night Jorge Luis told us that he currently had about 27 French people staying at his place and wasn't able to accomodate us. So imagine our surprise to see that he took time from his busy morning at his hotel to come for us.
His place is amazing! It's situated near the Rio Anzu and the grounds are lush with flowering tropical plants and birds. We no sooner entered the outside dining area and we were greeted with hot coffee, fresh squeezed juice, sweetened porridge, croissants with fresh jam, scrambled eggs, slices of cheese and plates of fresh fruit. Wowza, this is certainly not the roughing it in the Amazon experience I had envisioned. If anyone ever has the opportunity to travel to this area I can heartily recommend this little piece of paradise, Oro y Luna. It would make a great home base for exploring nearby areas in the Amazon.
After that delicious breakfast, Jorge Luis drove us to the El Centro de Acopio de Cacao, the cocoa processing facility that we had visited the day before. We met up with Henry and his crew (David, the Director, Saul who will be making a lot of the chocolate, and Marilena who assists with tours, making chocolate and other needs). We then proceeded to make chocolate from the cacao grown by the local farmers.
Here's Ned testing the temperature of the roaster. Here they refer to this piece of equipment as the "Toastadora de Cacao."
Next process was cooling the beans. They are put on a rolling rack and have cool air blown on them.
Once the beans are roasted and cooled, you need to separate out the beans (or nibs) from the shells. This process is called winnowing.
The nibs are then put thru a grinder. It crushes them and turns it into a liquid paste also called chocolate liquor. Normally, this is when Tsatsayaku (the chocolate association or facility where we are) ends their process. They pour the chocolate liquor into 1 lb. molds and then sell them for about $4.
With the addition of the melanger that we brought with us, we took some of the chocolate liquor and showed them how to make sweetened chocolate. At the end of this week there is going to be a big Chocolate Feria (chocolate fair). Henry thought it would be fun to not only showcase their chocolate liquor, but also have some sweetened bars to share.
Remember the French people that I referenced earlier staying at the local hostel? Well, it turns out that they stopped by the chocolate plant for a tour.
In the middle of the chocolate making, Henry and I took a break to brainstorm some sales and marketing ideas. Henry shared with me some great spreadsheets and data he has collected over the last 18 months.
After this very productive day, we grabbed a ride with someone into Tena, about 30 minutes away. We tagged along with Henry as he sold the day's production of chocolate liquor to several restaurants in town. Talk about just in time inventory!
We ended the evening having fish tacos and Amazonian cocktails at the Guyausa Lounge. Yum. The buses run all night so it's pretty easy catching a ride back to the village. It's very weird to be heading off to a pretty remote location on these fancy buses. The one we caught tonight had disco lighting on the ceiling and showed some boxing movie on a large flat screen tv. Pretty wild. We assured Henry that he didn't need to babysit us any longer and we'd be able to find our way home. Mmmm. The village sure looks different at night! We couldn't find the taxi stand, walked thru the whole village and just ended up walking to the hostel which is located on a remote dirt road. We were kept company by the myriad of wild dogs that roam the streets of Ecuador. Even though they were serenading quite loudly in reality they were pretty harmless...says me was clinging to Ned with a rock in my hand. Oh..and thank you iphone for having that handy flashlight!
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