Chocolate!

Hello everyone!
We are in the final days of our time here in Mexico, which is both happy and sad. We feel at home here, but we are also ready to see our families again.
I need to catch up on my blog! I still haven't finished my posts from our weekend trip to Uxmal, ten days ago! I will do my best to finish these posts this afternoon, and hopefully tomorrow I can tell my stories from Tulum.

One of my last posts was about Uxmal, right? We went there in the morning and then settled into our rooms at the Flycatcher Inn. Friday afternoon (June 6) we went to a chocolate plantation and museum nearby. Val had never been there, so we weren't sure what to expect. We loved it! It was fascinating! I stayed outside taking as many pictures of the plants and flowers as possible. In the last building (I think there were five or six small huts with displays and information about raising chocolate), we got to DRINK freshly made hot chocolate! After watching a speedy version of the whole process, from harvesting the cacao to cooking the chocolate. It was wonderful. Here are a few pictures.

Walking outside, we saw this beautiful flower. Help me out, someone: isn't it called bird of paradise? There might be more names for it too, but it was gorgeous.

Not sure about the name of this one either. I call it the torch flower.

I really love these bushes. Pretty sure they wouldn't survive in SD.

Here I finally got to see how the pitaya (pitahaya) fruit grows. I had tried it the day before at doña Carmen's house, and loved it. The outside of the fruit is green, maturing to hot pink when it is fully ripe. The flesh is white and there are hundreds of tiny black seeds (like the seeds covering strawberries).

The plant is a type of cactus, and it climbs and trails over the low rock walls that are seen everywhere here in the Yucatán. Once I knew what it looks like, I started seeing it as we drove along other roads. With such a big, pretty fruit, I imagine that the flower is also beautiful! Click here to see pictures and read more about pitaya, which is also known as dragonfruit.

Walking along the paths between the buildings, which were nothing more than small huts. The paths were lined with different plants, and even some animals.

A patch of nopal cactus...



...and the sign explaining its significance.

One of the informational signs talking about the traditional Mayan home and family.

Another sign, this one was posted next to a skeleton in a grave.

A huipil, a typical Mayan dress. Much of the embroidery is done by machine today, but there are still many done by hand as well.

Lynn, this picture is for you. Before you get too excited, I will tell you that none of the orchids were blooming. There were so many different kinds!

Here are some of them. The sign explained that the workers find them growing elsewhere on the plantation; if the orchids are in the way, the workers take them to this area to be raised and cared for.

And a few more. Some of these have different types of leaves. I am sure this is an incredible place to be when they are all in bloom!

This seems to be a varioation on the colored bushes I love so much here. This type has long, drooping leaves.

This picture explains the chocolate making process, from the harvesting of the cacao bean to the flavoring of the drink.

I thought this was an interesting addition to the museum. This sign talks about the dangers which can be found on a chocolate plantation (or anywhere else in the jungle!)

While we were looking at some displays in one of the huts, we were startled by an outburst of gobbling. We looked outside and realized there was a flock of turkeys in this pen!

Something ruffled his feathers!

If I had to guess, I would call this a mandevilla. It was growing (along with a hundred others just like it) on a vine covering a trellis.

How about this one? It looks just like the pink mandevilla we grow at the greenhouse, doesn't it?

We were sitting down in the last house for the chocolate demonstration when we realized we were sharing our seat with this walking stick.

This green vine using the tree trunk for support is the vanilla plant. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this!

We even saw a vanilla bean hanging on it! No wonder they call it a bean...it looks exactly like a green bean! See it on the left of the trunk, in the center left of the picture?

Fast facts about this flavoring.

Dad, this picture is for you. It is a banana tree...with bananas on it!



One more flower...this is a pink version of the torch flower I pictured earlier.

Mayan beekeeping. The bees native to the Yucatan do not have stingers. I was thankful to read that, because we had several flying around us!

Another gorgeous flower.



Ahh, finally, the moment we were waiting for all day (although we didn't know it). This is the little kitchen set up for the chocolate demonstration.

This kind young man (he does have a name, but I forgot it) showed us how the cacao bean is dried, roasted, and processed to make the delicious food we know as chocolate. He gave the presentation in Spanish, passing around dishes of the dried cacao beans and cocoa butter and a dried vanilla bean. A few of the girls tried grinding the beans and pouring the liquid chocolate from one pitcher into the other to help cool and froth it.

We all got a small amount of the fresh, hot drink in these cute little wooden cups. We could add sugar, honey, cinnamon, allspice, chile, and achiote to flavor it. It definitely needed some sugar, and I added cinnamon to mine as well. Even before adding sweetener and spices, it was so rich and flavorful! Bitter, yes, but such a pure chocolate flavor.

We even posed for a picture with this chocolate. Yes, it was that good. We all gave the chocolate plantation a thumbs-up.

Oh yes, one more thing for Julia. There was a cage of monkeys! Only half of the kids saw them, because they were down a different path. One of them held Taylor's hand for a few minutes, but another one pulled Lauren's hair!