Today was a bit of a different day for this motley crew. We started out our day with a later breakfast, which meant we got to sleep in, hallelujah! Desuze even cooked bacon for us this morning which was a surprise. Then we loaded up in the boats and headed toward the mainland. The drive across the bay was as beautiful as ever. We even got to see a glimpse into the transport of bananas from Panama to the rest of the world. Many of us were surprised to see just how big the industry was.
A race to the mainland
That's a lot of bananas
While docking on the mainland, our driver Sebastien gets the award for quote of the day. When being told where and how to dock your boat, take a page out of Sebastien's book and call the boys flagging you down "melon heads". Anyhoo, we docked the boat, met our tour guide for the cacao farms and hopped into a van. Upon arriving to the cacao farms we were greeted by the village folk who were wearing their beautiful local clothing.
Ngäbe women and girls of all ages wearing their traditional dresses, naguas
Hello fellow ducks!
We learned a great deal during our tour of the cacao farms. We learned that the Ngäbe people are the largest indigenous group in Panama. We also learned that this particular village is called Rio Oeste Arriba. Rio Oeste Arriba's main source of income is organic cacao farming. Each farmer works up to 5 hectares of forested land on which he and his family maintain the trees. We learned that in the 1970s a fungus raged rampant on the cacao farms and so now if the farmer doesn't give his trees round the clock care and love, he will lose around 80% of his cacao fruits per tree. In addition, farmers are able to harvest their trees every 15 days for cacao fruit and then they start the chocolate prepping process.
Cacao fruit
Cacao flower (that, fun fact, is pollinated by mosquitos because the bees are too big)
Now that you've harvested your cacao fruits its time to start the chocolate making process. We witnessed a few women of the village show us the process, from start to finish, of how they make chocolate. First you find a healthy fruit and open it up with a machete (you can suck off the fruit from the seeds if you want at this point). Then you ferment the seeds from the cacao in special banana leaves until they reach 50℃. You can also eat the seeds at this point too. This is when you start to taste the chocolate flavor. The fermented cacao seeds is what this village sells to Lindt chocolate company in Switzerland for 85￠ per kilo. After the seeds have been roasted they grind the seeds into a paste using an anvil like rock and a smaller rock. Then that paste is mixed together with honey and coconut oil. This is what they call chocolate and this is what we got to try.
Opening a cacao fruit
Roasting the cacao seeds
Grinding the cacao seeds into a paste
The finished product: chocolate!
The view from up in the jungle where the cacao trees grow
After we made chocolate and tried the product we walked back down to the village and had a delicious lunch prepared for us. The lunch consisted of chicken, taro roots and taro leaves, yum! After all this we headed back to STRI where we had a nice long break to catch up on work, or if you're in the SCUBA crew, head over to Carenero Island to check in with the SCUBA company.
Lunch!
Our local guide to the SCUBA shop on Carenero Island
As the day winded down we had a lecture on coral reef fishes with Richard where we learned about coral fish coloration. We learned about different aspects of fish coloration as it pertains to the life histories of different fishes. For example: camouflage, communication, predator aversion and mimicry. We also learned about what fish see. Did you know that fish cannot see the color red? You learn something new everyday.
Thanks for checking in on the Panama crew!
- Alex
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