Minca, Colombia 🇨🇴

Over a amazing breakfast of banana and maize pancakes we met Anna and Lauren from the UK. Anna decided to join us on our Cacao tour at the small farm across the way. The walk across was really nice, through coffee plants and huge bamboo vegetation. The tour guide was the owner of the farm, third generation of the family working with organic methods across the 40hectares. They have 1500 cacao trees which produce one tonne a year. The farm also has great coffee production and hundreds of mango and avocado trees alongside.

The cacao fruits are large and quite a long germination period. The flowers are pollinated by natural wind pollination and it takes 5 months for fruit to ripen. The fruit has to be hand picked every two weeks throughout the year to ensure they are kept safe from pests – fungus and squirrels.

We were then shown the rest of the process and as the fruit was opened go to taste the sweet gel the seeds are wrapped in inside the pod. They scoop out seeds and put in a fermentation box. Then they are dried naturally in the sun, before being roasted and then shelled. We tasted the raw nibs which were different tasting but delicious and tasty, he then ground a portion and made fabulous hot chocolate for us. Once we had finished this indulgent drink we got to have a chocolate and coffee face mask applied. This was a lot of fun in our group pictures and made my face feel very clean.

We rushed back to the hostel in time for the lunch bell, it was already raining so we were pretty damp by the time we sat down. After lunch and a cold shower we sat and read for the afternoon, chatting with a few other people and generally having a chilled out time.  Polly and Anna are discussing a early hike up to the mirador at the top of this peak.  It sounds like a lot of effort and it’s great that there is someone else willing to get up early with Polly.