Today we woke up at 7:00am we ate breakfast at 8:00 until 9:00 and then headed to a local chocolate factory, where we learned about how the Mayans and Aztecs used to make chocolate, and how to separate the cacao powder from the bean to make the chocolate. We then learned how long it took for the machines to start making the cacao into the chocolate and how they don’t use any extra fats or other unhealthy things. The cacao has its own oil and that is how it becomes smooth like a liquid before becoming a solid bar. Unlike the chocolate back at home, this chocolate was pretty much all natural. It was just the cacao, sugar, and in some of the bars, coffee and cashews – sounds good right? Some students like myself will be bringing some home for you to try for yourself.

After this wonderful experience we took a bus over to a really nice waterfall called La Cascade Blanca (The White Waterfall). We walked around it through a cave and saw the bats flying around inside. It was nice feeling the mist coming from the water as it fell. A few students where throwing rocks into the water to see who could throw it the furthest. We took a break to go eat lunch at the restaurant near the waterfall and the meal we had was grilled chicken and French fries. After that we went back to the hostel and had a little free time during which we spent most of the time talking and playing cards as our leaders talked with tomorrow’s leaders of the day about the agenda which we are very excited about. To close off the night we had our nightly meeting and went over things we did and what we enjoyed about the day; it’s always interesting hearing what everybody else thought about the experience.

¡Buenas noches!

IMG_8170 IMG_8166