Day Two

 At 7:00AM, we went to the deck for covid tests. All negative, luckily!

Next we had a nice breakfast, then took the cacao tour. 



On the tour, we saw the cacao boiler and learned how the beans are crushed to get their nibs. We were lucky enough to taste some homemade chocolate, and we saw the cacao orchards, and our guide (and owner of the farm on which we are staying) Pablo cut open a cacao pod for us so that we could sample the delicious fruit inside which surrounds the beans.





We then followed him back to the dining area where he cut open a palm to reveal the delicious "heart of palm" for us, which we sampled before watching him make a wonderfully aromatic and fresh ceviche. We shared this ceviche for lunch and supplemented it with the staple rice and beans as well as a potent ginger lemonade (a new fruit drink is provided at each meal!)




Then we had some downtime, and some of us walked down the road to the convenience store in the village. In the village, we met a friendly stray dog, and it ate Sage. We met up with our resident science expert, Dr. Pinto. After we all introduced ourselves, we reviewed the scientific method. We performed a practice experiment in which we swabbed various surfaces to see which had the most bacteria.



We had a dinner of chicken with sour guava juice (jugo de cas), then went on a short hike through the forest and glimpsed lots of nighttime wildlife. We watched some videos about ants and learned about zombie fungi. (Cordyceps)

Then we retired to our cabins, took well-needed showers and went to sleep!



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