Yesterday I did the "city orientation." It was really touristy but we did learn a lot about the history of Venezuela and of South America, mostly about Bolivar who was the liberator who won the independence from Spain for Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Equador and Peru. His dream was a unified Latin country called Grand Colombia which at the time encompassed most of the countries I just mentioned. Although he was successful in liberating the continent from Spanish rule, he died before he could completely establish Grand Colombia and those who succeeded him created the later countries.

The next day I visited a little town called Barlevento where we went to a small chocolate farm. And by small farm, I mean small. The owner, who's about 85-years-old, lives in a shack on the farm. He grows cocoa, yucca, and papaya. A set of twins who works for the owner walked us through this farm, which was pretty much a jungle. I ate cocoa, or actually the fruit part of the cocoa.



Chocolate comes from a fruit that grows off the bark of a tree. It's kinda elliptical in shape and goes from green to yellow when ripe. Inside a very thick, hard skin, the cocoa beans (which are seeds of course) are covered in a really slimy substance that tastes to me a little like apple. You eat just that slimy stuff. What they do when they want to make chocolate is take out the cocoa seeds, lay them out on a sidewalk or on pavement for about 2 days to dry. Then they take it to a chocolate making factory.

We visited the factory after we left the farm… and I have to be honest, I don't know how they make chocolate because I was outside taking pictures of some kids when they were explaining all the machines. But the chocolate I bought from them was delicious. The factory was also tiny and had all the machines they needed in one room. I think the funniest part of the day was when one of the students asked the twins what kind of watering system they used to water the farm and they said, "Well, it rains, and if it doesn't rain, we don't have any crops." I took a picture of the cocoa plant for you guys to see. It's really not at all what I expected.






Cocoa plant




Kids having fun