Today we started off with an early breakfast, then to our bus ride back to Quito. On our way back to Quito we say a forest fire on one of the mountains. Diego discussed how forest fires are very common on hot days like today. We had asked if there would be people to come to put out the fires, but there are not a lot of fire-fighters or air helicopters to stop the fires and the people believe that the smoke will bring rain, so the fires are usually just left till they go out on their own. Our first stop of today was at the Cable car where we went up to the Pichincha volcano. We went from 10,000 feet to 13,00 feet up on the cable car, and then hiked a little bit. The view from the top was beautiful, and there was actually a swing up there, that we all were able to swing on.
Our next stop along the way was to the Botanical Gardens. This place was so beautiful and there were so many different plant species there. One of the flowers we saw was he Trichocero, which is the flower that actually looks like a fly. It was awesome to actually be able to see this flower and see how much it actually looks like a fly. One of my favorite areas was the cacti and succulents. I've always loved these plants, but I didn't realize how many different species of them there were. I had also never actually seen a cactus that had a flower on top and I honestly thought that this was just something you would see in movies. We also got to see all of the bonsai trees as well as the carnivorous plants.
Our next stop of the day was to the Pacari Chocolate Factory, which was founded 18 years ago. They embraced paying farmers on how much effort they put into growing the cacao as well as started working with just organic chocolate. Pacari is 100% organic, vegan, K Parve certified, biodynamic quality, and Kosher. The process of making chocolate started with picking the cacao plants: the inside of the cacao bean is usually a dark purple, but there is an albino cacao that is white on the inside. Next is the fermentation process: they used to put banana leaves on the floor, then put the cacao beans on top of the leaves, then close the beans and leave them. The problem with this was that over fermentation could occur. Now they use a three-level wooden box system. The beans are dropped on each level for two days each; the beans won't get over fermented because they are being moved. Next is the drying process: they lay out all the beans on plastic and they dry for about three to five days depending on the weather. Next the beans are hand selected, ground up, melted molded and then self-packaged. After our brief intro about Pacari and the making of chocolate we got to try a few of their best-selling chocolates.
Taste Testing
1. 60% cacao Esmeraldas
sweet soft and fruity flavor
2. 70% raw organic chocolate
lemon grass, citrus, stronger in citric notes; not cooked as long
3. 70% cacao Piura Quemazon:
smooth, creamier, same ingredients as before but it is a different type of cacao, taste like milk chocolate, made with Albino beans
4. Golden berries
sour, use fresh golden berries
5. Lemongrass
citrusy
6. Cuzco Pink Salt & Nibs
salty
7. Green olive
Didn’t taste any olive
8. Juniper
herby
*My favorite chocolate was the 70% Cacao Piura Quemazon; it tasted like a milk chocolate but none of their chocolate contains dairy.
After taste testing, we all bought our chocolate and then headed to the hotel. We checked into the hotel and then we were able to do whatever we wanted for dinner. The walk to dinner was a little scary because of all the different people on the street making different comments but we made it. We then ate dinner and got nachos and tacos which were alright and then headed back to the hotel for the night.