Well the title should really be Chocolate AND Waterfalls, but I couldn't resist.  But anyway, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.  First, we had another pretty quiet day on Tuesday  We headed up to the Tipsy Tuna for lunch but it was closed so we went next door to the Barefoot Beach Bar and had some tasty salbutes.  After lunch, we did explore a couple more of the channels on the lagoon side of the village.  For dinner we went to Omar's, a local family-run BYOB place for great seafood.  We had lobster and snapper, both very good.  We had actually met and chatted with Omar (Sr.) while we were waiting to head out to Monkey River and he was a very nice guy.  His son runs the restaurant now.

Wednesday was the day for another adventure.  Taste Belize is a tour company that specializes in food related tours.  We had chosen the "Chocolate and Waterfall" combination.  The tour took us to the south of Belize, in the Toledo District, to the village of San Felipe, home of the Ixcacao Chocolate Company, a small family-run artisanal Mayan chocolate maker.  It was a long drive, about 2 1/2 hours (you have to drive all the way north up the peninsula before turning around and heading south on the "mainland"), but the roads were good--except for the dirt track the last couple of miles into the village and Peter, our guide, was interesting. 

Once there, we were taken through the entire chocolate making process, from picking the cacao pods and peeling them open (& sampling the raw pulp around the beans) to roasting, shelling and finally hand grinding the beans into the paste of 100% chocolate, which is then mixed with cane sugar (and possibly some other flavourings) and hardened to make the final chocolate.  We also sampled the original chocolate drink that the Mayans originally created, and saw how adding tiny amounts of spices, such as chile pepper, changes the flavour textures of the beverage dramatically  Then we got to sample a host of different varieties of chocolate that the company produces, from the 100% "Ceremonial" to flavoured ones such as coconut and ginger.  And a little shot of chocolate alcohol.  Most of their chocolate is very dark, around 80% cacao, though they do make one that is around 70%.  They were all very tasty.  My favourite was 'Nibs On", an 80% chocolate with bits of raw bean sprinkled on it, resulting in a 90% overall cacao content.  Then we had a fabulous buffet lunch, with all sorts of wonderful foods but featuring "chocolate chicken", which was excellent.

Then we headed back north to near the top of the Placencia Peninsula for the "Waterfall" portion of our outing, at the Mayan World Adventure Park (which also has zip-lining and other stuff).  Unfortunately, the weather was not really cooperating.  We drove through a few showers and, though there were no showers when we got there, it was really cloudy.  It would have been much nicer on a bright sunny day, but we did go in the water at both the upper and lower falls.  It was "brisk"! And the falls are pretty.  Then we dried off and headed home.

Thursday was a do-nothing day. We headed to Rick's Cafe for lunch, stopping on the way at the Pickled Parrot to talk for a while with some new arrivals and some of the guys watching the early Thanksgiving football game on TV.  Dinner was at the Secret Garden.  The food was good, but it seems like they are just trying to figure out how to run a restaurant--I gather ownership has recently changed.  Well, that's it for now.