The second day of our class...

began with a long drive to Finmac, a cacao farm owned by Hugo Hemelink.  He is dedicated to organic farming and the men and women who work for him seem to like and respect him very much.

If you look closely, near the middle of the picture above, you will see a sloth.  One man showed us his scars that were on his arms from the bites of these beautiful and slow creatures.While they are slow, they are quick to protect themselves if they feel endangered. 

At Finmac, we see an incredibly well managed farm, and the intense use of human labor.  Like most fruits and vegetables grown in this country,  it is often on the sturdy backs of men or mules that food, and here cacao, is carried.  In the picture below, this man is doing the pulling of this train of beans. Because Finmac is a certified organic farm, the use of mules and their byproduct is not worth the expense or spread of disease,  so it is men that harvest, clear and transport these beans to the building where the beans will be fermented, the next important process of creating chocolate flavor.