Amber Mines and Chocolate

Our last full day in La Cumbre was a busy one. We had class at the Mansion in the morning and then in the afternoon we had Spanish class which is where all the fun happened. First my friend Andrea’s host dad took us to check out the minas de ambar (amber mines) in the area. There is an area where there’s a bunch, some of them still being used, others of them not in use. It’s pretty interesting although not particularly environmentally friendly since they throw all the leftover stuff (which there’s more of than amber) over the sides of the hills into the valleys and creeks which definitely causes some pollution. These mines are not particularly safe either. There’s no sort of support system in the mines, plus we’re in a country that’s prone to earthquakes. Andrea’s host dad said that he was in one of the mines when there was an earthquake and it was really scary and really loud. We went in a little bit, enough to see a miner at work and decided we didn’t want to go any further. Here’s some pictures.


One of the nicer entrances to a mine that we saw. Mostly they were just holes in the ground, many of which looked difficult to enter.


Juan coming out of the mine.


Our miner friend hard at work. If you look behind him you can see the holes he’s working on.

This same afternoon we got a lesson in making chocolate. My friend Cliff lived with this great family who had a conuco (a little farm) in La Cumbre. They had cacao and while we were there some of it was ready to harvest. The ripe cacao pods are either yellow or purple. When they’re ripe you take them off the tree and crack them open. Inside it’s a bunch of white gooey looking stuff that’s actually quite tasty, like a sour sop for those of you who know what that is and how it tastes. Well, what you do next is take this white gooey stuff that is filled with big seeds and lay it out and let it ferment for several days under cover. After that you take the seeds out of the white stuff and dry them for several days. Then we get to the fun part that we got to be part of. We went to my Spanish professor Juan’s host family’s house, where his don, Rafael, showed us what to do and let us get our hands dirty as well. First you have to toast the seeds, which was done in a big pot on the stove top. Here’s a picture.



After that you had to take the husks off the seeds. Here’s Cliff and Rafael doing just that.


After that we used a hand turned grinder that was just like the flour grinder we have at Bean Haven for those of you who have seen it. Here’s Juan, Cliff and Kevin doing some grinding and then there’s me doing the grinding.


Here’s a close-up of the grinder.


After you grind it, then you add sugar and mix it in and grind it again, and then add more sugar and grind again if necessary.


Here’s the finished product. I personally think it still could have used a lot more sugar but I’m not the dark chocolate type. But overall a pretty cool process to participate in.