Ecotourism Archive

El Hatico cattle ranch: The problem is the solution

Tracy Barnett

Published: October 30, 2010Posted in: Colombia, Ecotourism, Environmental education, Featured, Forest protection, Organic agriculture, Reforestation, WhyTags: agroecology, cattle ranching, Colombia, deforestation, ecology, El Hatico, environment, Intensive Silvopastoral Systems, tropical forests, Valle de Cauca

El Hatico cattle ranch: The problem is the solution

By Tracy L. Barnett

VALLE DE CAUCA, Colombia – When Alicia Calle, an environmental scientist with Yale’s Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative, first told me of El Hatico Nature Reserve, her face lit up for the first time since I’d met her an hour ago. We’d been talking about the state of the environment in Colombia, a subject with much to lament, given the spread of mining operations, cattle ranching, vast monocultures of sugarcane and African palm and coca, deforestation, water contamination, the same story throughout the Americas.

What is it that gives you hope, I asked her, as I do in every interview. It was then that she pulled out a booklet and started showing me photos of El Hatico.

“Let me be clear: I don’t like cattle farming; I think it’s created terrible environmental problems and social inequalities throughout its development in Latin America. But this is a place I’d really like you to see, a place that’s turned a major problem into a part of the solution.”

I looked at the photograph and thought I was seeing my grandfather’s farm in the Missouri Ozarks: clusters of russet-colored cattle peacefully grazing among shady forests of mature trees. Nothing like the razed expanses that stretched to the horizons, cattle farms I’d seen throughout the Guatemalan Peten, the Argentine Chaco, in rural Mexico and Paraguay.

Cattle farmers have cleared millions of acres of rainforest and tropical dry forest to create fields for cattle, releasing untold tons of carbon into a steadily heating atmosphere, causing a wave of droughts and erosion, eliminating wildlife habitat and degrading the rivers that flow through. An estimated 27 percent of Colombian land is now used for cattle production, and deforestation continues at the aggressive rate of 300,000 hectares a year, according to an article coauthored by Calle and others published this month in the prestigious professional journal Forest Ecology and Management.

El Hatico, a nine-generation family farm that has become an oasis of biodiversity among the sugarcane deserts of the Cauca Valley in Southwest Colombia, chose a different path, and finally, industry and government leaders are beginning to take notice. Now, according to Calle, the El Hatico model is being replicated around the country through a new government program, and other countries are watching to see the results.

That’s how I found myself riding shotgun with Alicia’s sister, Zoraida, making our way through miles of sugarcane fields as she told me a bit of El Hatico’s history.

“We’re at a very exciting moment in the development of this system,” Zoraida was telling me. As a specialist in ecological restoration with CIPAV (Center for the Investigation of Sustainable Agropecuarial Systems), she sees El Hatico and its Intensive Silvopastoral Systems approach to cattle farming as a key component in the rehabilitation of degraded tropical lands. CIPAV has dedicated 19 years to this project, and she has never seen the receptivity that has opened up in the past year.

“Every year we’re receiving visits from two or three Mexican producers and technicians; we’re seeing farmers from Nicaragua, Panama, Brazil, Cuba and Argentina. They want to see how it’s possible to do what they are doing.”

Conventional cattle farming requires the application of 100 to 800 kilograms of urea fertilizer per hectare per year, costly imported fossil fuel-based fertilizers that create runoff into regional streams, degrading water quality and suppressing the fish populations. The tropical forests that once stretched the length and breadth of the Cauca Valley were felled more than a century ago for lumber and many hectares were converted to cattle farms; since then, the more lucrative business of sugar has supplanted most of the cattle, with even greater environmental impacts because of widespread herbicide and pesticide use.

Finally we are leaving the monochromatic landscape of cane and entering a promenade of graceful saman trees. An enormous bird swoops across the road in front of us, as if to welcome us to its world – a garrapatero, or yellow-headed caracara, Zoraida tells me.

A flock of black ibises with their curving red beaks flutters by and lands on the lush grass in the forest at our left. A cluster of white cattle egrets alights amid the roan-colored cattle to our right.

“Oh, look, it’s a cocli,” exclaims Zoraida as a huge and magnificent pair of birds lands in a field along the way. These birds are also nearly extinct in the region. “These birds are almost extinct in the Cauca Valley – but here they have a home.”

We have arrived in El Hatico.

We pull up to an elegant iron gate and Carlos Molina is there to greet us, the eldest brother in a family of six brothers and sisters who tend the heritage of their grandfathers and serve as agroforestry educators, agronomists and entrepreneurs. A tall, handsome man with an easy smile under his broad-brimmed straw hat, he’s delighted to learn of my grandfather, the agroforestry pioneer, and my mother, the organic farmer, and we connect immediately.

My grandfather passed away in April, and since then I have felt his presence with me strongly – especially on this day, as I invited him along for the ride. I think he was pleased with what he saw.

Carlos showed us around the house first, a graceful relic from the late 1700s whose terra cotta tile roof had survived its 230 years with little damage, but some of the beams were beginning to bow, and workmen were carefully disassembling it, replacing the bowed segments and marveling at the integrity of the original structure.
“Look at this giant reed,” Carlos said, shaking his head in wonder at the strength of the caña brava, a local species used to build the roof. “Just as strong as it was 200 years ago.”

The same could be said for this family and its farm, which has held together through two centuries of revolution and armed conflict, drug wars and economic crises and climate crises, an oasis amid the storms.

Soon we were joined by another of the Molina brothers, the equally charismatic Enrique, along with an agronomist and an environmental educator from Costa Rica who had come to tour the farm as well.
“The problem of the defense of the forests is of anguishing seriousness and the most terrible threat to the future of the region,” wrote Enrique and Carlos’ great uncle, Ciro Molina Garcés, in 1937.

By 1942, vast expanses throughout the region had been cleared by logging and cattle operations, as we see in the aerial photos that begin our presentation. By 1986, the landscape had been converted to a patchwork cane farms. Only the dark patch of Hatico remained as forest.

Today El Hatico is a mixed-use farming operation; 32 percent is organic sugar cane; only 5.5 percent is pure hardwood forest, but another nearly 9 percent is native bamboo forest, while 12.7 percent is under what is called SSPI, Intensive Silvopastoral System by its Spanish acronym, and this is the part that is being closely watched by industry leaders.

“When we talk to agricultural producers, they look around and say, oh, this isn’t good. Our fathers and grandfathers taught us you have to cut the trees down,” Carlos said. “But I tell them, look around; see for yourselves. We have 80 percent canopy cover here, and look at the quality and quantity of this grass. And this is with zero chemical inputs. Conservation and production do not compete; they work together.”

In terms of cost, the El Hatico balance sheet comes out shining. Due in part to improved production and in part to a greatly decreased cost in inputs – zero agrochemicals, zero soy supplements for the animals because of the higher nutritional value of their grazing plants, and greatly reduced irrigation costs and the associated electricity bill – El Hatico shows that conservation is good business.

In addition, the Molinas point out, they are providing priceless environmental services: carbon fixation, oxygen production, hydrogen cycle regulation, productive capacity of the soil and conservation of biodiversity.

But what really captured the attention of industry leaders was the production at El Hatico during the drought of 2009-2010, brought on by El Niño, which devastated producers throughout Latin America. In 2009, El Hatico actually had higher production than the year before – a result that was virtually unheard of throughout the industry. “And this was without irrigation,” emphasized Carlos.

Now it was time for the tour. Carlos and Enrique led us out the cast-iron gate and down the shady lane, where a pair of magnificent coclis were grazing in the tall grasses nearby. Enrique spoke of the challenge of transferring the family’s values to each new generation in an era when most young people leave the farm for other opportunities in the cities.

Here at El Hatico, each child on his or her third birthday is placed on a horse for their first horseback ride. The horse continues to be a tool to connect the children with the farm, and on their first communion they are presented with a small mare.

“It creates a sort of an addiction,” Enrique explained, “but a healthy addiction – it sensitizes them to the family heritage. These three elements – equine, human and natural environment – are a supremely beautiful way to provide environmental education for the children.”

Indeed, the tour of the entire farm is a supremely beautiful educational approach for all of us. The next stop is the under the enormous spreading branches of the grandfather saman tree that Carlos and Enrique’s father planted 70 years ago and has become a symbol of the farm.

Much of the resistance to agroforestry for grazing comes from the idea that broadleaf plants are a weed and must be eliminated, Carlos explains. In fact, shade eliminates the most problematic broadleaf plants, and the native plants provide good, high-protein forage – “so the ‘maleza’ becomes a ‘bueneza,’” he jokes, using a play on the Spanish word for weed (maleza = weed, mal = bad, Buen = good).

Back on the lane to the highway, a flock of fulvous whistling ducks takes flight and the visitors grab for their cameras. I realize I’ve seen more birds here at El Hatico than I’ve seen on several birdwatching expeditions during my journey.

I learn many things on this tour; one is that organic sugarcane can be just as profitable as its chemical-assisted counterparts, and can be companion-planted with other crops. Part of the Molinas’ sugarcane work crew was hard at work when we arrived: a flock of hair sheep, grazing on the weeds that grow up between the rows, eliminating the need for herbicides. When they first began experimenting with the sheep as a means to control weeds, they were very careful to use moveable fences to protect the fledgling cane plants from the animals. One day, however, the fence got knocked down, and the pastor observed, to his surprise, that the sheep didn’t touch the cane – only the broadleaf plants around and between the rows.

In the beginning, the neighbors worried that the sheep would escape and create havoc in their fields. Now, Enrique says, they’re getting a different type of phone call from the neighbors, who want to borrow the sheep for weed removal in their own parcels: “’Send in the contractors!’ they say.”

Perhaps more importantly is the Molina’s alternative to the slash-and-burn approach to waste management that predominates throughout the industry. At the end of each growing season, most cane producers burn their fields, leading to air pollution, vast amounts of carbon pouring into the atmosphere, and destruction of healthy soil ecology, requiring more chemical inputs for the next crop.

Instead of burning, the Molinas use their cane waste to produce a ground-protecting mulch that is returned to the soil with each new season. This biomass is laid between rows and protects the soil moisture, drastically cutting down on the need for irrigation, Carlos explains. He picks up a handful of the brown grassy mass in the irrigation ditch and wrings a stream of water from it to demonstrate its capacity to hold water.

“This was the system we used until the 1960s, when they started burning – because that’s what they used in California and Hawaii,” he explained.

Under normal conditions, it costs a cane grower $300,000 per hectare per year to irrigate, Carlos said. The Molinas were able to irrigate their fields for much less.

Nowadays, Carlos says, visitors to the farm leave enthusiastic about making a transition on their own farms. “People no longer see us as romantics,” he says. “They see us as pragmatics.”

The sun sets quickly here in the tropics, and the insects and treefrogs sing a farewell chorus as we reached the old homestead. Carlos and Enrique shared a farewell song with us as well, one that was written for El Hatico by a friend who is a songwriter.

The Molinas shared with us a sumptuous buffet of typical Colombian cuisine, including fresh orange juice and crispy fried plantains from their own farm, and saw us off with hugs and an invitation to come back soon. As we walked to our car, I looked up and saw a cloud passing the moon. Somewhere out there, I thought, Grandpa was smiling.

El Hatico is open for agroecology tours. It’s less than an hour from Cali and is well worth the trip. Contact CIPAV at rnhatico@cipav.org.co for more information. Meanwhile, here’s the virtual tour.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

A piece of Paraguayan paradise: San Rafael preserve

Tracy Barnett

Published: September 27, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Environmental education, Featured, Food Security, Forest protection, Paraguay, WhyTags: Guyra Paraguay, Paraguay, San Rafael

A piece of Paraguayan paradise: San Rafael preserve

SAN RAFAEL RESERVE, Alto Vera Department, Paraguay – “You are about to enter the most beautiful place in the world,” Daniel advised me as we bumped along on the rutted red road, which was growing more rutted and narrower by the minute as the dark forest closed in around us. Waist-high ferns and vine-draped trees rose in the darkness.

It had been two and a half hours since we’d left Encarnacion, Paraguay’s southern hub on the banks of the Parana, and it had been nearly an hour since we’d seen any kind of human habitation. Instead, miles and miles of wheat fields stretched to the horizon – the winter crop here, which will be harvested soon to make way for Roundup-Ready soy.

“The changes here in Alto Vera have been really dramatic in the past few years,” Daniel tells me. He’s watched as the vast Atlantic forests of his native land and the small farms that once dotted them have fallen, mile after mile, to make way for these fields.

“What’s happening is very sad,” he said. “The campesinos who have lived and farmed here all their lives are in a very precarious situation – if they have one bad season, they will be hungry all year. When a big producer comes to them and offers them money for their land, many of them can’t refuse. At $6,000 a hectare, it’s an inconceivable amount of money – they think they’ll be able to live on it for years, and they move to the city. Within a year or two, it’s all gone.”

My time in Paraguay has been colored in so many ways by the sadness of its history. I’ve come to San Rafael, however, to leave that behind for two precious days and nights in a place where a fragment of Paraguay’s former paradise remains, and a dedicated team of conservationists is working to preserve and restore it.

Among many other roles, Daniel Espinola is supervisor of operations at San Rafael and a member of the team at Guyra Paraguay, one of the country’s leading conservation groups. Its name is derived from the Guaraní word for “bird,” given that the organization’s founding mission was the preservation of bird habitat, but the group has grown far beyond its origins.

It was 10:30 by the time we arrived, and night had closed in on the forest long ago, so I would have to wait to judge the accuracy of Daniel’s description. “One always thinks their own land is the most beautiful,” he acknowledged, “so you will have to decide for yourself.”

The research station includes housing for up to 12 visitors; birdwatchers, scientists and ecotourists make their way here from all around the world to see some of the more than 400 different species of birds that make San Rafael their home.

Tomorrow, Daniel told me, I’m going to get to play forest ranger for a day. As I pulled up the comforter in the chilly night and blew out the candle, an absolute silence enveloped me and sleep descended like a warm blanket.

The light was just beginning to stream into my window when an excited commotion arose outside my cabin. It seemed that every bird in creation had gathered in our valley to put on a songbird symphony that very morning. The variety was tremendous; trills and chirps and melodious riffs interlaced in a tapestry of sound that seemed to envelop me in my half-asleep state.

I drowsed and listened for awhile, then threw open the shutters to see a gold-red peeping over the horizon. Joy was in the air; it was infectious. I understood what Daniel had meant.

Before breakfast, I saw a fork-tailed flycatcher, a southern lapwing and a – and was personally saluted by what looked like a versicolored emerald hummingbird who darted into my cabin door, hovered near me for a moment and darted back out. Afterwards I tried to settle in to do a bit of writing before our morning outing but the excitement going on outside my window was too much for me; I grabbed my binoculars and in no time had spotted a plush-crested jay and a ferruginous pygmy owl.

My day was filled with activities; I accompanied Ramon and Ariel on their rounds as they checked a series of sand “traps” set up to record the prints of the park’s feline species. I hoped to see a jaguar print and was disappointed, but we did see fox and armadillo prints. I put the binoculars Daniel loaned me to good use, In the afternoon we took a drive through the grasslands and watched as a trio of bright yellow-breasted carpintero campestres (campo flickers, a type of woodpecker) circled a giant termite hill in search of their six-legged prey and conspired to get some decent shots We spotted an amazing streamer-tailed tyrant, similar to a scissortail but with an even more dramatic double-plumed tail and beautiful cinnamon-colored face-markings, which I was also able to photograph.

Spring is bursting on the preserve, with wildflowers dotting the tallgrass prairie and the niño azote, a delicate pink mimosa-type bloom, sprinkling the forest. The male birds are wearing their most impressive plumage and singing their hearts out in hopes of attracting a mate, and migratory species linger in the vicinity, like the tyrannus savanna, the winsome black-and-white fork-tailed flycatcher I had seen in the morning.

Ariel accompanied me on a hike to the river; I watched a spectacular sunset over the mix of grasslands and forest that surround the station, and took in the riot of birdlife around its edges come back to life.

The time passed all too quickly, and soon I was on my way back to the city with Daniel, but not before visiting with a couple of the campesinos whom Guyra is working with to promote sustainable farming practices.

For more information about Guyra Paraguay, visit their website. The group manages four reserves and a wide range of programs and events in Asuncion and throughout Paraguay.

Meanwhile, a little photo tour of San Rafael:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Planting the Kingdom of God in Sibinal

Tracy Barnett

Published: June 30, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Guatemala, Indigenous rights, Mining, WhyTags: Caritas, Ecotourism, environment, Guatemala, Latin America, liberation theology, Mennonite Central Committee, Mining, San Marcos, Sibinal, Sustainable development

SIBINAL, San Marcos, Guatemala – Juan Pablo Morales and Nate Howard come from vastly different religious traditions, social circumstances and geographies. But in the end, it was their faith that brought them together in their opposition to the mining industry, and in their project to provide economic alternatives in one of Guatemala’s poorest regions.

For Juan Pablo, it was his faith in a just and loving God; for Nate, it was a faith in the potential of humanity. And for both, as they work together to establish sustainable development options in a region slated for strip mining, it’s a faith that the people can find a way to earn a living from the land without destroying it.

“We are constructing the Kingdom of God among the poor in Guatemala,” Juan Pablo began, his smile as wide as a child’s. “Poverty is not part of God’s plan; poverty is the anti-kingdom. When I speak of the anti-kingdom, I am speaking of the forces of darkness, the forces of empire, of neoliberalism, which tend to flow from the North to the South.”

Juan Pablo speaks the language of liberation theology, an approach to Catholicism born in the deeply divided Latin American continent when brutal dictatorships held sway. Some religious leaders in those days saw the brutal repression coming from the government and chose to side with the poor; many paid with their lives. Eighteen priests and 150 catechists were murdered in Guatemala, according to Juan Pablo’s reckoning, and 400 villages were massacred.

“The Evangelicals are preaching the coming of the apocalypse – but we went through our apocalypse during those 36 years of war.”

The numbers are close to home for him; his brother was among those catechists who were killed. But far from driving him away, it left him with a commitment to follow in his brother’s footsteps. After four years of study he, too, became a passionate teacher of the Catholic faith, and soon he moved into a position with Caritas, a nonprofit Catholic organization serving the poor.

Nate is softer-spoken but no less passionate about the church’s calling to empower the poor. Like many Indiana natives, he was raised an Evangelical Christian, but drifted away from the faith in his youth. He studied at Indiana University and then Eastern Pennsylvania University, getting an MBA in international economic development. Now he is working for the Mennonite Central Committee, helping communities to build sustainable, locally based economic models.

His hands-on experience in Guatemala gave him a completely different view of economics from that he had learned from his economics textbooks.

“Economics is not a science; it’s really the study of human relations,” he says. “It’s about our relations with the earth and with each other; it’s about theology, ecology, sociology.”

He sees his work here as primarily supporting Juan Pablo and the villagers, rather than running the development project. “Our goal is to try to help people see themselves as powerful actors and to work together to see what’s possible,” he said on our bumpy chicken bus ride up the mountain.

Living and working in the San Marcos district in the mountainous western side of Guatemala, close to the Mexican border, has been an eye-opening experience for this Midwesterner. Economic opportunity is so limited here that about 70 percent of the male population of this region has migrated at some point to the United States, and the money they send back is what raises the standard of living above that of extreme and grinding poverty. Now, however, with the economic crisis and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, more and more Guatemalan immigrants are finding themselves out of work; many are heading back home, some compliments of U.S. Homeland Security.

Nate and I rose at 4 a.m. this morning to catch a bus for the two-hour drive to the town of Sibinal, and from there we were going to climb a mountain to La Vega del Volcán and see the fish hatchery. But the top of the mountain is cloaked in a blackish grey, and as we order our eggs and black beans and coffee, Nate’s contacts in La Vega call to warn him that the village is being deluged in a downpour.

The sheer rocky climb is hard enough when it’s dry, Nate tells me, and Juan Pablo arrives and seconds his concern. “You can probably make it, but you will suffer,” he said. So I settle in for an interview instead.

What Nate and Juan Pablo are focusing on is a loosely organized network of cooperatives in several rural villages in the municipality of Sibinal. One is a trout hatchery in La Vega, where the clear, spring-fed mountain streams make this hard-to-cultivate species a natural. The hatchery has been such a success that the community is now working on Phase II, raising fingerlings to sell to surrounding communities.

(Trout farm at La Vega del Volcán: Nate Howard photo)

Other agricultural projects, including potatoes and ornamental flowers, have helped diversify the regional market opportunities beyond subsistence maize and beans, and have brought in a little cash.

(Flower farm at La Linea: Nate Howard photo)

But what has Nate most excited at the moment is the ecotourism project, which would take travelers on a variety of treks, most of them through the unspoiled wilderness of the Tacaná volcano on the border with Mexico.
After breakfast with Nate and Juan Pablo, they took me down to the municipal building to speak with local council members, and I fielded a lineup of rave reviews for their work.

“There’s been a lot of international aid organizations here over the years; they’ve spent millions of dollars, and little has changed,” said Elfego Zunún Ortiz, one of the council members. “But we’re seeing now how these folks are doing an extremely effective project without spending a lot of money, just by involving the people in the leadership and planning of the project – and we have great hope.”

Domingo Javier Godines, another council member, stressed the importance of sustainable development projects like these as an alternative to mining. “We see the mining as bringing development to the United States, to Canada, to Europe – but it brings very little development to us, the poorest people in Guatemala – just 1 percent of the profits stay in Guatemala,” he says.

I’ve heard the statistic many times and have verified it; as hard to believe as it seems, it’s true.

Godines went on to describe the scene at a mining project he’d visited in El Salvador. At the foot of the mountain, 35 communities had lost their water source – a situation he predicts will happen here if the mining is allowed to continue.

Howard, for his part, underscores the importance of these development projects as an alternative to the mines.

“We believe that this type of community organizing and economic development will have a major impact on how communities like Sibinal respond to mining proposals in the future,” he wrote in a recent report. “Why would the people of La Vega del Volcán consider selling their natural springs and land to a mining corporation if they are being used for their trout production and other sustainable agricultural enterprises? Why would the communities of Sibinal acquiesce to the destruction of the mountains and bird habitats that attract paying tourists to their villages?”

Why indeed. He’s shared a few photos with me, and it’s enough to make me return – when it’s not rainy season. I want to see this breathtaking beauty for myself, and I want more than anything for the group to be successful in preserving this spectacular corner of the Kingdom of God.

Meanwhile, for more information about the project, to book a trek, to contribute to the project or to volunteer, contact Nate Howard at natedavehow@yahoo.com.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

School for Street Children converts tourist dollars into miracles

Tracy Barnett

Published: May 28, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Environmental education, Featured, Guatemala, Recycling, Spiritual, WhyTags: EDELAC, education, Escuela de la Calle, Guatemala, Quetzaltenango, Quetzaltrekkers, street children, Sustainable development, Xela

School for Street Children converts tourist dollars into miracles

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Eco-retreat heals body, spirit and land

Tracy Barnett

Published: May 27, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Guatemala, Sustainable travel, WhyTags: ecolodge, Ecotourism, green travel, Guatemala, sauna, spa, sustainability, sustainable travel, zunil

ZUNIL, Quetzaltenango department, Guatemala – I’m looking out my window at a place where volcanic vapor rises in plumes to meet the descending clouds, a place where the lush green hillsides are a patchwork of small, carefully tended vegetable farms, watered by these mists and fed by the century-old ash of Santa Maria.

In the distance, tucked in the folds of those green hillsides, lies Zunil, a picturesque colonial town that glistens white in the misty morning sun. It’s that mist, escaping in moist clouds from vents in the ground, that makes Las Cumbres the ideal site for an eco-sauna.

Colorful Maya textiles woven in the nearby villages dress the bed, the pillows and the table – a ladies’ huipil, complete with lushly embroidered flowers around the neckline, makes up the tablecloth. A rustic chic permeates the place, from the polished pine vigas or beams overhead to the volcanic stone used to pave the floors and walkways. A museum-like collection of antiques, clay pots and indigenous sculptures compliment the patios and form the heart of the lush gardens.

Everything about the place says “Guatemala,” from the bright marimba music playing in the restaurant to the delectable chocolate-coffee blend I’m drinking, glistening from the oil of the fresh organic beans grown nearby.

Just below me is the Sibal Ulew (Earth Vapor in Quiche) sauna-spa, emanating a tantalizing aroma of not-quite-definable herbs. Last night before dinner I surrendered to the skillful hands of Mirna, the masseuse-in-chief, who treated me to an unforgettable herbal massage. The herbs are grown organically in the onsite garden and collected from the surrounding forests, some of them native herbs used by the Maya for centuries.

(Delfina del Castillo photo)

All the aches and pains of my recent volcanic trek, all the work-related stress of the past months, all the noise and smoke from the city blended away into a dreamy herb-scented mist. This weekend’s adventure was the ideal counterpoint to last weekend’s – exactly what my mind and body needed.

Delfina Castillo de Pérez is hospitality incarnate, exuding a warm friendliness and a down-to-earth charm. She never set out to be the owner of a hotel, however. It was her husband, Florentín Pérez, an agronomist, who decided to buy the land here in order to cultivate mushrooms. He went to France in search of the best seeds, set up his operation here in the mountain mists. But soon Delfina realized the land was being underutilized.

That’s when Delfina got the idea to use part of the land to channel the vapors and use them to create a sauna. “Go ahead – just don’t expect me to be a part of it,” said her husband. “I’m a producer, not a server. My mission is to feed people.”

Delfina started with the largest cleaning job in her life, as the valley was deforested and filled with trash. It’s hard to imagine now, looking around at the immaculate grounds.

The sauna was a hit with people from the local community, and soon word began to spread and people came from Xela and from the language schools. Soon people wanted to eat, and then the restaurant was born – but not just any restaurant. A renowned French chef, Daniel Rafanel, came and helped her design the restaurant and the menu.

“You’re not going to serve hamburgers and pizza and carbonated beverages here,” he instructed. “People come here to detoxify, so let’s give them something healthy and pure.”

Following his lead, the restaurant offers vegetarian, low-fat, integral and inasmuch as possible, organic options. Instead of Coca-Cola and Fanta, guests can choose from a variety of fresh fruit drinks and herbal teas.

After the restaurant was staffed, the guests wanted rooms to stay in, and the hotel was born, each room with spectacular views and its own sauna, or a steam-heated Jacuzzi, or both. And soon the guests wanted to exercise, so the gym and squash court and billiards room were installed. Now there’s a conference room for gatherings, as well.

From the beginning, Delfina wanted the operation to contribute to healing – not just of her clients, but of the land. She and her staff took advantage of the geothermal energy to heat the water for the tubs, and constructed a gravity-powered drinking water system from the surrounding hills. They’ve implemented a waste separation program and had her staff drive the recyclables into town.

They’ve outfitted the place with energy-efficient lighting and water-efficient appliances and use only biodegradable cleaning agents. They’ve begun a reforestation project on the adjacent hillside, planting 5,000 trees and building a terraced staircase using discarded tires. And the entire staff, including Delfina, goes out on a roadside cleaning binge each month, collecting the trash thrown along the highway by passersby.

(Delfina del Castillo photo)

They planted a huge organic garden, which produces an estimated 40 percent of the restaurant’s vegetables, plus the herbs for the spa.This is no small accomplishment in a region known for its abundant vegetable production, but far from organic, with sprays and powders being applied everywhere.

Now the staff is in the final phase of certification for Guatemala’s new Great Green Deal program. It’s been five months of intensive staff training before opening time, from 6 to 8 in the morning; consultation with experts of all kinds; reviewing and improving all the procedures.

“It’s been our Everest,” says Delfina with a laugh.

Las Cumbres is ideally situated for an immersion in the best the highlands has to offer, and Delfina works with local outfitters Adrenalina Tours, a Xela-based company also working toward Great Green Deal certification. Tour options run the gamut from volcano-climbing to culture tours, but one of the best is right down the road from Las Cumbres.

The picturesque Zunil is a charmer, with its colorfully dressed women and busy produce market and the stunning white colonial-era church at its heart. Surrounded by lush green slopes of the surrounding volcanoes, the village is a feast for the eyes, especially on Sunday mornings when the locals overflow the church and gather all around the front to hear the bilingual Mass delivered in Spanish and Quiche.

Further on up into the hills, the road takes you through the clouds and past agricultural workers harvesting onions and carrots, cabbage and beets. Soon the fields give way to sheer rock faces, dripping with people-sized ferns and other prehistoric-looking plants.

The mists are rising now, filling the valleys, as we make our way to Fuentes Georginas, a series of hot springs set amongst those ferns and cliffs where you can bathe with the locals or rent a rustic spa house with your own hot tub and beds and spend the night.

That is, if you haven’t already reserved one of the elegantly appointed rooms at Las Cumbres, which I have. My sauna awaits.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

A Mother’s Day thanks to Guatemalan world changers

Tracy Barnett

Published: May 9, 2010Posted in: Climate Change, Ecotourism, Forest protection, Guatemala, Indigenous rights, Reforestation, Urban green space, WhyTags:

A Mother’s Day thanks to Guatemalan world changers

Sunset, coming into Quetzaltenango/Xela

QUETZALTENANGO, Guatemala – I awoke this sparkling Mother’s Day to the sight of the Santa Maria volcano from my rooftop, rising green and conical over the mountains that surround this charming city in the highlands. Quetzaltenango, known to Guatemalans by its indigenous name, Xela, is quite literally a breath of fresh air.

The slap-slap-slap of the ladies in the kitchen next door “tortillando,” making tortillas, is punctuated by laughter and chitchat.

My beautiful mother and daughter are well – I’m grateful to them for all they’ve given to me, and I’m grateful to Skype, which allows me to stay connected from so far away. I’m grateful, too, for the capable and loving hands of all the mothers around me, who will be honored today with family dinners, special events and the spectacular bouquets being sold in the streets and markets.

But most of all, I am grateful to the Mother that sustains us all, the Madre Tierra whose fertile soil, abundant rivers, fruitful forests and vast oceans feed and shelter us, century upon century, and I am grateful to all of those who work to protect and nourish her. Since I have arrived in Guatemala, I have met so many.

My conversations with them have revealed the daily destruction of the environment on so many levels; people from taxi drivers to street vendors comment daily on the the increasingly intense heat, the rising floods, the contamination of rivers and lakes and air. The bad news is everywhere, and it can be overwhelming at times. But so is the good news: the fact that so many are dedicating their energy and talent to turning the tide.

To name just a few of those who have inspired me in their labors for Mother Earth in two short, interrupted weeks in Guatemala, and I wish them all a Happy Mother’s Day:

Magalí and Alejandra

Magalí Rey Rosa, the beautiful and eloquent voice for the wildlands whose work over the past three decades has awakened so many, and her daughter, Alejandra Marroquín, who is carrying the torch;

Bayron Medina

Bayron Medina, a descendant of Maya farmers in Alta Verapaz who now works for the Ministry of the Environment and the United Nations, empowering farmers in the countryside to protect their watershed and understand the value of the natural resources that are entrusted to their care;

Maria Jose España

Maria Jose España, Mario Rodrigo Gonzalez and Karla Maldonado of the Mapaches, a vibrant group in the capital who started out to save a forested canyon and evolved to a much broader mission;

Masa Critica Guatemala

Manuel Gomez and the rest of Masa Critica Guatemala, a group of dedicated cyclists determined to establish a right-of-way on the capital’s busy streets;

Steve Dudenhofer

Steve Dudenhofer and the rest of the crew at Ak Tenamit Maya School, where protecting the earth is an integral part of the curriculum, and graduates are making waves around the country in sustainable development, community health, women’s literacy and ecotourism projects;

Maite Rodriguez Blandon

Maite Rodriguez Blandón of Fundación Guatemala, whose work to empower Guatemalan women at the grassroots has taken many forms; lifting women out of poverty and giving them control of their land, she says, is one of the best ways to protect the environment;

Mega and Amanda from Rasta Mesa

Amanda and Mega at Rasta Mesa, working in Livingston to preserve the Garifuna culture and the land;

Eduardo Gularte y Gaby Diaz

Eduardo Gularte, Gaby Diaz and others from the Center for Communication and Development (CECODE), a group of dedicated communicators working to empower people at the local level to use communications tools for social change;

Edith Panameño

Edith Panameño, a schoolteacher working to establish a network of eco-clubs in the Lake Izabal region;

Silvia, Maria Isabel y Luis Rey

The Reyes family of Hotel Ajau, and all the other Guatemalan businesses striving to make their businesses sustainable under the Green Deal and Great Green Deal programs;

Rodolfo Trinidad and Rai Aguirre

Rodolfo Trinidad of Campus Sustentable, Universidad Rafael Landivar, and Rai Aguirre of EcoCinergia, Universidad San Carlos, two groups working in a variety of imaginative ways to raise awareness on campus;

Community Radio activists at a CECODE workshop in Xela

Sandra, Tino, Maribel and many others in a network of community radio activists, who have labored in the face of government repression to bring relevant news and analysis to the indigenous and campesino communities of Guatemala, in their native languages;

Movimiento Agua y Juventud workshop in Xela

Alejandra Tiguila and a host of others with the Guatemala chapter of Movimiento Agua y Juventud (Water and Youth Movement), a dynamic group whose combined energy and commitment lit up the night – and my heart – at a Quetzaltenango retreat center recently.

The list could go on, and soon it will: my contact list has mushroomed, and I won’t be able to visit with a tenth of the worthy groups working on conservation issues around the country. Still, what I’ve seen in these two weeks gives many reasons for hope. Keep reading in the days and weeks ahead to meet these and many other world changers along the path of The Esperanza Project.

Hotel Ajau: A green deal in Guatemala City

Tracy Barnett

Published: May 6, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Guatemala, Sustainable travel, WhyTags: Great Green Deal, Green Deal, Guatemala City, Sustainable tourism

Hotel Ajau: A green deal in Guatemala City

GUATEMALA CITY – I have spent the past week making contacts, getting the lay of the land and working on freelance stories, and I couldn’t have found a better home-away-from-home here in the capital city than Hotel Ajau.

I’ll admit I chose it because I read in Rough Guides that it offered a good price, free wireless, good coffee and a nice atmosphere in the historic district. Little did I know that I had inadvertently chosen the city’s first “green” hotel – at least the first to be certified as such by Guatemala’s Green Deal organization.

Nor did I know it was the labor of love of three generations of French-Guatemalans. Three generations of the Luis Rey Tarot family have infused this elegant historic neo-colonial building (or republican, as it’s called here) with a sense of home.

Left to right: Silvia , Maria Isabel and Luis Rey Tarot II.

It all began with a French immigrant who decided to flee the violence of World War II and cast his lot in the in the coffee-growing region of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. His grandson, Luis Rey Tarot I, moved to the city in the late 1980s, bought the grand old house, fixed it up and dedicated it to his grandfather, decorating it in the style of an old coffee plantation house. The hotel’s name was a Quiché Maya twist on the family name, “Rey” or “King;” Ajau means king in Quiché.

“There were already a number of hotels with the name ‘Rey,’ and we were looking for something different. So we thought back to our homeland, and came up with ‘Ajau,’” said Luis I, whom I met on my second day as he worked behind the counter.

Luis II, left, and Luis I, right.

“Are you the owner?” I asked the kindly, European-looking gentleman. “No,” he laughed. “I’m just another worker, like everyone else.” It wasn’t until days later that I realized he was the hotel’s founder.

It was the second Luis Rey Tarot, the one who is now in charge, who implemented the hotel’s environmental policy. The family switched over to biodegradable cleaning supplies and trained the workers in how to use them effectively; they’ve converted much of the lighting to energy-efficient fluorescent and continue to do so; and they’ve established recycling bins throughout the hotel for paper, plastic and other receptacles, and wife Silvia de Rey collects the contents daily and drives them home, where there’s space to keep them for the weekly pickup. Recycling has cut back their waste disposal to a third of what it once was.

The hotel’s café provides local and regional products as much as possible, including coffee from cooperatives in Coban and Antigua and honey from Ixcan. Daughter Maria Isabel is working on a flier for hotel guests that will explain how they can be more environmentally sensitive while enjoying their travels in Guatemala.

They began the process a decade ago when Luis first took over the hotel. “I grew up bathing in the rivers of my family homeland in Coban,” he said. “You can’t do that anymore; they’re all becoming polluted. I wanted to do something about that.”

The family was rewarded with official recognition when they became the first hotel in Guatemala City to receive the Green Deal certification. This program required certification applicants to comply with certain guidelines in three categories: social, environmental, and worker relations.

“It’s important to realize the most important part of a hotel is the workers,” said Luis II. For that reason they subsidize health care expenses for workers and their families, provide special services like eye exams and glasses, and try to provide a family environment for everyone. And indeed the workers have been the ones who have done the most to make me feel at home.

Manrique Vasquez, receptionist, who is also studying to be a radio broadcaster.

Floridalma Reyes, the excellent chef.

Pablo Santos, the watchful security man.

It’s been a challenge to run a green business in Guatemala, they say – in part, because the government offers no support or incentives or even tax credits for businesses that want to make a shift to more sustainable practices. Eco-friendly products like compact fluorescent light bulbs and biodegradable cleaning products are hard to get and much more expensive here. There’s also a lack of information about products and options locally, and doing your own research can lead to some costly mistakes, they’ve found.

For example, there was the time they invested in compact fluorescent bulbs for the public areas – but the wattage was too low and guests complained that the areas were dark. Then they bought the fluorescent rings, only to discover that they contained mercury.

Sometimes the answers are closer to home, however, Silvia went to an environmental seminar and learned that she could cut back on water consumption by placing a brick or a bottle of water in each toilet tank.

“I came home all excited, ready to put bricks in all the tanks,” she laughed. “Unfortunately I found that there wasn’t room. There wasn’t even room for a small water bottle.”

After trying several approaches a worker asked her what she was trying to do.

“Oh, that’s easy!” he told her, and showed her how to adjust the flushing mechanism to allow less water to fill the tanks.

Of course, nothing is really easy in Guatemala, and the organization that administered the Green Deal program is now defunct, so they and other sustainable business owners are going through another process to be re-certified. The new program that will administer certification for sustainable businesses, GREAT Green Deal, will be CERTIFICA (Certificaciones de Centroamérica, S.A.)

I will be continuing to write about this program as it unfolds. Meanwhile, questions can be directed to CERTIFICA General Manager Carmen Perez at carmen.perez@sellosverdes.com or to the business promotor, Marlen Garcia, at marlen.garcia@sellosverdes.com. The group hopes to have a website of certified businesses up and running soon, and they’ve promised to keep me posted.

“The new certification process is not necessarily a bad thing, said Marlen Garcia. “It gives us another chance to connect with business owners that have demonstrated an interest in the implementation of best practices related to sustainable tourism and also have demonstrated social and environmental responsibility. Even though we and the owners have found that this new program is more rigorous than the last one, we agree that it will give more credibility to the efforts done by them before third parties and new markets.”

Meanwhile, the Reys are focusing on doing what they can to make their corner of the world a better place.

“We want our grandchildren to have the things we enjoyed when we were growing up,” said Silvia. “We have everything here in Guatemala – volcanoes, lakes, rivers, beaches – but we have to do a better job of conserving them.”

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Rasta Mesa: Earth Care and People Care, Garifuna style

Tracy Barnett

Published: April 15, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Guatemala, Spiritual, WhyTags: Ecotourism, Garifuna, Guatemala, Livingston, Rasta Mesa, Rastfarianism

Rasta Mesa: Earth Care and People Care, Garifuna style

LIVINGSTON, Guatemala – Ecotour options abound in this offbeat Caribbean village; there’s Seven Altars, the spectacular series of waterfalls and pools; Playa Blanca, with its pristine white sands; Lake Izabal, the country’s largest, with a host of wildlife-watching, birding and hiking options.

I wanted to do something that would bring me a little closer to the local inhabitants, in particular the Garifuna people. You can see them everywhere, but to have an interaction that goes beyond “hey baby,” a musical performance or a pitch to have your hair plaited in tiny braids, it takes a little effort.

So when an earnest young man with dreadlocks and a rasta hat approached me in the center, handed me a flyer and invited me to come and check out his cultural center, I took him up on it. “We have cooking classes, vegetarian food, and live music every night,” he said. “OK,” I said.

That’s how I met Eduardo “Mega” Estero, a 20-something Rastafarian with a decidedly different approach to environmental education, and Amanda, his lighthearted, dreadlocked wife. Amanda, from Baltimore, met Mega on the beach in Belize and the two of them have been together ever since. In 2008, Mega decided to return to his native Livingston, and the two of them decided to start their own cultural center in the heart of the Garifuna community.

Here they conduct workshops and classes on traditional Garifuna cooking and art, for tourists and locals alike. They also host a range of activities for local children, teaching them about their culture and about the environment. A sketch of the solid waste cycle hangs on the bright-red wall.

“Our people been throwin’ our wrappers on the ground since the beginning of time, and it’s never been a problem – plantain peels and banana leaves and cassava peels. Now all of a sudden things have changed, but the habits have not,” says Mega. “I try to help them see the difference.

“I tell the kids, ‘It’s not trash until you throw it,’” he says. He teaches them to reuse plastic bottles to make seed planters, baskets, maracas and receptacles for other items.

I came for vegetarian lunch – Garifuna food was on the menu, but they were out of ingredients, so I got a huge plate of Garifuna-style sushi – an Amanda fusion creation – with plantains, green bananas, pineapple and carrots in the place of crab and avocado.

I ended up signing up for the Garifuna ecotour, which was a daylong adventure with lively commentaries from Mega and Amanda, all for the rock-bottom price of $12. There was a hike and a swim along the coco-palm-lined beach to the neighboring village of Quehueche. There was a tour of the Garifuna temple with a glimpse into the Garifuna religion, a fascinating blend of African animism with Catholicism.

Then there was a tour of the family farm and a hike through the rainforest, ending up with a back-door entrance to the Seven Altars.

As the grandson of one of the community’s spiritual healers, Mega has grown up learning about the traditions and the various ingredients needed to carry them out. He showed me plants along the way with various healing properties, as well as the ones he uses to make what he calls a “spiritual bath”: an herbal bath which is done for cleansing at the particularly auspicious hour of midnight, when the spirits of the ancestors are available to help with the healing work.

The Garifuna temple was set back from the beach on a hillside. A massive structure with a tall, double-peaked thatch roof, it was unlike any temple I had ever seen. First, there were the hammocks – strung along the front of the building to catch the breeze, and hanging from the rough-hewn rafters inside, as well. When the time comes for a ceremony, people come from all around and the ritual goes on for days, so the hammocks and nearby sleeping facilities provide a place for people to stay, Mega explained.

Greenish light filtered through the fiberglass skylights embedded in the thatch, casting an otherworldly air on the offerings below: Three massive drums, suspended over the floor in the center. On the soft dirt floor, interlaced throughout with the intricate pattern of chicken tracks, was an incense burner, a bowl of dried herbs, a glass of water and coals from a previous fire.

Mega was telling us about the Garifuna belief in ancestor possession, when the elders come back to remind you of important things you may have forgotten.

“It’s like, you’re not even a fisherman and all of a sudden you’re out on the sea in a boat with a hole in it, catching fish like crazy, and you’re not sinking,” he explains. “That’s ancestor possession.”

He laughs when he tells the story of how it happened to him one time. It was the middle of the night, and he was going door-to-door, waking everyone up and urging them to the temple. Later, when he awoke, he had no recollection of the incident – but his neighbors did.

Such occurrences happen for a reason, he believes. “It’s to remind us that we’re connected to them,” he says. “Sometimes they’ll come to us when we’re not living the right way, just to show us that this is what life is about – to remind us, to get the bad energy out.“

But it’s not just about possession, he clarifies – one honors the ancestors by inviting them into one’s life. One does that by living according to tradition – cooking, playing music, planting in the traditional ways.

“When you’re cooking the cassava, you’re reenacting their lives, using the tools they gave us,” he said, referring to the tools he shows us in the kitchen – the giant wooden mortar and pestle, used for mashing plantain; the wooden grater, embedded with sharp stones, used to grate the cassava; the large wooden tray, used to roll out the cassava bread.

“Playing music is a spiritual thing, so you want to get in touch with the ancestors before you do it,” he explained. “Their souls are not separated from this life. I can see that; you can see that in the temple. We don’t just give gratitude to Jesus; we also give gratitude to our ancestors.”

At the back of the temple, in an enclave set off from the rest with a lace curtain, was a room where two candles burned in front of a crucifix with a black Jesus. “We have a lot of respect for Jesus – he was a good example for us.”

We visited with the temple caretakers and got a tour of the cooking hut, with its traditional implements and giant wood cookstove designed to feed hundreds of faithful. We learned about some of the many plants surrounding the temple, grown for their curative properties as well as to feed the faithful. Noni, a fruit now in vogue in health food stores, has been grown and prepared in juices here for generations for its healing properties. There’s basil and sweet potato and jackass bitters, used to prepare Gifiti,– sometimes served as a tea, sometimes as a rum tonic, but always with a potent kick.

The tour wound its way up a lush jungle path through massive palms, hanging vines, birds of paradise and ficus trees to the family farm, 500 acres divided among uncles and cousins. They opened out into a milpa, or a field of corn, furrowing the hillside to our right and the field to our left. This was a cash crop, as the Garifuna don’t traditionally eat corn, Mega explained. Cassava and yams, beans and squash, pineapple and plantain grew here in abundance, and we stopped for awhile at the local “bar” – a cluster of thatch huts where the Maya farmworkers live – to order a glass of fermented corn “wine” and relax in the shade under the drying laundry. The tangy white fluid was definitely alcoholic, but there the wine resemblance ended.

The farm was full of life. A Maya mother and daughter headed across the field with plastic buckets to fetch water, while a boy trudged down the path with a bundle of firewood on his back. A cow grazed on lush grass while a sow nursed her tiny newborn piglets. The path meandered back into the forest and down the creek to Siete Altares, the Seven Altars. We were at the end of the dry season, so the normally spectacular waterfalls were not running. Still, the mossy green platforms leading down into darkly mysterious pools were peaceful and picturesque in a different sort of way.

The trip home was an exhilarating, bone-soaking, white-knuckle boat ride up the coast by one of Mega’s uncles. Dinner was traditional Garifuna Hudut, a mashed plantain dish served with a rich coconut broth, rice and chicken. The night included a cooking demonstration, a little shopping among Garifuna and Maya jewelry and clothing in the gallery, and a three-generation musical performance with traditional drumming and a punta dance performance by little Candy, Mega’s youngest sister.

It was just another day at Rasta Mesa. But for me, it was a 12-hour trip to another planet – a full-fledged Garifuna immersion.

Rasta Mesa is a must-see stop on your Livingston tour. It’s a bit out of the way, but well worth the walk. Ask for directions to the cemetery and walk a few paces more, and you’ll see it on your right. Besides providing a full lineup of economical tours, classes and activities, nutritious traditional meals and live music at night, many take advantage of the volunteer opportunities and stay for awhile. There are rooms for rent, as well.

The couple supports the center and their work with the Garifuna community through sales of their crafts and the fees of volunteers. Learn more at Discover Izabal and at Rasta Mesa’s web page, and contact them through their Facebook page or at rastamesa@gmail.com.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Loving Livingston, Guatemala

Tracy Barnett

Published: April 2, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Forest protection, Guatemala, Indigenous rights, WhyTags: Guatemala, Livingston

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
–Redemption Song, Bob Marley

LIVINGSTON, Guatemala — I arrived by boat five days ago to this part Garifuna, part Maya fishing village on the Caribbean. The only way to arrive, in fact, is by boat.

The 45-minute trip from Punta Gorda was a carnival ride without the safety features, and by the end, we were all soaked with sea spray, clutching each other and exhausted from screaming, so I was in no mood to deal with the hustlers trying to get me to go on their tour or head to their hotel. I strapped on my pack and headed straight up the hill to immigration, past the stalls of Bob Marley T-shirts, Rasta hats and finely embroidered and woven Maya crafts.

Livingston’s colorful cultural blend, its party atmosphere and surrounding ecotourism activities have combined to make it a natural tourism destination, and I’m surrounded by backpackers from around the world. The town is especially full this week, when Semana Santa brings tourists from all over Guatemala, as well. Overhead, the street is laced with red plastic flags advertising Gallo, the national beer; in the air is the thrum of the Garifuna drums.

Right across from the immigration office is the beautiful Hotel Villa Caribe, a luxurious setting with a spectacular view of the sailboats and trawlers over the bay. Still wet from the sea spray and drained from the journey, I got some sideways glances from the genteel waitstaff, but I forged ahead, laid down my heavy pack and indulged in a couple of local specialties: coco loco – fruit juice and rum, served in a coconut – and tapado, a creamily delicious seafood soup made with coconut cream.

After lunch I was ready to find a place to settle in – at $130 a night, Villa Caribe was out of the question, but just up the hill, Hotel Rio Dulce had the right price at $12. I’m at the heart of the action, music coming from all sides, and I head across the street to the Happy Fish, where some punta drummers are pounding out a fast beat, punctuated by the traditional Garifuna instrument made of tortoise shells.

Here I sampled the local Garifuna drink – Gifiti, it’s called, a crazy mixture of rum, anise, black pepper, cinnamon, and a variety of herbs from the jungle, with some marijuana seeds thrown in for good measure. It’s supposed to give you energy, and I could definitely use some of that.

On Day 2 I set off to find a more conducive work environment, and the Casa Rosada has proven to be just the place. It’s a nice walk to the hubub on the harbor, but it’s a world apart; this charming guest house offers beautifully furnished cabañas, colorfully painted regional furniture, a coffeehouse atmosphere and spectacular breezes and views of the bay. Importantly, there’s also a reliable internet signal here, and delicious meals with vegetarian options. Multilingual owners Sandra Goossens and Javier Putul are a wealth of local knowledge; Javier is a homegrown Kekchi Maya native, and Sandra is Belgian. At $20 a night, it’s a bargain.

I had planned to lay low, relax a bit and catch up on writing this week, but it wasn’t meant to be. The first day I stumbled across the office of FUNDA-ECO, Guatemala’s largest environmental foundation. By Tuesday, I’d found Buga Mama, the green-certified restaurant and ecotourism operated by the Maya school Ak Tenamit, which is promoting important social and environmental initiatives in the Maya communities. Wednesday I was invited to the nearby village, Plan Grande, to check out a village ecotourism project. And Thursday I met the owners of a Garifuna eco-cultural initiative, Rasta Mesa. Clearly a lot is going on here; I made plans to stay in the area for another week and check out their programs. Sadly, between juggling interviews, soaking up a little local culture and making plans for next week, not a lot of writing has happened.

I have, however, taken many photos; Livingston is nothing if not photogenic. Here are a few of the best.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Maya mystery unraveled: Chocolate old and new

Tracy Barnett

Published: March 31, 2010Posted in: Belize, Ecotourism, Featured, Toledo Ecotourism Association, WhyTags: Belize, chocolate, Ecotourism, Maya, Maya villages, Toledo District, Toledo Ecotourism Association

Maya mystery unraveled: Chocolate old and new

PUNTA GORDA TOWN, Toledo District, Belize – A sweet, pungent and slightly tangy scent drifts upward to the palm-thatched patio, mixing with the salty sea breeze here at the Chocolate Center of the Universe, otherwise known as Cottontree Chocolate. I contemplate the iced mocha melting on my tongue, and my newly discriminating olfactory can now discern an extra edge: Toledo has taught me why chocolate tastes and smells the way it does.

Cacao is Toledo’s biggest export, and I’ve seen it now in all stages of production. Last week I went to stay in a Mayan village through the Toledo Ecotourism Association’s guest house program and I got a tour of Reyes Chun’s cacao farm in San Antonio Village. Hiking with Reyes and his boys down a footpath through the jungle, I saw the football-sized pods hanging from the trunks of the trees; Reyes whacked at one with a machete and chopped it in half, handing it over to me to taste the tangy-sweet, almost cottony flesh around the seeds. It tasted nothing like chocolate. It tasted, in fact, like nothing else.

The boys each grabbed their own pod and sucked away noisily at the seeds as Reyes explained to me the process. These seeds would be taken home and cleaned, then wrapped in banana leaves and placed in a special wooden box for seven days to ferment.

“I didn’t know chocolate was fermented!” I exclaimed. “I’ve been eating it all my life, and I had no idea!”
“Oh, yes – that’s why it tastes the way it does,” laughed Reyes at my astonishment.

Later his wife, Jenny, treated us all to a cup of cocoa – and, even better, a demonstration of the process. It’s a good thing I didn’t know then that it would take a whole hour, and a workout worthy of an athlete; if I’d known what was involved, I’d never have asked.

First she built a fire in the ground-level wood stove, then placed a flat cooking sheet on top. Here she toasted the fermented brown seeds. She handed me one to taste; it was sharply sour, and I remembered the tang of extra dark chocolate, which I suddenly understood. She and Reyes took turns stirring them every few moments until they reached a point of crisp but not burned, then she handed me another. I peeled off the crust and tasted it. Aha, there it was – it took a bit of concentration, but deep within the bitter, sour bean was the distinctive taste of chocolate.

Now she scrubbed clean the metate, the four-legged rectangular stone device made smooth by years of grinding and pounding in the way Mesoamerican women have done for centuries. The grinding stone was the thickness of a baseball bat, and heavy. Jenny crushed the seeds into a rough crumble.

Now it was time to separate the cocoa from the chaff. Placing the beans into a large bowl, she began tossing them, letting the impact and the breeze blow the shells into the floor.

Back to the metate, she tossed in some black peppercorns and a few seeds of allspice, which grows wild in the rainforests here. She grinded for good while, sweat shining on her face in the sticky jungle heat. “It has to be very smooth,” she explained.

Earlier, she had placed a few tortillas into a bowl of water, and now she splashed some of the water on the cacao meal, continuing to grind. She worked the meal into a mushy ball; now it was time to do the same for the tortilla.

Finally, after nearly an hour of toasting and grinding and mashing, she had two sizeable balls of mush: one of cacao, the other of corn masa. Now it was time to pull out the calabashes, the gourds grown and dried just for this purpose, as the ancient Maya did. Modern-day coffee-cups would do for tea, Coca-Cola and orange Fanta, but when it came to chocolate, it must be served with style.

A big daub of cacao paste and a little daub of corn masa went into the calabash, followed by hot water from the teakettle, which had been steeping on the fire. A big spoon of sugar followed.
Undeniably, authentically chocolate.

Back in Punta Gorda Town, as the locals call Toledo’s diminutive county seat, chocolate was brewing in a more modern, but still distinctly Caribbean way. “Free tours” reads the sign in front of Cottontree Chocolate, a colorful coffeehouse, pizza parlor and mini-Willy Wonka chocolate factory all in one. The shop is the creation of former art teacher, sailor and social worker Chris Crowell, founder of Cottontree Ecolodge. The pungent, tangy scent drew me in.

Catarina, a young Maya girl showed me the steps of the process. No metate here – instead there’s a homemade grinder powered by an electric drill. An electric hairdryer expedited the separation process. Powdered milk and vanilla replaced the black pepper, allspice and tortilla. And a sophisticated mixing device stirred it all up overnight, creating a consistency that would be placed in molds and left to harden.

My mouth watered as I watched – and smelled – the process. Young Catarina handed me a wooden tasting stick to place into the thick mixture and I indulged. This was chocolate at its finest.

I headed upstairs to the colorfully painted coffeehouse to sample an iced mocha under the thatched roof and savor the sea breeze caressing my face.

Yes, there are certain advantages to modernity, I confessed, savoring every sip. Modern chocolate would be my choice today. But thanks to Jenny’s labors, this ancient Maya miracle will never taste quite the same.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.