Coo coo for coconuts!

We´d been riding past coconut palms all week, wondering whether they were in season and when we would get to try something coco-nutty. When we passed by a long, low cement building with a huge pile of empty coconut shells piled outside of it, we hit the brakes and decided to see what was going on. The man we approached was friendly and welcoming and gave us a tour of what turned out to be a coconut processing plant. First, he cracked us open two coconuts, urging us to drink the water of the less mature one and to taste the germinated "apple" of the more mature one. The fruit of each was edible, but the germinated one was much better. The water was a little bitter but nutritious. He explained that every part of the coconut and its tree are used. The wood of the palm is used as timber. The palm leaves serve as roof materials for many local buildings. The water and fruit of the coconut are edible and used in a variety of products, both locally and for export. The empty shells of those whose fruit is taken are burned in a large oven (which we got to look inside of) that works as a dehydrator to dry others (with the fruit still in the shell) that will later be pressed to produce coconut oil down the road at another processing plant. Even the remains of the burned shells are further processed as activated charcoal for a world market. And all of this is done by hand in a small row of cement buildings, open to the air and piled high with thousands of local coconuts at various stages of maturity! So simple!

Unfortunately, we didn´t have the same luck at the chocolate factory that we passed a few kilometers later. The smell coming from the place was amazing, but they wouldn´t let us through the gates!

-Christine