Malena loves candy. And travel. And both together. And thus, this site was born.
A few entries back, I wrote about making chocolate at the Maya Mountain Research Farm, an organic agro-forestry demonstration farm. I left a lot of it out. I didn’t write about how green and fertile everything seemed, about seeing the decades-old hardwood trees flourishing alongside of recently planted pineapple bushes and coconut trees. How it had taken Chris and Dawn years of work to reclaim the land back from the unfertile pasture. I didn’t write about the way Chris looked when he talked about his neighbors practicing slash and burn agriculture, the worry on his face, or the danger of fires getting out of control and spreading, as happens every year. I didn’t talk about the ever-present smell of ash in southern Belize and eastern Guatemala, as farmers cleared their crops before the rainy season. I didn’t talk about the distant puffs of dark foreboding smoke visible from my bedroom at the farm. (more…)
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Candy has a lifespan: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Raw ingredients are combined using secret recipes in giant factories or methods passed down for generations in a family kitchen; the resulting candies are packaged and distributed to where they find their final destination; and, of course, the hopefully delicious moment of consumption. It’s pretty easy to learn about the end of a candy’s lifespan - just grab it at the store and eat it. That’s the “research” I’ve been doing for most of the entries in this blog. Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at a small agro-forestry farm (Maya Mountain Research Farm) in southern Belize learning a little bit about some of the earlier stages of candy production… how the ingredients themselves are harvested and prepared long before anything resembles candy. (more…)
So, Belize was not the candy haven I’d hoped for. Nonetheless, I still spent something like 14 days there, often without any candy at all. I’m very impressed by Belize as a travel destination - it makes an excellent quick vacation from North America. All of the other travelers I met greatly enjoyed their time there, partly because there are just so many different things to do. Native wildlife, Mayan ruins, beaches, diving, snorkeling, jungle hikes, adventure tours - it’s easy to stay busy in Belize. Also, it’s so small that it’s easy to cover pretty much the whole country in a short timeframe. The only downfall is the price, as it’s much more expensive than neighboring countries. Still cheaper than the US though! (more…)
Recently, I’ve spent a few days in Placencia. This small, laid-back beach town offers visitors lucky enough to visit in March and April a chance to see some of the biggest fish in the world. Up to 55 feet (!!) long, whale sharks are notoriously difficult to view in the wild and scientists have almost no information on how they live, breed, and die. While the trip out to see these protected animals is quite expensive in Belize, I felt I couldn’t be traveling there, in season, and not pay the $100 dollar fee. After all, there was a greater than 90% chance of seeing them and everyone raved about actually being up close and personal with a giant, totally safe fish. (more…)