Chocolate & Turtles in Granada

Granada

We are currently staying in the colonial town of Granada, in Nicaragua. It is geared towards tourists, and a lot of money has been spent to repair old buildings and keep everything relatively clean. The result is a gorgeous town, although a little on the pricier side (although still cheaper than the US). All the houses are pressed together, alternating in various colors. Also, must places are built as a square with a garden in the center, which provides a beautiful setting in restaurants and our hostel. We're only paying $12 US a night for our own room, which includes a gym membership and free salsa classes (woohoo!) We took a salsa class last night which was tons of fun and a good way to practice Spanish speaking skills. The grand finale was the four guys kneeling in a circle, having an arm on each others shoulder. Us girls came and sat on their interlocking arms, and then the guys stood up and walked in a slow circle. Luckily they didn't drop us! It was an exciting way to end the class.

Making chocolate!

Today Nate and I took a chocolate making class at the gym from a girl from Colorado who has a good sense of humor and was a lot of fun. After a brief lesson on how cocoa is grown and the beans are prepared, we started off roasting the cocoa beans and finely chopping dulce, which is sugar that is completely unprocessed and delicious. We then had to deshell the beans and grind them up in a coffee grinder while the dulce mixed with water simmered on the stove. Unfortunately, we got so immersed in conversation that we burned the first batch of dulce and had to make some more. After this we thoroughly mixed the dulce with the ground beans, and then rolled out little balls of chocolate. The chocolate is good but very bitter, and apparently the process of adding milk takes away all the healthy properties of chocolate (darn!) It's a great source of energy, without causing a rapid spike and then crash in energy levels, and has more antioxidants than green tea. While tasting good, I think we can improve the recipe by rolling the dark chocolate balls in milk chocolate and adding raspberries. We'll have to experiment later.

Our final product!

After teaching us how to make chocolate, our teacher introduced us to a turtle they keep on the gym property and show us what leaves we could feed him. He was very excited to get fed and quickly, in turtle standards, followed us out of his little house to get some leaves. It was fun to feed him and see him chomping on the leaves!

Nomnomnom!