Valentine's Chocolate Week at Cotton Tree Lodge, February 8th to 15th 2009

This one-week Valentine's vacation package is presented by Cotton Tree Lodge in Belize in conjunction with Cotton Tree Chocolate. Spend a week with us gaining practical knowledge of all things chocolate—including visits to cacao farms, hands-on workshops in the Cotton Tree Chocolate factory, and lectures on the history and politics of this beloved confection.

Itinerary includes:
• A welcome dinner and chocolate tasting
• Visits to local cacao farms, where you can pick and taste the cacao fruit and participate in the drying and fermenting processes
• A chocolate making workshop in a local Maya home, using traditional methods
• A chance to plant and tag your own cacao tree on the Cotton Tree Lodge plantation
• Access to the Cotton Tree Chocolate factory, where you will learn modern methods of roasting, milling, winnowing, liquefying, tempering, and molding, through the course of several workshops
• A trip to the Punta Gorda farmers market, where cacao, local produce, and native crafts are sold
• A meeting with the Toledo Cacao Growers Association to learn about issues of fair trade
• Free time to participate in popular Cotton Tree Lodge trips, including Blue Creek Cave, Lubaantun Mayan Ruins, or Nim Li Punit
• The opportunity to create and take home your own bars of chocolate!